By: Dr. Adnan Bozan
Introduction
Self-interest, caught between the congestion of the ego and the corrosion of humanity’s collective mind, has accompanied the human being since the very first steps he carved upon the stage of existence. From the beginning, the human creature has oscillated between two opposing forces: a desire to belong to the group, and an innate impulse toward self-preservation. Within this perpetual tension between the “I” and the “We,” philosophy was born, ethics were reshaped, and the grand questions concerning the meaning of existence and the logic of human behavior emerged.
Is the human being inherently moral, or is he necessarily utilitarian—moved at the deepest levels by concealed calculations that determine the ethics he adopts, the theories he defends, and the authorities he obeys or revolts against?
A reading of human history—from its earliest simplicity to the complexities of modern civilization—reveals a truth seldom acknowledged explicitly: self-interest is not accidental to human existence, nor is it a deviation from moral order. Rather, it is the underlying infrastructure upon which thought, behavior, and decision-making are built, even when it hides behind the language of virtue or masks itself with the guise of collective values.
In the earliest epochs, when humans were few and the world was expansive with abundant resources, self-interest did not appear as an exposed or confrontational force. It required neither disguise nor justification. The human desire to survive flowed with primitive ease, without producing sharp contradictions or provoking conflicts that threatened coexistence. Self-interest was simply part of nature—like hunger, thirst, and fear—at a time when the human mind had not yet been shaped by the complex layers that later civilizations would produce.
But with time, as human numbers increased, common spaces shrank, and the human condition shifted from dispersion to congestion, the ego began to swell—not merely as an individual entity but as a new form of consciousness governing relationships and behavior. Self-interest evolved from a simple need into an existential strategy; from a survival instinct into an implicit ideology that governs laws, economics, politics, and morality.
The swelling of populations, the density of cities, the entanglement of interests, the multiplication of social strata, the emergence of private property, and the proliferation of power centers—all of these contributed to what might be called the “feral expansion of the ego.” Self-interest ceased to be a mere impulse; it became a conceptual system through which values and norms were reconfigured. Humanity no longer sought mere survival but superiority, domination, possession, accumulation, and the reshaping of the world in accordance with its desires.
With every stage of history, the “mind of humanity” was rebuilt according to new scales of self-interest, leading eventually to the modern era—a culmination of this long transformation. Ours is an age in which self-interest is no longer hidden; it has become the unwritten law governing the state, the market, the individual, the media, and human relationships. In this reality, philosophy no longer asks:
“Does self-interest exist?”
Rather, it confronts the more perilous question:
“To what extent can the ego expand before it destroys the very mind of humanity?”
The contemporary human being experiences an unprecedented explosion of the individual ego: social media transforming the self into a commodity; neoliberal economics redefining value as the capacity to generate profit; political power domesticating ethics to serve its interests; human relationships reduced to exchanges of utility; and collective consciousness eroding under the pressure of a ruthless individualism that draws its legitimacy from the noise of the modern world.
In this sense, self-interest today is not merely a behavior—it is a cognitive mechanism directing modernity and reshaping human conceptions of freedom, justice, selfhood, and otherness. This congestion of the ego—swollen to pathological proportions—threatens not only morality, but the very structure of the human mind itself, transforming it from a mind capable of producing shared values into one imprisoned within narrow circles of utility and self-centeredness.
Thus, between the beginnings of existence, where self-interest was hidden within the simplicity of life, and our current age, where it has become the primary code governing the global order, we uncover a long trajectory of utilitarian evolution. This evolution explains many phenomena of conflict, ethical collapse, value disintegration, social fragmentation, and the erosion of trust among individuals.
The study of self-interest is therefore not an inquiry into human deviation but into an existential essence that formed the human being as we know him—and that has threatened, and continues to threaten, the collective mind meant to preserve the species and ensure the stability of civilization.
