I am not claiming that aspects of my theory will bring about a utopia for humankind; rather, I am claiming that perhaps some aspects of my theory, (that is, what I state about each person recognizing her or his own fallibility in light of her or his own ‘totality of being’ ,) may be such that humankind can make improvements in terms of how we organize our societies.
To write about an ‘improvement’ requires that I have some standard toward which I am aspiring. That standard refers to what I would consider to be a perfect state of affairs in which there is complete happiness for every being with the capacity for suffering and pleasure, to the potential for happiness of every sentient being; and complete absence of suffering. There may be complete absence of suffering in the event that sentience no longer exists. However, as long as there is one or more sentient beings, I venture that total happiness likely will never exist.
One of the aspects of my argument is the premise that I have expressed as follows: the extent to which the perfect state of human affairs is approximated is commensurate with the extent to which each human being does what he or she deems to be maximizing her or his happiness in terms of what he or she deems to be the ‘totality of her or his being.’ An important part to the above premise is my idea regarding the distinction between (1) ‘subconsciously’ seeking one’s happiness; and (2) consciously doing so.
Also, I want to account for factors which bear upon the well-being of human beings as well as the well-being of other sentient beings, that are not directly related or not related at all to human activity. One of the points I have as I write this essay, is to state that how we as human beings conceive of ourselves has a bearing upon how we conduct ourselves; and, that conceiving of various experiences as being a part of one’s own mental functioning instead of part of divine inspiration, will have a positive effect upon the overall human condition.
So, as I finished word-processing the paragraph above, I think that the following premise may not be correct: the extent to which the perfect state of human affairs is approximated is commensurate with the extent to which each human being does what he or she deems to be maximizing her or his happiness in terms of what he or she deems to be the ‘totality of her or his being.’
If I must refer to how I define the perfect state of affairs to derive a conception of what I deem to be most closely approximating the perfect state of human affairs, I run into problems with the above stated premise.
I say this because if the perfect state of affairs would be the complete absence of suffering for all sentient beings and the complete happiness of each sentient being to the potential for happiness of each sentient being, my premise is not true, because there are factors which may bear upon happiness or suffering and which are not related to human activity, such as a meteor striking the earth and changing the earth’s climate to the detriment of various sentient beings.
Likely, there are other activities that are, at least to various degrees, independent of human activity, such as the activities of microbial life forms some of which cause suffering in the form of diseases in humans and other sentient beings. I am not sure about how human activity affects the incidence of earthquakes or hurricanes, but I venture that at least to some extent, phenomena such as earthquakes have causal elements unrelated to human activity.
Even if I accounted for how there is a consensus of scientists, to my knowledge, supporting the opinion that human industrial activity has been affecting the earth’s climate in the form of what has come to be called global warming; and that phenomena such as deforestation and other habitat destruction for non-human sentient beings, as well as many other species of fauna and flora, is a direct result of human activity, it still seems that I am overlooking some detail if I think that “the extent to which the perfect state of human affairs is approximated is commensurate with the extent to which each human being does what he or she deems to be maximizing her or his happiness in terms of what he or she deems to be the totality of her or his being.”
Human activity may or may not be the principle factor affecting the state of affairs for human beings, but it is not the only factor. So, strictly speaking, I do not want to claim that the extent to which the perfect state of human affairs is approximated is commensurate with the extent to which each human being does what he or she deems to be maximizing her or his happiness in terms of what he or she deems to be the totality of her or his being.
So, if I no longer maintain that premise, what do I put in its place?
Do I need to replace it with another premise? One thought that I have is that one of the reasons or perhaps the only reason, I came up with that premise was that I wanted to justify the process of me consciously going after what I want out of life. Perhaps, by having that premise, I enabled myself to think that I was somehow bettering others by seeking to benefit myself.
In terms of thinking of how to re-work my premise, it may be the case that I am better off to focus on clarifying with myself so as to communicate to others, what my ideas are concerning human motivation, using my own experience as a reference point. Perhaps a worthwhile purpose for this essay is explaining to myself, and then others, what I mean by being motivated solely by self interest.
Also, it may be the case that my belief in an idea about how the perfect state of human affairs is most closely approximated, resulted from me not applying my own ideas about what motivates me. What I mean by this is that my patterns of thought may have been such that I was still trying to have as my moral compass, so to speak, reference points outside of myself.
I haven’t worked out all the details but it seems to me that even if the causes of various phenomena are a mixture of human and non-human factors, this would complicate my premise about how the perfect state of affairs is most closely approximated.
Another thought that I want to mention is that the above-stated premise is a conclusion that I came to, in a manner that seems to have been intuitive for me. Maybe that which seems intuitive of me results from me putting my own features to the thoughts of others. I may have gotten the idea of the so-called common good resulting from the pursuit of self-interest from reading Adam Smith or hearing an instructor speak about Smith’s ‘invisible hand ’ argument.
