Enlightened self-interest

Enlightened self-interest is a philosophy in ethics which states that persons who act to further the interests of others (or the interests of the group or groups to which they belong) ultimately serve their own self-interest.

It has often been simply expressed by the belief that an individual, group, or even a commercial entity will "do well by doing good".

The term enlightened self-interest has been criticised as a mere ideological or semantic device of neoclassical economic theory to justify this type of behaviour. It has been considered at best a variant of self-interest that is unsuitable for the establishment of personal and public relations, because like the definition of self-interest in the standard rational choice model, it fails to characterise human behaviour ethically, psychologically and cognitively.