Abstract

Jon Elster's subtle and richly illustrated argument raises more avenues of inquiry and application than one could possibly explore in a short comment. I will therefore confine myself to addressing three interrelated questions: First, can the distinctions among interest, passion, and reason on which his analysis depends really be maintained? Second, what implications does his work hold for some republican and liberal theories that insist on a public sphere purged of interest and passion or that defend a private sphere providing the space necessary to indulge interest and passion? Finally, what does his analysis tell us about the possibility of a meta-theory that would mediate among interest, passion, and reason? With regard to the first question, Elster's own argument suggests that the boundaries among interest, passion, and reason are at least permeable. Each motive masquerades as the other or becomes transmuted into the other. Moreover, once one takes the consistency and imperfection constraints into account, the external manifestations of the different motives will often be identical. A positivist, who believes that all that matters are external manifestations that can be measured or observed, might therefore hold that the distinctions Elster analyzes are ones that are hardly worth worrying about