Adam Smith Self Interest

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We are the victims of our own poisons: to those toxic manifestations we seek to remedy, but only medicate, often only sedating; by identifying those who falsely attest to fabricating the perfect panacea to that opiate which we facilitate and foster within our own minds, and eliminating that mistaken instigator. Or simply, that self-defeating mechanism which instictually and incorrectly seeks an exogenous origin to satiate its own disillusionment. This selfish thing, selfishness, is that poison from which we derive from ourselves, and in allowing it to flourish and blaming its conception on an alternative source, we deprive ourselves of the beneficence of our own self-interest. It is in self-interest that we may avoid the caustic nature of selfishness. …show more content…
However, selfishness is often expressed synonymously with-self interest, and for that reason, selfishness also becomes a key, although distinct-concept that requires differentiation to be expressed in terms so as to not confuse the two in the manner in which they appear to derive from and reciprocate with each other. Accordingly, it's the primary goal of this article to differentiate the concepts of self-interest and selfishness: to praise the concept of self-interest as the catalyst of moral action, therfore worthy of admiration; and thus to admonish selfishness as the instigator of immorality and greedy-hedonism. The actualization of the apparent synonymity between these two concepts arises from an ever expanding void of underdeveloped focus on, and often the intentional abuse of, both terms with the objective of bastardizing freedom in some form or another (whether that form be free association, free trade, or free agency). Consequently, containing these two complex actions from one another in order to redeem the term self-interest and specify its appropriateness becomes an intellectual …show more content…
Nevertheless, understanding approbation as a useful check on selfishness, in additional to being the potential motivator for selfishness, becomes teleological. Furthermore, approbation, like pharmaceuticals, can be beneficial in the correct doses, or toxic in unregulated quantities. But, unlike pharmaceuticals, approbation isn't a chemically derived and mathematically-dosed substance for the body to metabolize to receive its desired effect. Rather, approbation is an abstract, arbitrary, and complex social-sentiment; an acknowlegement in observing preferred-action. Seeking the approbation of others is a natural tendency and, consequentially, recieving that approbation developes a catalogue for future action. Accordingly, a desire to act discriminatingly in anticipation for approbation may restrict a person's actions to lust for approbation and, in solely seeking approbation, this person becomes as selfish as if they were acting selfishly and irrespective of other's liberty or approval. In contrast, when approbation and liberty is contemplated before acting on a desire, those sentiments check selfishness and influence the person's action so they aren't working against the liberty of
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