Not only that egoism has a widespread occurrance - simply put, it is the very only tool which keeps us alive. Every human action - and really every action - is driven by pure egoism. That way, every person is an egoist. Even Mother Theresa.
Huh? There are voices rising against this statement? You - dear reader - are not an egoist? Or at least you know someone who´s not egoistic? Don´t get me wrong but I hereby blame you being clueless. I will try to explain my point of view. But first things first. Actually, man is nothing else than a highly developed mammal. Deep inside mankind is tied to its naturally programmed instincts, its mind or its will to live - you name it.
With some self conquest we can put ourselves above our instincts. Despite a bad feeling we could do something on purpose although we do know that it likely will not be good on us.
I hear you ask: so, what´s bad about it? Apart from that: these are things which only involve myself. In interaction with others I can hold back my own wishes and make compromises. No. We have reached the point at which you´re wrong. You only think that you can hold back your wishes. But the truth is you´re acting constrained.
An example: briefly think about murdering a person which is a bar to you. Since this would be a reliable method of solving your problem once and for all, why don´t you do it? Firstly, it´s forbidden. If your society would gain notice of your murder you will be put to jail after a law suit. Your familiar life would be over and you would most likely lose most of your friends. This would be bad for you. Emphasis on you. Secondly, there is compassion. Even if this person has harmed you he has not deserved death. But before we continue this thought, a little appendix:
Finally - just look deep into yourself - compassion only rises from the fear that the same might happen to you. And if it happened to you it would be bad for you. So let´s better stop thinking about that murder. If nobody thinks about killing you for a chewing gum your survival chances are much better.
Let´s repeat our experiment with new parameters: there is no society. Imagine you were one of only two inhabitants of an island. Nobody ever teached you about good or bad. If you killed the other person there wouldn´t be any consequences because you were the only person on this island. Apart from that, due to the lack of moral you wouldn´t suffer bad conscience. And now imagine this person threw pebbles at you without stopping...
And now we return to the first paragraph. Even Mother Theresa acted egoistic. Of course, she´s done a lot of good things. But she´s done them only because she felt good about it. She´s done things for a better world. A better world for mankind is also a better world for individuals. Mother Theresa felt good because she did good things. But this fact makes her egoistic.
Note: I do not want to devaluate the merits of honored Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu (civic name). I feel deep respect for her. I have just chosen her because of her famous status.
Summarized, we only do things if we think that they´re good at the time of our decision. And this is pure egoism.
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Latest change of the current page: Austria 2009-04-12 23:07:47 / GMT 2009-04-12 21:07:47