As the world grows ever more crowded, the question is no longer:
“How do we confront self-interest?”
but rather:
“How do we prevent self-interest from becoming the force that destroys humanity from within—shattering its balance and dragging it into an endless conflict in which no one truly wins?”
First: Self-Interest in the Beginnings – When Humanity Was Sparse and Resources Were Vast
When we return to the earliest stages of creation—not as a metaphysical event, but as a formative existential condition—we discover that self-interest was neither a conscious concept nor a formulated behavioral system. It was a natural pulse within the body of the cosmos, moving to the rhythm of survival and the immediacy of instinct. There were no philosophies, no institutions, no moral frameworks designed to justify or conceal motives. The human being was closer to a neutral creature existing in a wide, open world shaped more by nature than by consciousness.
The earliest human communities were small, scattered, and so few in number that the notion of an “existential struggle” occupied only a negligible space in daily experience. Scarcity—the force that would later become the origin of self-interest and conflict—was not yet a real problem. Resources were ample relative to the number of people, dwellings were dispersed, and boundaries did not exist. For this reason, self-interest at that time was not driven by a desire for domination but by a need to continue existing.
The earliest human motivations were simple and direct:
Survival – to live one more day.
Food – to fill the emptiness of the body and ward off hunger.
Shelter – to seek protection from the cold of night and the predation of nature.
Reproduction – to pass one’s existence on to another generation.
These four needs were entirely sufficient to explain behavior, without any desire for superiority, control, or elevation. Thus, the early ego was remarkably transparent—hidden behind no language, adorned with no mask, seeking no legitimacy. It had no need for deception or manipulation because the world was not crowded enough to demand cunning or to generate complex systems of domination.
Self-interest was practiced as a natural extension of life, like the growth of plants or the migration of birds. The human being did not experience existence as an arena of competition but as a sequence of instinctive responses where self-interest aligned with nature and behavior aligned with necessity.
The absence of population pressure meant that early humans had no need to develop “social intelligence.” There was no impetus to construct moral or political frameworks to conceal or justify self-interest because there was no world that demanded the mastery of evasiveness. Life was so transparent that “ethics” became merely a description of natural behavior, not a normative system governing conduct.
For this reason, the past appears—within collective imagination—more “innocent.”
But this innocence is not a moral value; it is the byproduct of low population density and simple relationships. The ancient human was not morally better than we are today; he simply lived within conditions that neither exposed self-interest nor transformed it into conflict. He was not driven by virtue, but liberated from the pressure of the multitude. Those eras were primitive but not troubled, simple but not convoluted, instinctive but not vicious.
The smallness of the human population allowed self-interest to remain internal: it required no discourse, no justification. It was interest without rhetoric, instinct without ideology, an ego without inflation. In a philosophical sense, self-interest in that era was harmonious with nature, not in conflict with it as it would later become with the rise of civilization.
The past, then, was not more “ethical” than it was natural; the human being was not “pure” but simply unthreatened. What philosophers call “the first nature” was, in essence, the result of the absence of competition—not the presence of absolute virtue. In this sense, self-interest at that time was neutral, transparent, flowing inwardly without crystallizing into systems or erupting into conflict.
This fragile balance would begin to unravel gradually with the increase of human numbers, the growing scarcity of resources, the emergence of property, the rise of authority, and the transformation of human relations from the simplicity of necessity to the complexity of interests. From that moment onward, self-interest would step out of its concealment and wear a thousand masks—from philosophy to ethics to politics.
Second: The Transformation of Social Consciousness – From Necessity to Complexity
As the human population increased and the world shifted from an open expanse to a crowded arena of competition and overlap, personal interest began to lose its original innocence. No longer a primal instinct aligned with the rhythm of nature, it evolved into a complex structure shaped by economics, politics, symbols, and culture. At this point, humanity transitioned from living under the laws of nature to living under laws of its own making—laws that reflect not the cosmos, but the needs of the self and its desire for continuity and dominance.
