Making Self-Interest Work: How to Thrive When Attention Is Scarce and Choices Are Infinite

The Most Misunderstood Word in Economics

We talk about it every day—on cable news, in classrooms, in decisions about careers, families, and futures. Yet few ideas are more influential—or more misrepresented—than self-interest.

Too often, it is dismissed as greed or disguised as altruism. But self-interest is neither villain nor virtue. It is the hidden algorithm behind our choices, the engine of markets, and the organizing principle of modern life. As society shifts from material scarcity to attention scarcity, our inherited moral and economic definitions no longer serve us. We need to update the operating system that governs how we choose.

History offers no shortage of confusion. When Thomas Hobbes wrote that life without authority would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” he assumed people were inherently selfish—conflating self-preservation with egocentrism. Immanuel Kant argued that any action motivated by self-interest lacked moral worth, casting doubt on caregiving, entrepreneurship, and even civic duty. Thomas Sowell observed how political actors routinely dress personal ambition in the costume of the “common good.” Critics of capitalism still echo this confusion, overlooking Adam Smith’s deeper insight: that self-interest, when guided by empathy and institutional trust, can produce broadly beneficial outcomes. Meanwhile, Ayn Rand swung the pendulum to the other extreme—reframing selfishness as a rational virtue and moral compass, yet ignoring the social and contextual complexity of real-world choices.

This article does not reject those foundational ideas—it builds on them. It reframes self-interest as a dynamic decision framework, one that must evolve with the realities of the Information Era. In a world of digital saturation, competing social expectations, and shifting incentives, the classical views of self-interest are incomplete—not incorrect. Updating this concept for modern conditions is essential, not only to better understand others but to guide ourselves with clarity and purpose.

So let us ask a better question: What if self-interest was never the problem—but the solution?

Table of Contents

1. Scarcity Has Shifted: Rethinking Self-Interest in an Era of Data Abundance

2. Disentangling Self-Interest, Selfishness, and Selflessness

3. The Saving Analogy: Reframing Selflessness as Strategic

4. Diverse Rationality: Why One Size No Longer Fits All

5. From Demand to Delivery: How Institutions Must Respond to Evolving Self-Interests

6. Conclusion: From Confusion to Clarity

7. Resources for the Curious

About the author:  Jeff Hulett leads Personal Finance Reimagined, a decision-making and financial education platform. He teaches personal finance at James Madison University and provides personal finance seminars. Check out his book -- Making Choices, Making Money: Your Guide to Making Confident Financial Decisions.

Jeff is a career banker, data scientist, behavioral economist, and choice architect. Jeff has held banking and consulting leadership roles at Wells Fargo, Citibank, KPMG, and IBM.

1. Scarcity Has Shifted: Rethinking Self-Interest in an Era of Data Abundance

These great thinkers were not wrong; their insights were shaped by the dominant scarcities of their time. As we will see, many of these ideas emerged in an era of material constraint and institutional authority—where choices were fewer and attention was more available. The Information Era has transformed those conditions, requiring us to reinterpret their wisdom through a modern lens.

But the need to clarify self-interest today is not only philosophical—it reflects a broader cultural evolution. As society transitioned from the Industrial Era to the Information Era, what is scarce has fundamentally changed. Where material goods and access to information were once limited, today's abundance of data, choices, and digital interactions has created a new constraint: attention. In a sense, data abundance imposes a cognitive tax—one that makes it increasingly difficult to sustain focus, prioritize effectively, or evaluate trade-offs with clarity.

While physical scarcity still exists, especially for the vulnerable, modern scarcity is better understood as a shift in the cost of acquiring knowledge. The core economic challenge is no longer simply producing or acquiring material goods—it is acquiring the right knowledge to generate income and making informed decisions about how best to allocate it. In the past, when data was limited and costly to obtain, knowledge emerged more slowly but decisions were simpler—guided by habit, tradition, or institutional authority.

