For Philosophers Only, Part III

Now that we're all in agreement about those who act through virtue, I thought I would focus on the other side of Hegel's chapter "Virtue and the Way of the World" in "Phenomenology of Spirit"—those who act through self-interest.

I urge you to read the Bernstein article again, but basically "for Hegel, the idea of unconditioned rational self-interest — of, say, acting solely on the motive of making a maximal profit — simply mistakes what human action is or could be, and is thus rationally unintelligible." "Hegel narrates how each formation of self and world collapses because of a mismatch between self-conception and how that self conceives of the larger world." Thus, It is practically impossible to act completely in one's own self interest.

The purveyors of credit default swaps forgot that making a profit involves advancing the growth of capital. "Every account of the financial crisis points to a terrifying series of structures that all have the same character: the profit-driven actions of the financial sector became increasingly detached from their function of supporting and advancing the growth of capital." Obviously it wasn't in their self-interest to collapse the the game of capitalism.

Similarly, I wonder if the spamming of negative political ads is in the self interest of politicians. Apart from the dubious effectiveness of such ads, as shown by a number of studies (however it is tough to isolate negative political ads from the rest of the 'noise' of the campaign, much of it made by the press reacting to those same ads), the long term effect is fueling the idea that government and the political process do not work. Witness the growing cynicism and the Tea Party, which runs a candidate who believes government, by it's nature, is ineffective, a curious stance for a politician. Are the illusory self interests of politicians going to destroy democracy in the U.S. as we know it (and themselves along with it)? or is this just normal grumbling?

Personally, I would love to see how effective an ad would be which praised the opposition, citing him as committed, hard working, and efficient, but, unfortunately, working on the wrong policies.

Oh, and I forgot my original intention for this post…Vote early and often!