The Unnatural Origins of Self-Interest | Social Justice Speaker Series

The paper will explore some seventeenth-century ideas about interest in relation to the common good, and show how scientific and technological projectors in revolutionary England — in a sense, the would-be “innovators” of their day — argued that their private interests were aligned with the common good, while struggling to create a sense of economic self-interest in the people their projects affected. Eighteenth-century accounts that assumed economic self-interest as a natural motive simultaneously built on and erased this seventeenth-century work.

Ted McCormick is Associate Professor at the Department of History, Concordia University, and Fellow at the School of Irish Studies.

This conference is presented by the Social Justice Centre and is part of the Social Justice Speaker Series. To view the full list of our events, visit our Calendar.