The Concept of Interest in Politics

Politics & Society

Volumn 5, Issue 4, 1975, Pages 487-510

  Wall, Grenville ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 84977205480     PISSN: 00323292     EISSN: 15527514     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/003232927500500405     Document Type: Article

References (20)

1. See John Stuart Mill, On Liberty. Ch. IV, especially p. 133 of Utilitarianism. Liberty and Representative Government (New York: Dutton, 1957), where it is argued that
2. each person is the best judge of his own interest. If we use choice as the criterion of interest, then as R. P. Wolff has observed, the claim that each person is the best judge of his own interest transforms itself into the claim that each person is the only judge of his own interest. See R. P. Wolff, The Poverty of Liberalism, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1961) pp. 27-8.
3. This is a conclusion which may be drawn from Peter Bachrach and Morton S. Baratz's paper “Two Faces of Power”, American Political Science Review, LVI, (December 1962), pp.947-52. For a recent review of the arguments about the nature of power and a discussion of the connection between the concepts of power and interest, see Steven Lukes, Power: A Radical View (London: Macmillan, 1974).
4. I have of course oversimplified the theoretical scene here. There are some writers who seem to me to be basically subjectivists and yet postulate a more complex relationship between the concepts of interest and choice which allows them to say that people can “mistake their interests”. See Brian Barry, “The Public Interest” in William E. Connolly (ed.), The Bias of Pluralism (New York: Atherton Press, 1969). However, it seems to me that the mistakes Barry allows for are only factual mistakes about means to ends. He does not allow for mistaken value judgments about what a person's own interest (good, advantage) consists in.
5. Isaac D. Balbus, “The Concept of Interest in Marxian and Pluralist Analysis”, Politics and Society, Vol. I, (1971), pp. 151-77 and William E. Connolly, “On ‘Interests’ in Politics”, Politics and Society, Vol. II, (1972), pp. 459-77.
6. The assumption that an interest-claim (“interest” = “advantage”) is like an interest (=what is interesting) insofar as it can only be identified through behaviour or activity is nicely illustrated by two passages taken from Arthur Bentley's The Process of Government. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1908). He says:
7. Although it is commonly assumed that all judgments of interest in this sense are subjective, the contrary view, or something very like it, has been advocated. See R. R. Peters, Ethics and Education, (London: Allen and Unwin, 1966), Ch. V. Therefore in labelling “interests” in this sense subjective Balbus might be accused of begging an important question-especially in relation to education.
8. See Hobbes, Leviathan (New York: Dutton, 1959), Ch. XI, p. 49:
9. The same view is expressed in the penultimate paragraph of Ch. VI. Since Hobbes also denies the existence of rational appetites-i.e., objectively good appetites-(see Leviathan. Ch. VI) he fits my example well.
10. The presumably illiberal, and therefore damaging, view to be saddled with would be the view that policies which impinge on people in ways which they dislike may nevertheless be said to be “in their interests”.
11. The ambiguity which Balbus has introduced into the notion of “subjective interest” misleadingly suggests that my lack of consciousness or my false consciousness consists in my finding certain things interesting which I should not, or in my finding certain things uninteresting or boring which I ought to find interesting. No doubt I ought to find my objective interests interesting (in which case, perhaps, some judgments about what is interesting, i.e., worthy of interest, are objective); but whether I possess or lack consciousness, or suffer from false consciousness, has no necessary connection with what as a matter of fact I find interesting.
12. The reason why Connolly allows the utilitarian view of interests to get off relatively lightly is that, as I try to show later, he is a species of utilitarian himself. His discussion of needs is inadequate too, because he fails to recognize the full normative force of the concept of need and tends to want to define “need” simply in terms of “behavioural inclinations”. For a discussion of the concept of need and some of the pitfalls for the unwary, though from an educational point of view, see R. F. Dearden, “‘Needs’ in Education”, British Journal of Educational Studies. Vol. XIV, No. 3,pp.5-17.
13. David Hume. An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding Section VIII, Part i.
14. The “objective”/“subjective” distinction, as applied to judgments, has become rather unclear in recent years. I shall therefore define it as follows: a judgment is subjective if the individual whose judgment it is is necessarily the only authority on its correctness; a judgment is objective insofar as its correctness is something which it is possible to determine publicly. The objectivity of judgments therefore depends on the existence of public criteria of correctness.
15. This might seem to be a high price to pay for being a determinist. Nevertheless, I think it has to be paid. If “ought” implies “can”, then “What ought I to believe?” is just as inappropriate a question to ask as “What ought I to do?”. It follows that in a tough determinist framework, there can be no room for questions concerning the justification of choices in relation to actions or beliefs-even the belief in determinism.
16. They are prudential judgments when made by the agent about his own interests. But when such judgments are made by others (i.e., when they are third person rather than first person judgments) and serve as the justification for others’ actions, these actions are subject to moral appraisal. Therefore it seems convenient to refer to third person judgments of interest as moral judgments.
17. The most forceful statement of prescriptivism is to be found in R. M. Hare's two books. The Language of Morals. (London: Oxford University Press, 1952) and Freedom and Reason. (London: Oxford University Press, 1963).
18. L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1953, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe), Part I, para. 258.
19. A more extended criticism of this kind of subjectivism (or ethical individualism) is to be found in the present author's “Freedom Versus Reason: A Reply”, The Philosophical Quarterly, July 1975.
20. The claim that there are public criteria here does not imply that morality is static or that what is right is to be equated with what is generally believed to be right. Moral rules undergo changes in changing circumstances. Furthermore, the fact that moral rules change does not imply that moral change is merely arbitrary or contingent (as subjectivists have to believe) any more than the fact that scientific theory changes implies that such changes are logically arbitrary. It is the non-arbitrary, non-contingent elements in moral and intellectual change which enables us to speak of “progress” in these areas. An account of what constitutes rational change in the moral sphere is a complex matter beyond the scope of this paper.