Self-Interest, Sympathy, Competition

As has been previously discussed, in the Sentimentalist Psychological model, there is no essential distinction between selfish and sympathetic pains and pleasures, i. e. either type is privately experienced data. Furthermore, as Hume observes, prevalently evident is that the commonest Morality-significant distinction is between not Self-Interest and Sympathy, but between partial and universal Sympathy. For, virtually everybody identifies with some group or another, family, race, nationality, ethnicity, religion, etc., while very few conceive themselves and act upon identification with every human being. So, the Self-Interest vs. Sympathy conflict implicated in Capitalism is not derived from the Psychological model it presupposes. Rather, it first emerges in a specific context--Competition, in which the priority of Self-Interest is arguably well-justified. Thus, the problem with the antithesis is not that it is falsely posited, but, rather, that it is groundlessly generalized. Likewise, any associated advocacy of Egoism is weakly grounded.