ABSTRACT
Hume asks, rhetorically, ‘what theory of morals can ever serve any useful purpose, unless it can show, by a particular detail, that all the duties which it recommends, are also the true interest of each individual?’ But there are many to whom this question does not seem rhetorical. The belief that duty cannot be reduced to interest, or that morality may require the agent to subordinate all considerations of advantage, is one which has withstood the assaults of contrary-minded philosophers from Plato to the present. More recently, Kurt Baier has argued that ‘being moral is following rules designed to overrule self-interest whenever it is in the interest of everyone alike that everyone should set aside his interest’. It is essential to note that the thesis, as elucidated, does not maintain that morality is advantageous for everyone in the sense that each person will do best if the system of principles is accepted and acted on.
