Abstract

A morality is fundamentally a social phenomenon: a normative code qualifies as a morality in this formal sense just in case it is a code that some society or social group expects people either within the group or more universally to conform to as fundamental and overriding. There is close isomorphism between morality and self-interest. For one thing, each is a normative domain: there is a moral “ought” and an “ought” of self-interest. The concepts of morality and self-interest have both a subjective aspect, to do with motivation, and an objective aspect, involving action or behavior. Being morally motivated to perform an action is neither necessary nor sufficient for one's action being morally right—we can do morally wrong things with the best intentions, and we can do the right thing with the worst intentions—and similarly an act's being self-interestedly motivated is neither necessary nor sufficient for its being in one's self-interest.