I recall reading a passage from one of Smith’s writings- I think it was Wealth of Nations- in which he states, at least as I recall it, that the common good comes about by each person pursuing individual interests instead of by each person trying to figure out what would be best for the common good. It seems that, paradoxically, a person who subscribed to this idea would deem that he or she was working toward the so-called common good by pursuing her or his interests.
Another thought I have had about my premise about how the perfect state of affairs is most closely approximated is that it has seemed to me that I have subscribed to this conception as a matter of faith.
I have not succeeded in explaining through ratiocination, the causal process whereby the perfect state of human affairs is most closely approximated according to my premise. It seems that my idea is that- as far as the bearing human activity has upon the matter–there would be less suffering and more happiness, if more people consciously embraced the goal of having as their only priority making themselves happy.
During one attempt to explain these ideas to myself, I reasoned that each person was better suited than others in terms of knowing what is best for herself or himself; and that each person knows herself or himself better than others know her or him; and, consequently, each person herself or himself knew how to make herself or himself happy better than others know how to make her or him happy.
Explaining this idea gets complicated when I try to account for parent-child relationships or the relationships between care-givers and people who have come to be termed through current social science in the United States as being “Mentally Retarded/Developmentally Disabled.” In other cultures, similar terms may be used.
I thought of rephrasing my premise by stating that the extent to which the perfect state of human affairs is most closely approximated is commensurate with the extent to which each human being of ‘sound mind’ does what he or she deems to be maximizing her or his happiness in terms of what ….
I may have also further modified the premise as follows: the extent to which the perfect state of human affairs is most closely approximated is commensurate with the extent to which each human being of ‘normal’ and ‘completed’ bio-chemical development…
I would perhaps phrase it that way to account for the apparent fact that the brains of human beings who are, for example, in preadolescence, in most cases, have yet to attain a certain bio-chemical state from which will arise that person’s ability to reason on various abstract levels, so as to manage various impulses he or she has and so as to otherwise be an adult.
I find myself getting bogged down here, trying to delineate the features distinguishing an adult from a non-adult. To what extent is this distinction arbitrary? Making such a distinction may involve but not be limited to, studying the biochemical processes which occur in human development.
I am not saying that I think that my premise would be false, even if it were not for the fact that non-human factors affect the extent to which there exists suffering or happiness. I deem that there may be some way in which my premise could account for non-human factors which affect the extent to which sentient beings suffer or experience happiness.
Also I may be able to account for various states of mental ability because it may be the case that someone, who for example, is ‘mentally retarded’ so much that he or she would die if others did not assist her or him with some of the basics of living such as bathing, eating, physical security, and so on, is less able to consciously make a priority of herself or himself being happy.
I may be able to do so by qualifying my proposition as I had done earlier with the term ‘conscious’. By this I mean that I claim that the extent to which the perfect state of human affairs is most closely approximated is commensurate with the extent to which each human being consciously does what he or she deems to be maximizing her or his happiness in terms of what he or she deems to be the ‘totality of her or his being.’
When I first thought of this proposition, I conceived of two broad categories: one being the conscious pursuit of one’s happiness and the other being what I conceive to be the ‘unconscious pursuit of one’s happiness.’ I express my ideas about what it means to subconsciously pursue happiness, based, inevitably on my ideas about my own experiences, later in this essay.
I will set aside, at least for now, the question of the soundness of my premise about how to most closely approximate the perfect state of human affairs, in order to express another idea I have had with regards to that premise. The idea is one with which I question myself about why I thought that the premise was worth putting forth in the first place.
Why did I think that justifying my pursuit of my happiness was necessary? Though I thought about the idea of what I termed ‘enlightened self-interest’ in 1996 and 1997 in my writing efforts, I had somehow come to no longer have a sense of that idea, in terms of how I lived my life in the summer and fall of 1999. But, I recall, somewhat specifically, the occasion on which that idea became meaningful to me again.
It was Spring of 2000. I was determining what courses to schedule; and doing so involved me also deciding whether to major in Journalism or to major in Social Work. Ideas about me needing to ‘serve society’, if I recall correctly, were a dominant pattern in my thought processes during late 1999 and very early 2000. One afternoon I was talking into a tape recorder so as to facilitate my thought processes regarding what courses to schedule and whether to major in Journalism.
