DANIEL TAMAYO DE LIMA

The “doctrine of interest rightly understood” is exposed by Tocqueville as a moral solution to the political dilemma of new democratic societies: how to make indiviuals, usually concerned only with their personal self-interest, to be occupied with public affairs, in a way that protects their liberty and avoids the formation of a despotic state. This work intends to expose that doctrine and the notion of interest inscribed in it. For that purpose, we need to explore Tocqueville’s notions of political society, what he understand as “liberty” and, finally, how it is possible to sustain liberty in a society rooted in equality.