Keywords
liberalism
self-interest
Religion and Politics
How to Cite
Abstract
The doctrine of interest well understood (intérêt bien entendu), is one of Alexis de Tocqueville’s most notable concepts. However, there is considerable disagreement about what this means and what Tocqueville argues it accomplishes for democratic peoples. This article reconstructs Tocqueville’s account of human nature as interested, political, and religious and suggests Tocqueville develops intérêt bien entendu and largely understands it in Christian terms. Appreciating the Christian dimensions of intérêt bien entendu deepens our understanding of Tocqueville’s role as a democratic moralist, the relationship of interest to virtue in his thought, and the character of Tocquevillian civil society.
Similar Articles
- Douglas Walker, Michael Giles, Tocqueville Reconsidered: On Secular Morality and Religion’s Place in Liberal Democracy , The Political Science Reviewer: Vol. 43 No. 1 (2019): Essays
- Michael Hanby, Before and After Politics , The Political Science Reviewer: Vol. 43 No. 2 (2019): Symposium: The Missouri Compromise at 200
- Trevor Shelley, Tocquevillean Poetics , The Political Science Reviewer: Vol. 44 No. 2 (2020): Symposium: Leadership and the History of Political Thought
- Lee Trepanier, Eric Voegelin and Political Economy: An Introduction , The Political Science Reviewer: Vol. 47 No. 1 (2023): Political Theory and Economics, and other Essays
- Daniel J. Mahoney, With Reason Attentive to Grace , The Political Science Reviewer: Vol. 46 No. 1 (2022): Symposium on Political Theology
- Travis D. Smith, Introduction to Wit in the History of Political Thought , The Political Science Reviewer: Vol. 44 No. 1 (2020): Symposium: Wit in the History of Political Thought
- Brianne Wolf, Tocqueville and the Moral Economy of Bankruptcy in Nineteenth-Century America , The Political Science Reviewer: Vol. 47 No. 2 (2023): The Future Before Us: Early Career Women in Political Theory and Constitutional Studies
- Joseph M Knippenberg, Liberalism and Religion , The Political Science Reviewer: Vol. 30 (2001): Symposia on Kant Studies and on <em>I’ll Take My Stand</em>
- Christina Bambrick, The Promise of Virtue, Old and New , The Political Science Reviewer: Vol. 47 No. 2 (2023): The Future Before Us: Early Career Women in Political Theory and Constitutional Studies
- Kevin Vance, Shaping Religious Institutions for Liberty , The Political Science Reviewer: Vol. 47 No. 1 (2023): Political Theory and Economics, and other Essays
You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.
Most read articles by the same author(s)
- Lee Trepanier, Introduction to Symposium , The Political Science Reviewer: Vol. 40 (2016): A Symposium on Paul Gottfried’s Conservatism in America
- Ron Srigley, Monserrat, Torres, and Planinc on Voegelin’s Return to the Ancients , The Political Science Reviewer: Vol. 41 No. 1 (2017): Symposium: Eric Voegelin and the Ancients
- David B Frisk, Gottfried’s Disconnect , The Political Science Reviewer: Vol. 40 (2016): A Symposium on Paul Gottfried’s Conservatism in America
- Nicholas Higgins, Why Can’t We Be Friends? , The Political Science Reviewer: Vol. 42 No. 2 (2018): Symposium: The Political Thought of Robert Nisbet
- Seth Benardete, Leo Strauss’ The City and Man , The Political Science Reviewer: Vol. 8 (1978): Reviews
- Onur Ulas Ince, Burke A. Hendrix, Lida Maxwell, Ross Carroll, Brandon Turner, Daniel I. O’Neill, Author Meets Critics , The Political Science Reviewer: Vol. 42 No. 1 (2018): Symposium: Philosophy in Weimar Germany
- Jeff Polet, Returning to Localism as a Return to the Self , The Political Science Reviewer: Vol. 42 No. 2 (2018): Symposium: The Political Thought of Robert Nisbet
- Nathan Schlueter, Five More Questions for Antiliberal Conservatives , The Political Science Reviewer: Vol. 43 No. 2 (2019): Symposium: The Missouri Compromise at 200
- Onur Ulas Ince, Political Economy and Edmund Burke’s (Il)Liberal Logic of Empire , The Political Science Reviewer: Vol. 42 No. 1 (2018): Symposium: Philosophy in Weimar Germany
- Russell Nieli, Critic of the Sensate Culture , The Political Science Reviewer: Vol. 35 (2006): Symposia on Edmund Burke and on Russell Kirk’s <em>The Conservative Mind</em>