No, most people wouldn’t recognize their own self-interest if it stopped them on the street. Neither are people all that great at identifying morally correct actions on the fly.

This is why formulating ethics into easy-to-remember precepts is a time-honored tradition. Most people are too lazy or inexperienced to do their own ethics work.

Is acting only according to your self-interest a good strategy in life?

Not if you plan on living in a society.

Most people don’t have the brain power to actually know what’s in their best interest.

At most, they can handle very simple situations.

To really make choices in own best interest, your have to think long term, at a broad scale. Unfortunately, we can’t see with certainty beyond maybe a few steps from our present time and place. So we would also have to think out layers of possibility with each decision.

If you can’t do that quickly, you’re fucked because you’ll always be reacting instead of planning. Since even the smartest people on the planet can still only handle as much planning as a chess game takes, we’re all fucked.

And yes, I’m including myself as not having the brain power to properly act in my own best interest long term. Being able to see the problem doesn’t mean you’re immune to it.

most people have a completely flawed understanding of their own self-interest so this question doesn’t make a lot of sense imo

Our decisions are heavily influenced by emotion. We have the sense of empathy, which is an adaptation that makes communal living work. Empathy motivates us to do things for other people sometimes. You can say, “you do helpful things to satisfy your own emotional needs.” But that’s pretty much saying, “you do helpful things because you want to.” I think self-interest is a big factor in how we act, but I don’t think it’s the only factor.

and if everyone does the same, some sort of proper balance will be achieved.

What makes you think that logically follows? Why would it not create competing self-interests that can’t coexist?

Even if you broaden it to acting for indirect reciprocal benefit plenty of people act in ways that don’t have a reciprocal benefit. Just look at the Madleen flotilla, everyone there is putting themselves at personal risk for no personal tangible benefit - the position of self interest would be to stay safely away from the war at home. Look at all the local charities that help vulnerable members of their communities for no personal benefit. Look at people acting against their self interest just within their own families, like supporting elderly parents despite the costs and even though their death would speed their inheritance. There is a huge range of actions that fall outside of both direct and indirect self interest that people take every day.

I’ve often thought about the idea that there is really no such thing as true altruisim. Because no matter what, you feel good about doing good. Even if you don’t tell anyone about the good thing you did, you still get a good feeling from it, therefore there is some inherent selfishness involved no matter what.

Of course there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. People should absolutely being doing good things and get to feel good about it.

So reading the title I came to say yes with a caveat but you included the caveat. The thing is self interest is ultimately about happiness but humans don’t always understand what brings it. Drug use is sorta the basest level. Chasing literal physcial sensation of pleasure. Sex addiction would be next which is really just chasing drugs that our body naturally makes. Same with danger addiction and such. Then you get to like food addiction. Next is money addicition which is sorta looking at it as a gateway to everything. Recognizing how important others are on different levels means a lot. Its a bit like the hierarchy of needs. You can maybe get physiological on ones own but after that any increase in actual happiness involves having to improve your environment and society and ultimately the earth. So I guess Im saying yes but people can pervert it for not seeing the forest for the trees.

Do as you will as long as you harm none.

I think it’s a bit fatuous to argue that altruism is just self-interest. Sure, people who volunteer or help others in distress usually get some kind of benefit. They feel good about themselves, or they get to live in world that is one trillionth of a percent kinder/happier because of their good deed, etc. But the self-interest argument falls apart when you look at it from a cost/benefit standpoint. Suppose a person spends 2h raising money for the food bank. The hungry people who gets to eat and feed their children benefit the most. The local community benefits a tiny bit, and maybe the volunteer gets a small self-esteem (and other-esteem) boost. On the other hand, if that person were to spend the time earning money for a nice sweater, say, they might get a bigger self esteem boost, a few compliments, and a warm fuzzy garment that lasts for years. The hungry person is still hungry, but remains an abstraction. I would argue that the sweater earner benefitted more than the volunteer. Yet, people still volunteer.

Some people make anonymous donations. Do you really think the self-esteem boost is more valuable than the literal money that person donates?

The argument that the world would be better off if everyone acted in their self interest is ridiculous. That inevitably leads to a might-makes-right system of oppression. The only reason this argument is still being circulated is because shitheads like elon musk, who already has a huge amount of wealth and influence, spam this shit everywhere (on Twitter, Fox News, etc.) to legitimize their undeserved status and evil power.

It is in your self interest to be a part of prosperous society and treated with kindness and respect. Which means the collective interest overlaps with self interest quite a bit.

If you look at it from the political side that this is the basic idea of liberal democracy.

Everyone votes in their best interest and especially in proportional representation you get some compromise of the interests.

Right now at least in politics people act less in their own interest but more of what they emotionally feel like their interest.

I got handed an Ayn Rand sandwich,
Straight from a can, it tasted so bland,
I asked the lass to pass me a glass,
of Engels’ Conditons of the Working Class…

I think that as long as people’s individualism does not override the freedoms of others, then the pursuit of self-interest frees the mind to explore all kinds of avenues of spiritual discovery.

That’s a big ask though, and most people have different ideas of what is fair when expressing their individuality, so I do think that there needs to be a mediator of sorts to balance the more extreme aspects of our self-interest, and make sure that no one is fully happy but that we’re all kinda happy, in order for us all to progress, even if it’s at a snail’s pace.

That’s where the term “Enlightened Self Interest” comes from.

Naive short-sighted stupid self interest is destructive - both to the community and even to the self interested individual.

But self-interest doesn’t have to go away. We all have wants and needs, and most of our wants and needs are (mostly) harmless.

Instead, self interest can be enlightened - seasoned with understanding of the bigger picture, and with the wisdom of other’s experiences.

Define self interest.

It is in your best interest to invest heavily in childhood education and recruit young people in to the agricultural sector. That is also in society’s best interest. As it happens the only people doing that are those who can see the problem even with short sighted goggles on.

Most people do not look beyond their short sighted goggles. Most of those goggles come with blinders on the sides.

Human civilization as a whole is maintained by people with blinders and goggles on, and we were trucking along just fine, and will continue to do so until we’re standing in ruins of our own making.