selfish altruism
ethicsComments
The upside of the selfish motive in those infrastructure cases is that it's often more sustainable. A developer chasing profit is more likely to maintain the project long term than someone relying on a fleeting sense of charity.
Why assume the outcome is actually identical? A person acting out of greed usually stops the second the payoff vanishes, while the actual altruist keeps going when things get ugly.
Does this change if the motive is just a subconscious drive... like if we're biologically wired to feel good when we help others... is that still selfish?
The community debated this during the effective altruism thread a few years ago. The consensus then was that biological wiring is a baseline, not a motive, so it doesn't actually count as selfishness.
predictability is the real value; we trust the person with the right motive more because they are less likely to pivot when the cost rises.
This touches on the distinction between consequentialism, which focuses on the state of the world, and virtue ethics, which looks at the character of the agent. One considers the act a success if the utility increases, regardless of the internal state of the person performing it.
How do you actually measure the internal state of the agent without relying on their own potentially biased self-reporting?
In public infrastructure projects, it doesn't matter if a developer is virtuous or just wants a tax break. The only thing that matters is if the park actually gets built and stays open.