With the expansion of early societies, a pivotal transformation occurred: personal interest was no longer confined to survival, but became intertwined with possession, influence, organization, structuring, and the justification of behavior. Humanity entered a new historical phase—the phase of complexity—a complexity born not of abstraction, but of demographic pressure and the collision of competing interests, compelling the human mind to invent new tools for self-preservation.
1. The Emergence of Property – The Birth of Fear as the Origin of Calculated Interest
When humans discovered the concept of ownership, it was not merely a material shift but an anthropological transformation that altered the human relation to the world. Ownership means:
Allocating what was once shared
Privatizing what was once communal
Turning nature into a “thing”
And thus, perceiving “the other” as a potential threat
From here, fear emerged—fear as the legitimate father of calculated interest. After fearing nature, humans began to fear one another. And instead of interest being an impulse for survival, it became a defensive preoccupation: protecting what I own, securing what I possess, preventing others from approaching.
As the idea of property expanded, the need for systems to protect it arose. This led humanity from simplicity to social engineering: laws, boundaries, systems, penalties, customs, traditions—all built for a single purpose:
to keep interest in the hands of its holder and prevent others from threatening it.
2. The Rise of Authority – When Interest Wears a Collective Mask
But property alone was insufficient to safeguard personal interests. Expanding communities required a central force to regulate relations. Thus, authority emerged—not as a duty, but as the embodiment of the self once it swells and becomes collective.
With authority came multiple forms of interest:
The tribe’s interest: protecting blood and lineage
The ruler’s interest: securing control
The merchant’s interest: stabilizing the market
The cleric’s interest: monopolizing truth
The group’s interest: legitimizing hostility toward the “other”
Despite their differences, these forms share a single essence: they are extensions of the self—yet a multiplied self that hides behind grand slogans: the people, the nation, religion, values, justice, order…
Thus, the “other” becomes a threat not only to the individual, but to “identity,” “existence,” “culture,” and “creed.” Interest, therefore, becomes inflated, sanctified, and wrapped in lofty concepts.
3. The Construction of Morality as Masks – When Behavior Becomes a Regulated Discourse
As life grew more complex and competition intensified, the need arose for a language that could regulate behavior. Power alone was no longer sufficient; the world required a symbolic system to organize relations and grant legitimacy to actions.
Thus, morality was born—not as absolute values, but as:
Mechanisms of regulation
Laws protecting interests
Soft masks of domination
Morality, in large part, was not created to restrain the self, but to restrain others. It tells the individual:
Do not approach my property
Do not violate what I own
Do not challenge my authority
And it tells society:
Respect the ruler
Preserve hierarchies
Obey authority
Stay within your limits
Morality thus shifts from being a reflection of virtue to becoming a socio-political tool. Its function is not to eliminate interest, but to reorganize and domesticate it so that it serves social order—and at times, power itself.
Morality created a beautiful mask, but beneath it lies a dense web of overlapping interests. What appears “good” in society often rests upon a structure of interest hidden behind the rhetoric of virtue. And what appears as a “value” may, in essence, function as a mechanism of control.
Through this transformation, humanity moved from the stage of instinct to the stage of social structure—from simple interest to complex interest requiring systems, symbols, morality, and laws for its protection. This transition is what leads to the next stage:
the intensification of the self and its inflation until interest becomes a universal standard.
Third: The Modern Era – When Personal Interest Became Visible and Institutionalized
If interest in the past was hidden behind the simplicity of existence, and later eras cloaked it under morality, authority, and property, in the modern era it has emerged openly, without hesitation. Humanity has reached a point in its history where personal interest is no longer a psychological discovery or implicit behavior, but the implicit system governing the world, directing collective consciousness, shaping the individual from birth to death.
Our era is distinguished by an unprecedented human density and an interconnected world through networks, satellites, and the Internet, where everything is visible, analyzed, monitored, and measured. With this total exposure, humans confront themselves without intermediaries, without many masks, and without the ability to conceal their motives as they once could.