Today, the low cost and volume of available data make discernment the new challenge, shifting the cognitive burden to filtering and prioritization. Data abundance has lowered the cost of access to both types of knowledge: how to become productive and how to spend productively. Yet our neurobiology is still adapted for a world of data scarcity—evolved to filter limited information through short-term heuristics, not to thrive in an era of overwhelming abundance. This creates a mismatch between our environment and our decision systems, necessitating bridges—like structured frameworks and decision tools—to help guide our self-interests in ways our instincts can no longer reliably do.

In short, it is no longer a “get data” problem—it is an attention problem centered on decision-making.

In this new environment, our understanding of self-interest must evolve to reflect the shifting scarcities that shape how people live, decide, and connect. In a world where cognitive overload is the norm, and where algorithms constantly attempt to capture our attention, a vague or outdated definition of self-interest becomes a liability. If we do not distinguish self-interest from selfishness—and do not understand how self-interest evolves across time, context, and stakeholders—we risk making poor decisions, falling prey to manipulation, or misunderstanding the actions of others.

This article seeks to resolve the confusion by offering a modern definition of self-interest—one that accounts for selfish and selfless motives, integrates long- and short-term trade-offs, and explains how rationality evolves with context. By clarifying what self-interest truly is in the age of attention scarcity, we can better understand human behavior and build systems that support both individual and collective flourishing.

2. Disentangling Self-Interest, Selfishness, and Selflessness

At the core of today’s confusion is a failure to distinguish between three critical concepts: selfishness, selflessness, and self-interest.

• Selfishness is short-term, self-serving behavior that disregards the well-being of others. At its extreme, it can undermine trust, erode cooperation, and lead to social inefficiencies. Extreme case: Narcissistic personality types.

• Selflessness, on the other hand, involves acting in ways that benefit others and disregards self well-being. At its extreme, it can create shorter-term costs that could lead to personal safety challenges, like insufficient food, shelter, etc. Extreme case: Martyr complex.

Importantly, both selfish and selfless are judgments—descriptions of someone’s behavior as perceived by others in relation to shared or individual standards. They reflect external evaluations, often colored by cultural norms or personal expectations. Calling someone "selfish" or "selfless" frames their action relative to how it impacts or aligns with others’ interests.

Self-interest, however, is different. It is not a moral label but a descriptive framework. It recognizes that individuals must actively weigh both selfish and selfless preferences—across time, stakeholders, and values—to determine the best course of action for themselves in a given moment. It reflects a flexible and evolving portfolio of motivations that blends short- and long-term gains, personal and collective goals, and internal and external incentives. Self-interest reflects how individuals continuously reweight these competing forces to make decisions in context.

This more holistic definition positions self-interest as a decision framework, not merely a motive. It reflects how individuals weigh obligations to family, employers, communities, and themselves—an evolving, context-sensitive aggregation of preference weights. In today’s Information Era, it is our limited attention that becomes the battleground where these preferences are contested and prioritized. As such, self-interest serves as the foundation for constructing individual utility and shaping economic demand.

This aggregation becomes especially important in the era of data abundance. Previously, in a slower, information-scarce world, our decision environments were largely shaped by culture, authority, and habit. But in today’s hyperlinked world of infinite scrolling and algorithmic targeting, our motivations are in constant flux—reshaped by information, media, and new social pressures. Without a clarified model of self-interest, this dynamism can devolve into impulsivity, tribalism, or confusion.

In the digital economy, attention has become the defining scarcity—the new arbiter of value. Like currency, anything scarce can serve as a store of value based on our willingness to trade or substitute it for something else. One byproduct of this attention-scarce environment is that consumer platforms are incentivized to raise your personal discount rate—the degree to which you devalue future outcomes—by overwhelming you with stimuli designed to provoke immediate action. When the future feels opaque or confusing, it becomes easier to focus on now, which serves platforms’ short-term sales goals but undermines long-term decision quality. Without a structured definition of self-interest, we become vulnerable to those who manage and spend that scarce resource—our attention—more strategically than we do.

