ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to side-step the issue of whether individual human beings are radically "socially" embedded creatures, or essentially rational maximizers of their own interests, and focus, instead, on how, historically, particular "self-interested" conducts were conceptualized. It argues that "self-interested" conduct does indeed exist, but is not an unchanging human essence. The chapter attempts to show how, at a certain historical period, and in relation to specific purposes, a particular version of self-interested personhood was made up. It explores the historical context in which this version of "self-interest" emerged as a normative doctrine whose dissemination, far from engendering society's ruin, as much post-romantic sociology would have it, was represented as a viable means to its salvation. The chapter also seeks to highlight the distinctive understanding of "self" that this doctrine promoted and its performative role as a device designed to secure social pacification.