This has produced a new era of overt interest, where the individual becomes an economic unit, a project of profit and loss, a “brand,” an “image,” and a “market value” that can be measured and acted upon.
1. Humans as Projects of Interest – The Birth of the Economic Self
The modern era has redefined the human self in unprecedented ways. Humans are no longer existential beings seeking meaning; they have become:
Units of production
Units of consumption
Units of data
Units of influence
Units of competition
Commodities in the labor market
Images in the social media marketplace
With this transformation, the human being becomes a project—no longer living spontaneously but moving according to precise calculations: How do I appear? What do I possess? What is my value? What are the profits or losses of my presence?
The self has become a map of interests, reorganizing everything—even emotions—according to the utility they provide or remove.
2. The Rise of Interest to the Surface – A Logic Governing Politics, Media, and Markets
In the modern era, interest is no longer hidden. It has become:
The language of politics, where justice disappears behind margins of influence.
The heart of media, where truth is commodified.
The backbone of the market, where human value is measured by consumption and purchase.
The engine of social relations, where friendship, love, marriage, and family roles are reshaped according to power and utility.
In this sense, interest becomes a general logic governing the world, like the law of gravity: invisible yet ruling, unannounced yet present, unlearned yet controlling every action.
3. Forms of Contemporary Interest – Consumption, Individualism, Marketing, Pursuit of Power
As resources shrink and populations grow, interest takes on more explicit forms:
a) Consumption
Humans no longer buy to live; they live to consume. Consumption becomes the language through which the individual expresses the self: what you own defines you, and what you purchase grants you value and status. Interest transforms into a perpetual desire for more, even when unrelated to any real need.
b) Marketing
In the age of marketing, everything advertises itself: goods, ideas, people, bodies, discourses, and even dreams. Marketing becomes the art of turning desire into economy, transforming humans into constant consumers seeking something they perceive as necessary.
c) Individualism
The individual is not just an independent self but a moral anchor:
Interest is redefined as a right.
Selfishness is reframed as freedom.
Solitude is interpreted as self-discovery.
Thus, the self transforms from instinct into a complete ideology.
d) Pursuit of Power
Power is no longer exclusive to rulers or leaders. Every individual seeks forms of power:
Power of fame
Power of image
Power of attention
Power of wealth
Power of followers
Power of influence
Here, power is not a political end but an existential condition providing the illusion of value.
e) Redefining Human Relations in Terms of Profit and Loss
In the modern world, relationships become a network of calculations:
What does this person offer?
Does it increase my value?
Does it contribute to my personal project?
Humans shift from beings who love, empathize, and share, to beings who calculate, compare, balance, and invest.
4. The Contemporary Human – From Survival to Pursuit of Surplus
The focal point of human life has shifted. Humans no longer seek mere survival but aim to achieve a surplus of interest:
Surplus of wealth
Surplus of recognition
Surplus of value
Surplus of visibility
Surplus of control
Surplus of symbolism
This surplus drives humans into endless struggle, surpassing physical needs to reach the depths of the self:
I consume, therefore I exist.
I am seen, therefore I have value.
I accumulate, therefore I achieve.
I rise, therefore I excel.
In this sense, the modern world witnesses the clearest stage of personal interest—an era in which interest no longer hides behind a mask but becomes the mask, the face, and the driving logic of the human mind.
Fourth: Philosophy Between Condemnation and Interpretation
When “personal interest” entered the realm of philosophical thought, it transformed from a behavioral phenomenon into a metaphysical, ethical, and political question simultaneously. Philosophers, since the beginnings of systematic thought, have faced no more intractable question than: What is the true motivation behind human actions? Can a human act purely “for the sake of truth” without any self-interest, or does every action, no matter how noble it seems, conceal a desire for self-realization, dominance, or survival?