For example, imagine a young professional deciding whether to spend their Saturday binge-watching a streaming series or preparing for a professional certification exam.

Short-term: The impulse to relax and indulge in entertainment reflects a short-term selfish or selfless preference—

• Seeking immediate pleasure and escape is selfish.

• Self-care to the extent that relaxation empowers selfless activities born from a rested mind or body.

Long-term: Meanwhile, the goal of passing the certification represents a long-term selfish or selfless preference—

• A selfish future-oriented investment in higher income, career security, and status.

• The certification is necessary to selflessly serve clients, your employer, or others who benefit from the application of the knowledge gained from the certification.

These motivations are not irrational on their own. But the individual’s self-interest is best understood as a weighted combination of these conflicting motives. Their ultimate decision will reflect how they prioritize immediate gratification, future advantage, or helping others—a trade-off that is continually influenced by time, context, and cognitive framing.

As 17th-century philosopher Rochefoucauld noted, “Virtues are lost in self-interest as rivers are lost in the sea,” highlighting how self-interest can encompass much more than selfish desires.

3. The Saving Analogy: Reframing Selflessness as Strategic

To further refine self-interest, an aligned analogy is invoked: the economic distinction between consumption and saving. In classical economics, consumption today reduces one’s ability to consume in the future. Saving, by contrast, is a deferral of consumption—a deliberate choice to delay gratification in exchange for a longer-term payoff. Likewise, many acts that appear selfless can be understood as deferred selfishness—investments in long-term personal, reputational, or evolutionary returns.

This analogy gains even greater clarity when we view time—not money—as our most precious investible asset. Unlike wealth, which is unequally distributed, we each receive the same fixed time allocation: 24 hours per day, 168 hours per week. Whether we binge-watch a series or study for a certification exam, the true opportunity cost is time. Thus, we can measure our time investment as what we do NOT spend our time doing. These moments represent temporal choices between short-term consumption and long-term payoff. Suppose selfish consumption routinely absorbs time that could be saved or invested. In that case, it may signal not just a lack of discipline—but a missed opportunity for future consumption from savings today or future selfishness from selflessness today.

This framework can be extended beyond oneself.  Consider a parent who sacrifices leisure time, income, or sleep to care for their child. At first glance, these actions appear to be a perfect example of selflessness, entirely dedicated to another's well-being. However, from a strategic lens, they may reflect deeply embedded genetic self-interest born, at least in part, from deferred selfishness. The parent may be acting not only out of love or duty, but also in pursuit of long-term returns: the pride that comes from a child’s achievements, the elevated social standing tied to family success, or the future care and support they may receive in old age.

This idea finds powerful reinforcement in biology. Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins argues that humans—and all living organisms—are ultimately vehicles for genetic preservation, shaped by the imperative to pass on their genes. He describes individuals as “survival machines” built by their genes to ensure their own replication. From this perspective, a parent’s care for their children is not merely an act of generosity, but a biological strategy for ensuring the survival of their genetic code into future generations.  Our feeling of love and obligation is a construction of our genetically directed neurobiology and neurotransmitters. The operative neurotransmitter is the biochemical oxytocin, which is part of our cognitive environment and encourages preserving an individual's genetic code. Thus, our genes instruct the creation of neurotransmitters that increase the likelihood of genetic reproduction.

“We are survival machines—robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.” —Richard Dawkins

Parenting, then, becomes a form of evolutionary saving—an investment not just in financial or emotional well-being, but in the ultimate future consumption: the perpetuation of one’s genetic identity. What appears to be selfless behavior is actually deferred selfishness, an extension of long-term self-interest, encoded in our biology.

This reframing has profound implications in today’s decision landscape. In the Information Era, individuals are overwhelmed by calls to action—from climate change to digital addiction to global philanthropy. Without a framework that acknowledges long-horizon self-interest, including its evolutionary, emotional, and reputational dimensions, people can become either indifferent to important causes or paralyzed by competing moral claims.

