Is it 'selfish', as is sometimes indignantly alleged, for an MP - I'm thinking of the UK parliamentary system - to vote on a Bill according to principle when that principle does not follow the party line?

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It seems to me that to call an action selfish is to imply (1) that the agent was motivated solely or primarily by considerations of personal self-interest and (2) the action is contrary to the significant interests of others. (I add this second condition because I don’t think that we would be inclined to call a person selfish if, say, he worked on a crossword puzzle simply because he enjoyed the activity and the only harm that he caused to others was the distaste his friends felt at the thought of his indulgence in this activity.)

I can see why it might be contrary to the interests of a political party for an MP to vote against the party line, but it doesn’t follow that the MP’s action was selfish. If, for example, the MP opposed the party primarily because she believed that the party line was contrary to the interests of the citizens of Britain, then her vote would not be selfish because her act would not be motivated solely or even primarily by considerations of self-interest. In fact, she might have voted in the way that she did, despite the fact that she believed that it was contrary to her personal self-interests (because politically dangerous) for her to do so.

To address the worry that, despite appearances to the contrary, all human actions are really motivated solely by considerations of self-interest, see 362 and 914.

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