What I have learned to believe either by force-unwillingly thrust upon us, as an expression of the outside environment-or by choice-as an expression of the inner forces that operate within us like our curiosity and attractions-may not be very useful with respect to fulfilling ourselves in some satisfying manner.
What we have learned that is useful and works to our satisfaction is still subject to change because of the changing environmental conditions.
Kant believed that, if an action is not done with the motive of duty, then it is without moral value. He thought that every action should have pure intention behind it; otherwise, it is meaningless. The final result is not the most important aspect of an action; rather, how the person feels while carrying out the action is the time at which value is attached to the result.
Our obsession with benefiting ourselves brings up the relationship between self-interest and morality. Deciding that a particular behavior is morally wrong in a particular circumstance is a value that can only be imposed by a self-interested being. A non self-interested being is incapable of conceiving of right and wrong in a moral sense. There is no such thing as moral right or wrong until there first exists self-aware self-interest. Right and wrong, in the perception of the actor, are defined by the ends that the actor’s natural instinct of self-interest guides her to embrace. The ends that we seek are always defined in the context of our self-interest and moral choices are always expressed in light of the ends we seek. We are not saying that morality IS self interest; nor are we saying that structures of ethical reasoning are synonymous with self-interested reasoning or motivation.
Mathematics provides a clarifying example. Nobody would say that mathematical reasoning and self-interest are the same thing. The structures of mathematical reasoning are independent of the phenomenon of human self-interested reasoning. However, all mathematicians always use the structures of mathematical reasoning in a self interested manner. Also, the only reason that mathematicians ever discover new mathematical structures is because they are responding to self-interested motivations. In the same way the structures of ethical reasoning are independent of the phenomenon of self interest. However, it is only by responding to self-interest that people embrace moral rules and ethical reasoning, and only through self-interest has any ethical thought ever been developed. So it is that our ethical thoughtfulness about moral right and wrong is born of and embraced through self-interest. Our self-interest is the foundation of our capacity to be moral. Our instinct to benefit ourselves makes our participation in moral choices possible.
That this instinct for self-interest may assert itself in minds that are ignorant, confused, twisted, broken and utterly unable to know what is truly good is a separate issue that does not negate the fundamental truth of Socrates’ insight that people never willingly harm themselves. Action based on ignorance still has the motive of benefiting the actor but lacks the knowledge to make good of that motive.
Question:
1. Have you ever committed a wrong action in which you did not seek to benefit yourself in some way?
Even motives of entertainment, stress relief or avoidance of anxiety count as seeking to benefit you. If you answer no, then your own life is a testimony to the truth of Socrates’ belief. If you answered yes, you must try to asses your answer. Did you really commit a wrong without trying to gain something...anything...from that action? If you commit any action, wrong or right, without a view to any end then you have done something extraordinarily rare. Completely motiveless actions are virtually unknown except perhaps in the case of disease or brain trauma. Even in cases of disease or brain trauma there is usually some kind of motivational context although it may be incoherent. It is highly likely that you have never committed a wrong action in which you did not seek to benefit yourself.
It is at this point that we come to an important clarification. Socrates did not state that doing wrong to others is ever right, but that the motivation for such actions determines the character of the will involved. Socrates maintained that people are never motivated to bring harm to themselves. Since Socrates believed that wrongdoing always harmed the wrongdoer, he saw all wrongdoing as a mistake in judgment or an expression of ignorance. This is especially true in cases where a life full of wrongdoing never physically harms the wrongdoer. Socrates believed that the most pitiable of humans were those who lived under the delusion that their wrongdoing benefited them. According to Socrates, the successful tyrant who is able to do great wrong for many years without ever being held accountable, was the most terribly harmed of all human beings. Socrates believed that doing injustice made us less just and diminished our character. For Socrates, the only harm in life comes through our own wrongdoing. When we see people knowingly doing wrong to others, they are not cognizant of the harm that their wrongdoing brings upon themselves. So it is that even the most flagrant examples of willful human wrongdoing, which may seem to contradict Socrates’ belief, actually confirm Socrates belief by being examples of our instinct to benefit ourselves misguided by ignorance. If all wrongdoing harms the wrongdoer and all people make decisions only to benefit themselves, then all people commit wrongdoing through ignorance and not through a will to do wrong.
I had a utilitarian, consequentialist reading of Nietzsche/didn't fully understand him which led me to a decade of suffering (i.e. a reading from the perspective that we should act in such a way that our actions will result in the greatest good for the greatest number of people). For Nietzsche, an objection would have been yet another example of mankind attempting to impose arbitrary moral standards onto a universe in which none objectively exist. Nietzsche was less interested in the imaginary moral constructs mankind might use to reduce suffering and more interested in discovering the truth of existence.
The universe has no perception of morality. I need to wary of external sources of virtues and have to come up with my own set of values and morals.
BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS / FINANCE
