Throughout his career, Alexis de Tocqueville was deeply concerned about the replacement of public-minded politics by materialistic egoism in modern democratic societies. Though there is a substantial ...literature on his response to democratic materialism, the poetic aesthetic category of the ideal and beautiful has been rarely discussed as a major element of his remedy for the crisis. Contrary to a common scholarly assumption, this article argues that Tocqueville conceived democratic individuals' poetic taste for the ideal and beautiful as a key source of materialistic democracy's political redemption. Focusing on his poetic idealisation of the French revolutionaries of 1789, the article recovers a branch of his political aesthetics according to which the beauty of a heroic moral ideal inspired by revolutionary political actors can play a significant role in generating public-spirited politics in a democratic society. Unlike contemporary neo-Tocquevillian scholars who tend to privilege the language of interest or duty in reinvigorating the public life of liberal democracy, Tocqueville believed in an alternative strategy premised on the essentially poetic nature of democratic citizens.
This essay focuses on the autobiographical writings of Swami Satyadev ‘Parivrajak’ (1879–1961), a prolific Hindi writer, and a charismatic modern-day worldly political ascetic in the early ...twentieth-century north India. It discusses three central pillars of his ineradicably political autobiography: first, the performance of an exemplary celibate Hindu masculinity; second, the conceptualization of a segmented and exclusionary freedom, unencumbered by the presence of Muslims; and third, his deep antagonism towards Gandhi, and defence of his assassination. Taken together, his autobiography is a critical contribution to the intellectual history and genealogy of sectarian Hindi–Hindu literature, while also showcasing cultivated precursors of a modern, monolithic and militant Hindu nation.
Prosocial behaviors are based on egoistic and altruistic motives. Focusing on agreeable and egoistic personality traits is necessary to promote and maintain prosocial behaviors in a society. ...Researchers have focused on the dark triad, which consists of three socially aversive personality traits (i.e., Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy), to explore the characteristics of the egoistic personality. The three personality traits of the dark triad are characterized by self-interest and egoism; however, previous studies have shown that high dark triad individuals become prosocial when they feel that it is beneficial. The findings of previous studies suggest that creating systems to evoke incentives is necessary for prosocial behaviors to make our society more prosocial. The details of the incentives related to the dark triad personality traits are discussed.
This study investigates the effect of promotion strategies, altruism, and egoism on consumers' digital participation, attitudinal loyalty, and behavioral loyalty within the context of omnichannel ...cause‐related marketing. A scenario simulation method with a 3 × 2 × 2 factorial design is used to investigate the impact of the three promotion strategy types (celebrity endorsement, expert endorsement, and co‐branding), two altruism types (social donation and economic donation), and two egoism types (social incentives and economic incentives). The moderating effect of brand identification on the influence of strategies, altruism, and egoism on consumer digital participation, attitudinal loyalty, and behavioral loyalty is also tested.
Voluntary simplicity (VS) refers to a minimalistic lifestyle of conscious, ecological, and ethical consumption, which is conducive to individual, societal, and environmental well-being. For ...policymakers and business managers, a key to leveraging this consumer shift is to promote persuasive appeals effectively. This research theorizes that the two forms of VS appeals are systematically associated with distinct temporal landmarks. In particular, we demonstrate that consumers are more likely to engage in biospheric voluntary simplicity (BVS) when priming a temporal landmark as the start of a time period. In contrast, consumers are more likely to participate in egoistic voluntary simplicity (EVS) when priming a temporal landmark as the end of a time period. Notably, the matching effects are driven by distinct mechanisms, such that the effect of a match between a start temporal landmark and BVS appeals is driven by self-transcendence, whereas the effect of a match between an end temporal landmark and EVS appeals is motivated by self-enhancement. Beyond their substantive theoretical significance, our findings provide marketing campaigns with tools to enact strategies that support voluntary simplicity.
