Mar 31, 2008

Maximizing Utility doesn't mean Human being is evil.

One of my Korean friends said that Human being is evil. For example, when he gives some money to a beggar, the purpose is not for making the beggar better, but for satisfying himself. He said every good behavior has a purpose to make himself feel better, not someone else. So even when a person does good behavior, he is evil, because it is a result from his selfishness.

According to this logic, the reason why a mother can sacrifice her life for her child is that she is selfish. She just tries to maximize her 'Utility.' Eventually, there is no behavior, which we can call 'Good', because all of them are result of selfishness and maximizing of their happiness. Finally he concluded Human being is evil.

First of all, the way to explain it, using the term 'Utility,' is the way to transform from Mental activity to Material activity. It is a kind of Materialism. It changes everything to a certain number of calculations.

Here is my question. If Human being is evil, why does the Utility increase when they do GOOD or sacrifice for the others? In other words, why do people feel happy when they do GOOD behavior, not BAD behavior? Using the same example, if a person is evil and selfish, when he donate his money to a poor person, his 'Utility' should decrease, not increase, because he must be selfish.

Some people might want to oppose, with insisting that a GOOD education system or GOOD law system is the reason why people behave good. Education system makes people feel guilty when they do bad or social system forces people to behave good, so that the utility increase only when they do good. Then, again my question is here: why has EVIL human being developed that kind of GOOD systems. Evil person must make EVIL system, not GOOD system. If you think any systems such as law, education or social fame are evil, not good, then you must face my first question again: why does the Utility increase when they do good, unless Human being is good.

Now a day, it becomes quite common idea that Human being is evil and selfish, although none of philosophers or psychologists has proved it. As I have found, lots of economists have addressed the bad behaviors of Market to EVIL Human instinct. They always emphasis on the advantage from Market, but they never admit the disadvantage from the Market. They say all bad results from the Market come from the evil Human basic instinct, not from the Market itself. The Market is innocent, and Human being is always guilty.

Their example that Human basic instinct is evil is usually a experiment using a baby. They say, in a certain BAD situation, even a baby gets intention to kill the other baby for food. But I want to raise a question, why do they ignore the opposite example that in a certain GOOD situation, even a baby might get intention to share their food. Their behavior comes from its environment, not from their instinct. In addition, it doesn't make any sense that a baby can represent basic characteristics of Human. If it is possible, I can say since a baby bird cannot fly, all birds cannot fly. Rational thinking is basic characteristics of Human being, which a baby haven't developed.

Bad environment leads people bad, but sometimes human basic characteristics overcomes the bad limitation. Even if it is true in battlefield a mother abandons her baby, it is also true that some of mothers sacrifices her life for her child. In the contrast, good environment usually don't lead people bad. If we see a case that in a good situation a person do bad behavior such as fighting for enough food, killing someone else, we would think he is crazy or he need to be fixed in hospital. We don't think it is natural, or basic, while we think it is natural that a mother can sacrifice.

While it is hard to find any psychologist or philosopher who insists Human being is evil, it is quite easy to find lots of them who insists Human being is good. Famous some of them are Erich Fromm, Spinoza, Mencius and Ecarte.

No comments: