Moderation And Egoism

I would like to openly identify the link between moderate living (the moral ideal) and egoist virtue. If the individual pursues his self-interest while loving liberty, he will treat others with equality and respect, doing nothing to rob them of their independence, their wealth, their life, their safety, or their happpiness and status as individualists doing their own thing. They will reciprocate this treatment back to him.

They will agree to a social contract where in moral order, law and order, good manners and civilized coexistence are for the common good, and it is the general will that each does his own thing while compromising with others around him pursuing their private interests. Inevitable conflicts will arise but negotiating directly with each other in good faith, and indirectly through the courts should render most impasses resolvable.

The selfless are more emotional than rational. They sentimentality makes them extreme. They subordinate their needs and priorities unreasonably to the collective will. When they are selfish in their private lives, it is inordinate because their extreme self-denial in the collective, makes their overreact and behave with irrational selfishness in their private dealings with others.

The egoist that adopts being reasonable, flexible, fair and moderate, in his enlightened self-interests, in a mood of temperate reasoning, should work to gain his self-interest without depriving others competing with him to fulfill their needs and to meet their self-interest. They should be able to meet their mutual needs, and their own needs, while working out deals that keep society civil and sere the common good. The reasonable egoist will working mostly to secure his own interest, but he will not deny the efficacy and need to meet the common interest too.

There are some limits on his pursuit of self-interest to prevent him being selfish. And the primary political, constitutional, social, economic and moral emphases on his self-interest is to keep all citizens and him from surrendering to corrupting, overrepresented collective needs.