Recognizing selflessness as part of self-interest also helps make sense of modern phenomena like environmentally-focused investing, career sabbaticals, or sustainability practices. These behaviors often get misclassified as purely moral or symbolic. But when examined through a broader lens, they reveal strategic alignment with long-term goals: better health, stronger networks, a livable planet for future generations. These actions are not contradictions to self-interest—they are expressions of it, updated for an era where identity is multi-layered and time horizons are expanding.

By repositioning self-interest as a flexible portfolio of temporal preferences—some immediate, some deeply delayed—we gain a more accurate, humane, and actionable understanding of motivation in a world where attention is scarce and trade-offs are constant.

4. Diverse Rationality: Why One Size No Longer Fits All

Some traditional economic models presume that rationality is static, objective, and universal. Preferences are considered stable, individuals are assumed to maximize utility, and behavior is explained through consistent responses to incentives. Ayn Rand went further, framing rationality as a moral absolute—“the recognition and acceptance of reason as one’s only source of knowledge, one’s only judge of values, and one’s only guide to action.” In her view, there exists a single rational course for every decision, discoverable through logic and free from contradiction. But this perspective leaves little room for adaptation, uncertainty, or the evolving nature of human judgment. In practice, rationality is complex, user-defined, and shaped by shifting goals, incomplete information, and contextual trade-offs—especially in today’s fast-moving, data-abundant world.

Yet in practice, what counts as rational shifts with time, role, and context. Information deeply influences rationality, especially regarding incentives and constraints, uncertainty, and temporal weighting. The parent deciding between a late work meeting and attending their child’s recital is not irrational in either case—but is weighing competing values across different dimensions of identity—the parent role and the worker role. One of the most significant contributions of behavioral economics has been to show that rationality is not a fixed, one-size-fits-all construct. Instead, it is diverse, shaped by evolving priorities, emotional framing, cognitive biases, and the stakeholder trade-offs unique to each individual. Rational behavior, therefore, must be understood as dynamic and situated—not as a universal formula but as an adaptive process. “Rationality is diverse because self-interest is dynamic.”

This evolution in thought echoes F.A. Hayek’s insight into the distributed nature of knowledge but extends it further into the internal realm. In the Industrial Era, data was scarce, and data is external to our cognition. The big difference in the Information Era is that the new scarcity, attention, is now internal to our cognition. The new currency, the new economic battleground, is inside our heads!

Markets perform best when they are free to aggregate individual preferences—each price point becoming a decentralized signal informed by millions of private evaluations and local conditions. In this sense, market prices are not fixed truths but dynamic reflections of evolving self-interests. These self-interests are shaped by each person’s perceptions—governed by their complex neurobiology, behavioral patterns, and how they process uncertainty across time and context. As individuals continually update, recalibrate, and reprioritize their decisions based on experience, emotion, and feedback, the market adapts in turn. Market failures occur not because of irrationality, but when external constraints—such as government mandates or institutional rigidity—interfere with the ability of markets to reflect this diversity of rationalities in real time.

This view is critical in today’s age of attention scarcity. Algorithms are built to influence our malleable heuristics, frame our preferences, and reward speed over depth. As a result, what appears rational in the moment—clicking, buying, or agreeing—may reflect engineered behavior rather than authentic self-interest.

A robust definition of self-interest that incorporates diverse rationality becomes a form of cognitive defense. It enables individuals to slow down, reweigh competing priorities, and make decisions that reflect long-term well-being over short-term stimulation.

5. From Demand to Delivery: How Institutions Must Respond to Evolving Self-Interests

Much of this article has focused on how individuals—acting as consumers, workers, and citizens—navigate the Information Era by continually reshaping their self-interest across time, roles, and contexts. But this only addresses half the equation. What about the supply side—the institutions, businesses, and organizations historically tasked with delivering value? How should they evolve to meet the needs of a population whose preferences are now fluid, personalized, and shaped by an overwhelming volume of data?

