Your own 'Best' Self Interest

I Tweeted this idea tonight, and in case someone followed the Tweet, I thought I’d follow up here.

Liberty is a thought that operates on the concept of a person acting in their “own best self interest.” But what exactly does this mean?

Well, context plays very much into this concept. The operative word, as I said in my Tweet, is “best.”

The word ‘best’ means you do your best to take everything into account, and making a value judgment accordingly.

A person can act in their ‘self interest’ but not do so in their ‘best' self interest.  To murder someone for a dollar is a prime example. You might get the dollar but then risk spending the rest of your life in prison. Even if one gets away with it, is it worth looking over your shoulder for the rest of you life in worry and panic?

Your 'best' self interest implies that you take such consequences into account. Which requires thought.

So “best” self interest implies thought, which means considering the consequences. Different ways of saying the same thing.

Liberty requires the ‘best’ thought that we can construct. Liberty is always thinking in terms of what is our own ‘best’ self interest. What is the best I can do? What is the highest ideal I can strive to aim for, achieve and adhere to?

Being Libertarian isn’t about doing whatever you want. It is doing the ‘best’ that you can, in every context you can conceive of.

And the thing is, if I operate, act, in my own ‘best’ self interest, I also operate in your best self interest, automatically.

That is the beauty.