Moral self-interest

Democracy in America:

American moralists do not hold that a man should sacrifice himself for his fellow man because it is a great thing to do; they boldly assert, rather, that such sacrifices are as necessary to the man who makes them as to the man who profits from them. […] They do not deny, therefore, that each man may pursue his own self-interest, but they do their utmost to prove that it is in every man's interest to behave honorably.