Essays on collectivity - 1 - Selfish decisions
March 19th 2007 23:25
Hey all,
these next posts i'll be talking about collectivities, of how do people behave in societies...i got interested in the subject because with ethics we can explain some interesting conclusions made by important men in these last centuries, especially in economics..
The first thing i'd like to do is to talk about a little example that can introduce us the subject. It concearns the guy who throws away his empty pepsy can in the street, instead of searching for the right place for it...when doing this, he's actually solving his problem, the problem that he has an empty can to get rid of. The thing is that he's solving it in a selfish way. You can see that he's betraying a unformal contract with people (actually it is quite formal since he can get a fine for doing this..).
And with this action his spliting his problem with everyone around. Since he's throwing away his cans in the street, people will have to pay more taxes to pay a guy to pick up his cans..he's taking the selfish action, solving his things easily but putting the weight in peoples backs..
Ok, now it's is time to make an inevitable analogy with the theory of the one of the greatest economists of all times, Mr. Adam Smith. According to him, in economics, the best results come when everybody thinks about themselves, and less control is applied. I think you can get the picture of the analogy, considering my last paragraph..
Anyway, I consider his ideas way more realistic than Marx's (at least for people of our time), but in a way he got it terribly wrong. And it is not me that saw it, it was an american guy in the 40ies. But we'll get to him later.
The philosophical side comes now: the main ideas on ethics that we consider to be the good ones (at least the ones that would be the best to follow) are worthless if they are not "natural" for human behaviour. I can't agree with Rousseau and Kant if they state in their theories that men are "anti-natural" animals, for me this is obsiously untrue, and thus can't be followed.
In the same way, i don't agree with the Nietzsche/Greek way of saying that men are divided when born, and there's a class that has to dominate, another to be dominated, and not by men's work, but for their capacities. For me it is shure that work is an important thing for people who succeed, and thus the ideas of "harmony with cosmos" and "right place" are bullshit...
So, it's the time to put our ideas in test, and see what we have in the end. But for now, let the guy throw his litter in the streets...
cheers. Uula
these next posts i'll be talking about collectivities, of how do people behave in societies...i got interested in the subject because with ethics we can explain some interesting conclusions made by important men in these last centuries, especially in economics..
The first thing i'd like to do is to talk about a little example that can introduce us the subject. It concearns the guy who throws away his empty pepsy can in the street, instead of searching for the right place for it...when doing this, he's actually solving his problem, the problem that he has an empty can to get rid of. The thing is that he's solving it in a selfish way. You can see that he's betraying a unformal contract with people (actually it is quite formal since he can get a fine for doing this..).
And with this action his spliting his problem with everyone around. Since he's throwing away his cans in the street, people will have to pay more taxes to pay a guy to pick up his cans..he's taking the selfish action, solving his things easily but putting the weight in peoples backs..
Ok, now it's is time to make an inevitable analogy with the theory of the one of the greatest economists of all times, Mr. Adam Smith. According to him, in economics, the best results come when everybody thinks about themselves, and less control is applied. I think you can get the picture of the analogy, considering my last paragraph..
Anyway, I consider his ideas way more realistic than Marx's (at least for people of our time), but in a way he got it terribly wrong. And it is not me that saw it, it was an american guy in the 40ies. But we'll get to him later.
The philosophical side comes now: the main ideas on ethics that we consider to be the good ones (at least the ones that would be the best to follow) are worthless if they are not "natural" for human behaviour. I can't agree with Rousseau and Kant if they state in their theories that men are "anti-natural" animals, for me this is obsiously untrue, and thus can't be followed.
In the same way, i don't agree with the Nietzsche/Greek way of saying that men are divided when born, and there's a class that has to dominate, another to be dominated, and not by men's work, but for their capacities. For me it is shure that work is an important thing for people who succeed, and thus the ideas of "harmony with cosmos" and "right place" are bullshit...
So, it's the time to put our ideas in test, and see what we have in the end. But for now, let the guy throw his litter in the streets...
cheers. Uula
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