The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) stated that the world has two coexisting dimensions: the Will-side, which is the metaphysical, ideal, and ultimate reality where isolated ...creatures do not exist; and the Representational side, which Will-powered, self-centered individual phenomenon inhabits. Schopenhauer asserted that in human societies under the imperative of the Will, temporal justice may only aspire to prevent ill-natured actions towards humans and animals. Absolute freedom happens at the metaphysical level of the primeval Will, and an eternal justice exists, because victims and perpetrators belong to the same essence, and their deeds are therefore balanced. In Schopenhauerian terms, the only bridge between temporal and eternal justice is Will-denial, which leads to compassion and asceticism, and occurs after the awareness of the unity of all living beings. However, Will-denial, by being a strictly individual and unpredictable issue, led to Schopenhauer's pessimism about an enduring collective well-being. Approaching eternal and temporal justices is thus, a worthy quest, which is visible in the current worldwide concern and interest in altruism, cooperation, and compassion. Nevertheless, if this progress is devoid of compassion and asceticism (cooperation and healthy austerity in modern terms) it could lead to increased malicious social control and manipulation. Schopenhauer's thought may thus be part of the philosophical foundations of contemporary forensic psychiatry. This paper discusses these aspects of the philosopher's work, with reference to current ideas and literature in forensic psychiatry, psychology, law, and issues in contemporary physics which are pertinent to this debate.
•Arthur Schopenhauer analyzed Law and Justice under his principle of two dimensions of the world: ‘will and representation’.•In the world as representation prevails Temporal Justice, and the State places limits on the individual self-centeredness.•Eternal Justice exists in the world as Will because perpetrators and victims belong to the same essence.•Feeling this unity, the subject may display the ‘Will-denial’, expressed as compassion and asceticism.•In Schopenhauer’s philosophical system, no collective bridge is feasible between temporal and eternal justice•However, advances in quantum physics and computational informatics may change that gap by enhancing interconnectedness.•We discuss Schopenhauer’s thought in relation to cooperation, forensic psychiatry, and current systems of law and justice.
In this article, we develop and validate a comprehensive self-report scale of why people make charitable donations, relying on a theoretical model of private versus public benefits to donors. In ...Study 1, we administered an initial pool of 54 items to a general adult sample online. An exploratory factor analysis supported six final factors in the Motives to Donate scale: Trust, Altruism, Social, Tax benefits, Egoism, and Constraints. We then verified this factor structure in a confirmatory factor analysis. Study 1 also examined the final 18-item scale’s demographic correlates and construct validity using the same sample. We found that the scale correlated in predictable ways with personality traits and motives to volunteer. In Study 2, we also found test–retest correlations between .67 and .80 after 2 weeks. Taken together, we provide initial evidence for the scale’s internal reliability, test–retest reliability, and validity, and we suggest future directions for research.
In this article, we develop three ideal types of cultural expectations informed by a qualitative critical event analysis of Danish entrepreneurs’ expectations of emotional support, informing a ...broader conceptual framework and future research agenda of cultural expectation alignment of support behaviour. We suggest that family relations associate with altruism and a family logic, friends with mutualism and a community logic and businesspersons with egoism and a market logic. These cultural expectations shape how entrepreneurs emotionally react to received support, or lack thereof, from these role-relations, and consequently outcomes of the support. Thus, effects of social support are about ‘what you get’ relative to ‘what you expect’.
Within the realm of management and the other social sciences, many scholars have used self-interest explanations to account for individual judgment, decision making, and behavior with respect to a ...variety of issues in the domains of ethics and justice. In this article, the authors address the descriptive claim that all human behavior can ultimately be traced to underlying self-interest. Reviewing arguments from the philosophical literatures and evidence from management, social psychology, and behavioral economics, the authors argue that exclusively relying on self-interest explanations is a bad scientific strategy that discourages researchers from considering other determinants of how people behave.
•Two parties compete in an election by nominating candidates as their strategies.•We assume a candidate to win more likely if she brings more utility for all.•We investigate the existence of Pure ...Nash equilibria of this game.•Price of anarchy is bounded if candidates never treat non-supporters better.
In this paper, we propose a simple and intuitive model to investigate the efficiency of the two-party election system, especially regarding the nomination process. Each of the two parties has its own candidates, and each of them brings utilities for the people including the supporters and non-supporters. In an election, each party nominates exactly one of its candidates to compete against the other party's. The candidate wins the election with higher odds if he or she brings more utility for all the people. We model such competition as a two-party election game such that each party is a player with two or more pure strategies corresponding to its potential candidates, and the payoff of each party is a mixed utility from a selected pair of competing candidates.
By looking into the three models, namely, the linear link, Bradley-Terry, and the softmax models, which differ in how to formulate a candidate's winning odds against the competing candidate, we show that the two-party election game may neither have any pure Nash equilibrium nor a bounded price of anarchy. Nevertheless, by considering the conventional egoism, which states that any candidate benefits his/her party's supporters more than any candidate from the competing party does, we prove that the two-party election game in both the linear link model and the softmax model always has pure Nash equilibria, and furthermore, the price of anarchy is constantly bounded.
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