The central conflict: morality and self-interest

In Roger Crisp & Brad Hooker, Well-Being and Morality: Essays in Honour of James Griffin. Oxford, GB: Clarendon Press. pp. 209--238 (2000)
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Abstract

Self‐sacrifice does not necessarily involve conflict between morality and self‐interest, and when making sacrifices we do not necessarily harm our self‐interest. While people may reasonably care about their own well‐being, a person's well‐being is not, for that person, a source of value or reasons for action. People act for reasons, i.e. for what appears to them to be adequate reasons, regardless of whether or not they serve their well‐being. Sometimes, the reasons that appear to be conclusive, even when conforming with them affects the agent adversely, are moral reasons.

Other Versions

reprint Raz, Joseph (2002) "The Central Conflict: Morality and Self‐Interest". In Raz, Joseph, Engaging Reason: On the Theory of Value and Action, pp. 303-332: Oxford University Press (2002)

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Joseph Raz
Columbia University

Citations of this work

The Locative Analysis of Good For Formulated and Defended.Guy Fletcher - 2012 - Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy (JESP) 6 (1):1-27.
Too Much Morality.Stephen Finlay - 2008 - In Paul Bloomfield, Morality and Self-Interest. New York: Oxford University Press.
Future-bias and intuition shifts between moments and lifetimes.Anh-Quân Nguyen - 2025 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 68 (7):1900-1927.

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