In the former data-scarce world, self-interest was easier to anchor. Roles were fixed, options were fewer, and change was incremental. Institutions provided the scaffolding for identity, meaning, and moral orientation—offering structured guidance in stable environments. But in today’s data-abundant, attention-scarce world, many of these institutions—from organized religion to education and civic organizations—are struggling to adapt. Churches exemplify this broader challenge, having experienced sharp declines in participation as traditional delivery models fail to meet the needs of individuals navigating increasingly complex and personalized decision environments.

This shift is not due to a diminished human need for faith or community. To the contrary, the need for faith—as a reflection of uncertainty—has increased as time frames compress in the Information Era. The traditional church model has struggled to adapt to a cultural landscape where individuals must now curate meaning and navigate spiritual choices from an overwhelming flow of information. What was once passively received must now be actively assembled—and without modern frameworks or support, many feel unanchored. In this new context, self-interest becomes more fluid and fragmented, and decision support becomes essential. Rather than being grounded in stable roles and inherited norms, self-interest today is shaped by dynamic trade-offs between personal values, stakeholder expectations, and algorithmically curated inputs—requiring individuals to continuously reweight their priorities in real time.

As an example, the most progressive churches are evolving their faith delivery models. They are shifting from a traditional “you all come to me” destination model to a more adaptive “I come to you all” approach—cultivating community in the everyday spaces where people already live, work, and gather. In an age of information abundance, great sermons by gifted pastors are readily available online. Compelling content is no longer scarce—community is. The church’s unique opportunity is no longer to be the sole source of spiritual teaching, but to foster place-based connection and meaning in ways that digital content alone cannot. To remain relevant, churches must move beyond their walls and become embedded in the rhythms of daily life.

This same principle applies across all sectors. Education providers, financial institutions, healthcare systems, and even government agencies must now design their services around dynamic, decentralized, and decision-saturated individuals. Doing so requires tools that don’t just inform—but guide.

This emerging model supports the need to align philosophy with practical tools. It emphasizes the use of choice architecture—the strategic design of decision environments that reflect how people actually think, feel, and choose. These tools are designed to account for cognitive biases, help individuals visualize trade-offs, and structure decisions around a clear, personalized expression of self-interest. In an age of data abundance and attention scarcity, such tools serve as essential scaffolding for more confident, transparent, and value-aligned choices.

The Information Era, then, creates a paradox. Our neurobiological decision-making intuition has not caught up with the culture of digital saturation. A knee-jerk reaction might be to call for government intervention to counteract algorithmic manipulation and attention hijacking. But as discussed earlier, market failures often arise not from irrationality, but from external constraints—such as rigid mandates or institutional overreach—that prevent markets from reflecting the full diversity of individual rationalities in real time. Government intervention, while well-intentioned, frequently imposes higher costs than benefits by distorting decentralized knowledge transfer via price. So what is one to do? The more effective path is to build a neurobiological bridge. Tools grounded in behavioral science—like choice architecture—equip individuals to navigate complexity and make better decisions, without the need for top-down control.

One example is the Definitive Choice app, a smartphone-based tool provided through Personal Finance Reimagined (PFR). Used alongside the book Making Choices, Making Money, it helps individuals—from high school students and college learners to working professionals—navigate complex decisions by clarifying trade-offs across multiple priorities. Whether choosing a college, evaluating a job offer, or making a financial investment, the app enables users to translate scattered impulses and competing motivations into structured, confidence-building decision profiles. These are the same tools I use with my clients and students.

In an age where data is abundant and attention is scarce, these tools are not luxuries—they are necessities. They restore agency by giving users a structured method to define and live out their values.

