Monday, February 13, 2012
2/13/12
Today we talked about the difference between self interest and being selfish. Selfish is when acting based on own self interest and being self interested is acting based on your own health. An example would be not crossing the road during rush hour so you don't get hit out of self interest, or not crossing the road to help someone in danger and being selfish. But then there is also different ways of acting selfishly by doing nothing when you should. We used the example of someone watching a baby drown and doing nothing about and not having to go to jail based on that action. Should the person that watched the baby suffocate have to pay the same price as the person that put that life in the water? Thinking about it, it doesn't take action to act selfish, being selfish can include doing nothing at all. We live in a society that we won't harm one another, but we won't go out of our way to help one another either. We use little sayings like, "I didn't mean too!" that make us seam less involved or that there was little that we could have done to help another when in reality we could have made a difference.
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Selfishness, actually, is better defined as wanting what is best for only yourself and always at the expense of someone else. Self-interest, however, is the interest in your own desires and benefits at no overall cost to others.
ReplyDeleteIn the lifeboat scenario, it would be selfish only to take the food without any consideration of the other person. If I have no concern for the other person I am selfish. However, if I do have interest in that person, but choose to eat the food because they want me to and because they won't it's only self interest.
Watching a baby drown is selfish only if saving the child comes to no or minimal expense to you. If you are very well able to save the child, it would be selfish. It would be self-interested if saving the child comes at considerable risk to you. As to whether or not the person watching should go to prison, I think so, if they had the ability to help and little or no expense to them and chose not to.