ABSTRACT
A common criticism of Hellenistic moral philosophy is that it is self-centred; the agent’s concern is ultimately with his or her own self-interest, and altruistic behaviour therefore seems to be ruled out. As already indicated in the opening section of Chapter Five, we should beware of contrasting reprehensible selfishness and utter selflessness as the only two possibilities; enlightened self-interest may imply regard for other people. Indeed, failure to realise that selflessness and greed were not the only alternatives may have contributed to the tendency in the 1980s, once self-interest was admitted as respectable at all, to regard ruthless competition as the only basis on which human life – one can hardly call it ‘society’ in such a context – could be organised.
