 How do egoistic interpretations handle the many texts in which Shaftesbury attacks selfish theories of morality and human nature? Some have come to the exasperated conclusion that Shaftesbury is simply inconsistent, sometimes assuming egoism sometimes opposing it (Martineau 1886: 508; Wiley 1940: 74). Others have argued that Shaftesbury’s criticisms of selfish theories do not conflict with an overall egoistic interpretation. Grote (2010) maintains that when Shaftesbury attacks Hobbes, the voluntarists, and other “selfish” theorists, he is not attacking the view that self-interest is the only reason to be virtuous but rather is attacking the view that externally-bestowed rewards and punishments are the only reasons to be virtuous. According to Grote, what Shaftesbury means to show is that virtue has decisive “natural advantages”—that being virtuous will make one happier regardless of what anyone else may do to you. Shaftesbury’s opponents, on this reading, are those who claim that the relevant self-interested considerations are the rewards and punishment meted out by God or sovereign. The crucial contrast is between, on the one hand, the arbitrariness of the rewards and punishments of the voluntarist God and the Hobbesian sovereign and, on the other hand, the naturalness of the internal mental enjoyments that come from being virtuous—not the contrast between self-interested and non-self-interested motives.