Philosophical positions have been scattered between those who see interest as a curse destroying morality, those who see it as a natural structure that humans cannot escape, and those who interpret all of history through it. The following is an in-depth reading of these perspectives:
1. Hobbes: Interest as the “Nature of Man” Itself
Thomas Hobbes sees humans, in their natural state, as beings driven by desires and governed by fears. What appears today as “selfishness” is merely an extension of the survival instinct. Hence his famous statement:
"Man is a wolf to man."
For Hobbes, interest is not a moral deviation; it is the underlying structure of all human behavior. Since humans are equal in their capacity to harm one another, the state must be created to regulate interests and ensure a minimum level of security. Here, morality becomes merely a social contract, not an absolute principle.
2. Aristotle: Interest is Possible… But Virtue Regulates It
Aristotle does not deny the existence of interest, but he argues that through education and habit, humans can cultivate the ability to regulate their desires.
Virtue is not the denial of interest, but its rational shaping, transforming chaotic desires into a balanced life guided by wisdom and self-control. For Aristotle, interest coexists with morality, provided the self rises above its base instincts to ensure harmony with the common life.
3. Nietzsche: Morality Itself is Interest for the Strong
Nietzsche takes the analysis of interest further: he considers morality to be a creation of the strong, used to reorganize the world according to their will. Religious morality, in his view, represents the interest of the weak, attempting to transform their helplessness into value.
Thus, for Nietzsche, interest is not merely individual behavior, but a living force expressing the will to power. Morality is not a restraint on interest but a form of it.
4. Marx: All Consciousness Reflects Class Interest
In Marxist philosophy, interest is not only individual but class-based. Political consciousness, morality, religion, and the arts—all, according to Marx, are reflections of the economic structure.
History becomes a struggle between the interests of classes:
The bourgeoisie, seeking to preserve capital
The working class, seeking to transform the structure
For Marx, there are no “neutral” or “pure” ideas: every thought, no matter how philosophical or spiritual it appears, carries its economic imprint.
5. Contemporary Philosophy: From Condemnation to Understanding
Modern thought, especially after the rise of psychology, sociology, and anthropology, no longer views interest as a flaw or sin, but as a natural human condition. The task is no longer to condemn the self, but to understand how human interests can be organized so they do not become a force that destroys society, mind, and environment.
Thus, the question shifts from:
Is interest evil?
to a more philosophical question:
How can interest be engineered to serve humans rather than enslave them?
Summary of This Axis
Philosophy has not eliminated personal interest, but it has provided tools for understanding it:
Hobbes returned it to nature.
Aristotle sought to regulate it.
Nietzsche exposed its masks.
Marx transformed it into a historical engine.
Contemporary philosophy made it a manageable structure, not one to be abolished.
Hence, it becomes clear that interest is not a deviation. It is one of the pillars of human existence. What destroys humans is not the existence of interest, but its unconscious, tyrannical transformation.
Fifth: Between the Individual and the Collective – How Time Has Changed the Shape of Interest
If personal interest is constant as a primary instinct accompanying humans since their emergence into existence, what has changed throughout history is not its essence, but its engineering, extensions, and the awareness surrounding it. Time does not alter human nature itself as much as it reshapes the external conditions, thereby changing the appearance of interest without altering its roots.
1. Change in Scale: From Individual Interest to Social Interest
In early ages, the circle of interest was narrow, individual, and satisfied immediate needs: food, survival, and protection. Today, this circle has expanded so that interest is no longer merely personal but a broad social structure encompassing:
Corporations
States
Financial institutions
Political parties
Collective identities
“My interest” no longer belongs solely to me; it is intertwined with the interests of millions of unknown people and influences a globally interconnected system.
2. Change in Awareness: From Instinctive Action to Calculated Strategy
The ancient human did not consciously understand their interest; they lived it automatically. Modern humans, however, possess the ability to:
Plan
Measure
Anticipate outcomes
Build personal and collective strategies
Use images, values, and language to serve their interests
Awareness itself has become a tool to protect the self and achieve gains that extend beyond mere survival. Interest has thus transformed from an instinct into a psychological and social engineering project.
