General Will, Self, Self-Interest

Kant's representation of Rousseau's concept of General Will as Pure Practical Reason entails a significant transformation of the then prevailing concept of Self-Interest. Hitherto, except in Spinoza's system, the 'Self' is, as Hume analyzes it, a 'bundle' of perceptions, each of which originates as a passive impression, an analysis that Kant accepts, under the rubric of 'regulative', i. e. heuristic, idea. In contrast, the Self entailed in Pure Practical Reason is constitutive and active only by virtue of its self-instantiation of Universal Law, i. e. of what Rousseau calls the General Will. On this rendering, therefore, there is no active Self independent of its participation in a collective We, or, put otherwise, an Individual becomes autonomous only by virtue of its assumption of the General Will, a consequence that Hume lacks the resources to dispute. Similarly, it is not that the General Will supersedes genuine Self-Interest, but that it first creates it. Accordingly, insofar as the Invisible Hand remains a passively experienced analog of the General Will, there is no genuine Self-Interest in Capitalism.