Between Morality and Prudence: Self-Regarding Behavior

Abstract

Alejandro Tomasini agrees with me on my claim that there are no duties to oneself, however, while I maintain that these are false duties because they involve a contradiction, he argues that the expression “duties to oneself” is meaningless. He also holds that self-regarding behavior belongs to the realm of prudence, not to morality, as I hold. In this paper I discuss both objections, but I focus on the second one. I argue that in self-regarding behavior morality and prudence overlap. Reasons of self-interest are not at odds with morality. Those moral virtues that have to do with ourselves are constitutive of our well-being and, to that extent, they are in our self-interest.