“If self-interest is obvious, it is not really your very own; it has been generalized, perhaps artificially.”

— Harvey Mansfield

How to Understand Politics: What the Humanities Can Say to Science (2007)
Context: Self-interest, when simple, is universal; I would do the same as you. I would be propelled toward an obvious good, or toward a good I thought obvious. If self-interest is obvious, it is not really your very own; it has been generalized, perhaps artificially.

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Harvey Mansfield 16

Author, professor 1932

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