Friday, February 8, 2013
Ethics and Egoism
Imagine, for a moment, a world in which all people act only out our pure self interests. What do you think would happen? I would suspect that there would be more violence and less compromise over various issues. I do not know if anything fruitful would come out of this way of living. Acting out of self interest forgets the "other", yet the other still plays a part in one's action. Are we ever free from the "others"? By deciding to take an action that you think is in your own self interest, is it not an interest possibly related to and stemming from the society or culture you are in; therefore, is it not "others" who govern our actions, rather somewhat indirectly? Everything may indeed be outside of us and not from us. Can things be truly from us? What do you think?
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To answer your question, no, I do not think that it is ever possible to be free from others, for one of the attributes of a human is to be a social being and therefore, whether we recognize it or not, we are shaped by our fellow human beings and to a much larger extent, our culture and environment. However, I do think that every human has the capacity to make a choice to do or to think something that is not necessarily a reflection of one's culture. For example, one cannot ever really know another person's thoughts or understand another's direct experience and in this way, things can be truly from us and not from culture per se. We also have the ability to disregard what society tells us is right, which demonstrates that we have free will to choose our own destiny. As the phrase goes, we are part of the world but we are not of the world meaning that while we are indeed part of the material world, we are not necessarily of the material world by nature of our capacity to not be constrainted to nature by way of the mind.
ReplyDeleteI believe that there is a difference between acting out of self-interests and acting out self-preservation. (We'll use preservation because I can't think of the word that I actually want) But in my opinion, and individual acting out of self-interests, is doing whatever is necessary so that their wants and desires are achieved. A person acting out of self-preservation is doing what is necessary for them to be the best individual that they can be by addressing their needs. Call me crazy, but I do think that there is a difference. If everyone behaved in a way such that everyone executed actions that were oriented in such a way as to essentially "be the best person they could be" I feel as though that would be beneficial to society.
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