As I recall it, I was standing near the door of my apartment–perhaps positioning myself at that location in my home symbolized for me the interface between myself and groupings of people such as are represented in my mind by the terms ‘society’, the ‘world’, ‘humankind’, and so on. As I recall it now, it seems that this idea about ‘self-interest’ was like some object in the sky or some sound in the distance. As I stood by the door, looking outside but with my mind on matters other than that which I passively visually processed, I thought to myself, “perhaps, in the grand scheme of things, things are better off in the world, if each person does what they think will make them happy…”
Related to the above question about whether pursuing self interest leads to the closest approximation of a perfect state of affairs is the thought that it is a moot point whether or not pursuing my happiness was part of how the perfect state of affairs was most closely approximated. One possibility is that I have been concerned about how my choices connect to how closely the perfect state of affairs is approximated, through my empathy towards other sentient beings.
Perhaps concerning myself with how the perfect state of affairs is most closely approximated is somehow a part of my own happiness. This may tie into the idea I had that there may be a type or degree of satisfaction that requires me to empathize in a manner that transcends my immediate concerns and perhaps even transcends my own lifetime. There seems to be a certain sort of psychological liberation that I get from being concerned about others in such a way that I am concerned with matters that will or may occur when I no longer exist.
Related to me thinking that I may not in fact be concerned about how the perfect state of affairs is most closely approximated is the thought that , in terms of the grand scheme of how I am configured as a human being, I have no choice but to do that which I think will bring some sort of payoff for some aspect of my being. Perhaps, ‘conscientiousness’ is a psychological state that results from both, one, a person’s intention to get some sort of personal satisfaction that he or she is aware may result from her or his actions, and, two, a person’s ‘subconscious drive’ towards getting some sort of reward.
Perhaps related to various aspects of the question about the soundness of my theory about most closely approximating a perfect state of affairs is the fact that I determined that I could not figure out how to go about living my life such that my actions would bring about the most good for the most people.
A question I have regarding the premise about what brings about the closest approximation of the perfect state of affairs is whether it is possible for me or any other human being to have a practical sense of what brings about the closest approximation of the perfect state of human affairs; or a practical sense of what it would involve. A thought that I have is that all I can have a sense of is whether I am living up to my potential for happiness.
As I write this, it seems to me that there is some similarity of patterns of thought among what I conceive to be a utilitarian ethical system, a theological ethical system, and my former belief in how the perfect state of human affairs was most closely approximated. It seems that all three of these perspectives imply that it is possible to somehow act in accordance with doing that which brings about the most good for every sentient being concerned.
For an example regarding a theological ethical system, if I were to believe that the god I worship is all-knowing, and that this god ‘loves’ every being, then it would seem to follow that I would believe that there existed this sort of god’s-eye-view, so to speak, of everything that can happen and everything that does happen.
Another thought that I have is that the process of thinking about how the perfect state of affairs is most closely approximated seems to tie back into the pattern of utilitarian thinking and also the pattern of a sort of god’s-eye-view of everything that can and everything that does happen.
I am able to put into words the concept about ‘most closely approximating the perfect state of affairs’ but it seems that having a sense of what that entails is very difficult, if not impossible. An analogy that comes to mind is that saying that 50 billion of something is more than 45 billion of the same thing is easy, but making sense of that difference can be very difficult.
Mathematics seems to me to have been a means by which human beings have gotten a sense of that which we have difficulty dealing with by way of using written or spoken words. Maybe through some mathematical means human beings may be able to have more of a sense of how to most closely approximate the perfect state of affairs.
Another thought which occurs to me is that concerning myself with bringing about the closest approximation to the perfect state of affairs can have value to the extent that it is a means whereby I maximize my happiness.
Another thought which concerns me about the utilitarian idea about doing that which brings about the greatest good for the greatest number, is that, it may be a mode of being more akin to a computer than to a sentient being. The problems with utilitarianism are that (1) it is, at least thus far, not possible to know the total story, so to speak, in terms of all the outcomes of every action as well as all the causes of current or past actions ( which would be important for determining how to cause to happen or prevent from happening various phenomena deemed to be desirable and undesirable ( according to whose standards?);
(2) even if (1) were possible, perhaps doing or attempting to do (1) would contravene one of the, or perhaps the defining feature(s) of being a human being and perhaps one of the, or the defining feature(s) of nonhuman sentient beings also : the relationships which exist among human beings and other sentient beings whereby, for example, individual human beings, generally, relate, individual to individual and via conceiving of herself or himself, consciously and ‘subconsciously’, as being a part of various groupings of individual human beings.
Regarding (2), I deem that human beings inevitably form, consciously and ‘subconsciously’, ranking systems in terms of what ties to other human beings we value more so than other ties we may have. We may not have a sense of these rankings unless we are forced, heartrendingly perhaps, to act on them consciously.
In some cases some individual human beings may act in a manner such that he or she places greater value on the well-being of a large number of people he or she is not emotionally close to, than on the value he or she places on the well-being of a single or some smaller number of people with whom he or she is much more emotionally close. But many will do the opposite.
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