Word: altruism
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...course, out of any desire to injure America. On the contrary, out of ! the deep desire to purify, to redeem America by making it an instrument of justice. The critics do not lack for patriotism. On the contrary, they sincerely wish to ennoble America with a foreign policy of altruism. And because only intervention devoid of self-interest is morally unimpeachable, it is the only kind that a good conscience can support...
What to say of these liberal hawks? That they are marked by good faith but a terrible confusion. The confusion is between individual and national morality. In private conduct, altruism is the ideal. For a nation, it can mean ruin. In private conduct, self-interest is a suspect motive. Intervening in a fight for reasons of right is the stuff of western heroes. Intervening in a fight because you need the weaker party...
...fatally naive to transfer such reasoning to foreign policy. Nations are not individuals. Nations live in a state of nature. There is no higher authority to protect them. If they do not protect themselves, they die. Ignoring one's interests, squandering one's resources in fits of altruism, is the fastest road to national disaster...
...altruism], the achievement of values is immoral, while the renunciation and destruction of values is moral," said Shwartz...
...response to a claim that Julius Caesar was too selfish in his quest for power, Shwartz said "he [could not] exist except through the other people be enslave[d]," Caesar was therefore a follower of altruism which, Shwartz said, condones dependency...