Conclusion: From Confusion to Clarity

The evolving view of self-interest emerging in the modern Information Era marks a significant contribution to behavioral economics and moral philosophy. It builds on Adam Smith’s ethical foundation and Hayek’s respect for decentralized complexity, while addressing the blind spots of traditional rational-choice models. Rather than redefining self-interest, this perspective adapts and extends it—recognizing that in today’s environment of data abundance, fragmented attention, and shifting stakeholder roles, self-interest must be understood as dynamic, multifaceted, and contextually grounded.

• Self-interest is not selfishness.

• Selflessness is not irrational.

• Rationality is not one-size-fits-all.

And most urgently:

• In a world of information abundance, clarity is no longer optional—it is a prerequisite for autonomy.

We no longer live in a world where information is scarce and decisions are slow. We live in a world where managing our attention, motives, and trade-offs is the new frontier of personal and professional success.

Clarifying self-interest is not just an intellectual exercise. It is a practical necessity. It helps us design better systems, make better choices, and live more aligned lives. In the twenty-first century, redefining self-interest may be the most self-interested thing we can do.

Resources for the Curious

Explore these foundational and contemporary works to deepen your understanding of self-interest, decision-making, and the evolving cultural context in which they operate:

1. Hulett, Jeff. Making Choices, Making Money: Your Guide to Making Confident Financial Decisions. Personal Finance Reimagined, 2022.

   Introduces a practical framework for navigating complex trade-offs and includes access to the Definitive Choice decision-support tool.

2. Hulett, Jeff. “Adam Smith and How Choice Architecture Makes the Invisible Hand More Visible.” Curiosity Vine, July 9, 2023 (Updated October 24, 2024).

   Explores Adam Smith’s moral and economic philosophy through the lens of modern decision science and technology.

3. Hulett, Jeff. Disconnected Congregations: Why Churches Must Evolve in the Era of Data Abundance. Curiosity Vine, November 22, 2024 (Updated January 31, 2025). Explores how the cultural shift from data scarcity to data abundance has contributed to declining church participation, and highlights adaptive models like the Presbyterian Church’s Entrepreneurship Ministry as blueprints for faith-based innovation.

4. Hulett, Jeff. The Hidden Wealth of Time: Turning Challenges into Opportunity. The Curiosity Vine, 2023.

   Reframes time as an investable resource, drawing a powerful parallel between saving for the future and selfless actions as deferred consumption.

5. Rochefoucauld, François de La. Maxims. 1665.

   Offers a timeless exploration of human motives, including the observation that even virtues are often shaped by self-interest.

6. Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene. Oxford University Press, 1976.

   Argues that humans are vehicles for gene preservation, reframing acts like parenting as strategic expressions of long-term genetic self-interest.

7. Smith, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. A. Millar, 1759.

   Lays the groundwork for understanding self-interest, empathy, and the impartial spectator as foundations of moral judgment.

8. Smith, Adam. The Wealth of Nations. W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1776.

   Introduces the concept of the invisible hand and the idea that properly guided self-interest can lead to social benefit.

9. Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene. Oxford University Press, 1976.

   Argues that individuals are vehicles for genetic replication, reframing parental care and long-term self-interest through evolutionary biology.

10. Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011.

    A landmark work in behavioral economics explaining how cognitive biases and dual-system thinking affect human decision-making.

11. Hayek, F.A. The Use of Knowledge in Society. American Economic Review, 35(4), 1945, pp. 519–530.

    Highlights the role of decentralized knowledge and spontaneous order—critical to understanding the limits of centralized rationality.

12. Rand, Ayn. The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism. New American Library, 1964.

    Frames rational self-interest as a moral imperative, challenging altruism as incompatible with individual rights.

13. Sowell, Thomas. The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy. Basic Books, 1995.

    Critiques how elites justify policy through moral posturing, often masking personal or ideological self-interest.

14. Buchanan, James M., and Gordon Tullock. The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy. University of Michigan Press, 1962. Examines how individual self-interest plays out in collective decision-making, laying the foundation for public choice theory.