3. Change in Impact: From Individual Behavior to a Force Reshaping Society
A single person’s interest in the past could not change the form of a tribe or village. Today:
A corporation’s interest can transform an entire market
A single politician’s interest can alter a nation’s map
A financial elite’s interest can shift global directions
Interest has therefore become a force that reshapes the world, not just a small isolated behavior.
4. Change in Structure: From Primitive Interest to Systems that Legitimize Interest
In the past, interest was a direct action. Today, it has become:
Law
Institution
Economic system
Media discourse
Social identity
Political ideology
Interest has evolved to carry a “legitimate” or “natural” form in the eyes of people. Today, the individual demands their interest as if it were their right, almost indistinguishable from entitlement itself.
5. From Individual Interest to Networked Interest
In contemporary humanity, interest is no longer a single line but a network: interwoven, overlapping, and difficult to separate. The individual is now embedded in a web of interests:
Consumes because they are part of the market
Works because they are part of the productive system
Belongs because they are part of an identity
Votes because they are part of a political game
Communicates because they are part of media algorithms
All these networks do not eliminate interest; they make it more complex, larger, and more capable of shaping collective consciousness.
6. Human Increase: From Concealment to Complete Exposure
When the human population was small, interest remained hidden and unobtrusive. Today, with population growth, interest can no longer hide:
Crowded cities
Intensified competition for resources
Accelerated economies
Intertwined identities
Technological ascendance
Living in an exposed world
All of this makes interest reveal itself openly, even imposing itself as a law of existence governing societal movement and individual behavior.
Conclusion of This Section
Time did not create interest, but it revealed its layers, expanded its scope, and transformed it from a simple individual phenomenon into a cosmic force reshaping the world.
Understanding politics, economics, or human relationships today is impossible without grasping the nature of interest and how its forms have changed.
Conclusion
To say that "all of life is personal interest" is neither a moral judgment nor an attempt to criminalize humans or strip them of their humanity; rather, it is a philosophical dissection of the structure of human existence as revealed throughout history. From the very first moment a human set foot on the earth, they were never outside of need, fear, or the pursuit of influence. Humans exist in a narrow space between scarce resources and the threat of extinction, and it is within this space that interest shaped consciousness before morality shaped behavior.
Yet time—with its changing conditions—did not alter the essence of interest as much as it reordered it. Humanity has moved from:
Simplicity to complexity: Interest evolved from a daily concern for survival into a grand engineering that governs economy, politics, and culture.
Instinct to calculation: Humans now plan, measure, invest, and conceal interest behind majestic rational discourse.
Need to strategy: Interest is no longer mere satisfaction of desire; it has become a long-term project, an existential structure that determines a human’s position in the world.
In this immense transformation, what was hidden in earlier ages becomes evident:
Morality did not create humans; humans created morality to beautify their struggle.
Values, however pure they may appear, are merely a thin layer—like a cosmetic shell—covering a deeper engine: interest, which has continuously shaped relationships, built communities, legislated laws, and crafted discourse.
The crowding of the self in a world expanding at the speed of light has made interest more visible, more present, and more capable of reshaping collective consciousness. At the same time, this consciousness has become fragile and prone to fragmentation, for the expansion of individual—networked and institutional—interests threatens the shared structures humans need to live a meaningful life.
Thus, humanity today, in its current moment, appears clearer than ever before:
It was not built by morality, but by interest.
It was not unified by values, but by necessity.
It was not driven by ideologies, but by ancient desires wearing modern forms.
Yet understanding this reality does not mean accepting its consequences blindly. Rather, it means realizing that managing interest—not denying it—is the only way to save the mind from disintegration and humans from drowning in the crowding of the self.
Interest is not an enemy, but it can become one if left unchecked, without boundaries or responsibility.
In the end, we cannot eliminate interest from human life, but like every great existential force, it requires philosophy to regulate it and awareness to guide it, lest it become a weapon that destroys what remains of human reason.
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