I decided to publish my writings on the blog too... this way, people can comment

Selfishness, for as long as generations of people can remember, has been remembered as something that each one of us possess, but rejected by society as a thing of negative attributes. I sincerely reject that idea, for that I think that every decision we make is based on how happy it would make us.

All of our decisions are based on what we think will make us happy (under the assumption that you wish to live a happy life, which will be most of us). There are, of course, many things that determine how happy a decision will make us, and the decisions are not made on how good the outcome is, but rather the particular individual’s ability to foresee the results of the decision.

Some decisions are easy, for example, a rich couple is handing out free money, no catch, no records. You would, obviously, take the money, for that the money can buy you things that will give you happiness. Unfortunately, not that many things I life are that obvious. For example, if the couple mentioned above was giving $5, while they need a record of your phone number and social insurance number. Well, then you have a problem. Would you take it or not? Real life is often more complicated than that, and more likely that not, you would have more than a positive and a negative option; you could, in the above example, give them fake numbers. There are many factors contributing to your decisions, all of which are based on happiness.

Most people think that when you think about your own happiness, you completely forget the benefit of others. That is not entirely true. Humans begin to become attached to things the moment they are born. When people begin to become attached to things, we also consider the benefits of the people/group they become attached with. The more you become attached to somebody/some group, the more you consider their happiness. Of course, the opposite may happen; if you hate somebody, you consider you may damage them, for that their pain causes you happiness (or not, depends on you conscience).

Most decisions have consequences; this is the main factor in making decisions. I cannot think of even one decision in which there are no possible consequences. There seems to be two factors of consequences which affect your decision: the probability of consequences, and its severity. Different people take probability differently. If I was offered 1 million dollars, with a 1% chance of death, I would not take it. Some other person comes, and he/she will accept it happily. The severity is an equally important factor. About 70% of the world’s murder goes unsolved, but the punishment for murder is so sever that it stops people from doing it.

The other factor that concerns your decision is something that humans made in case consequences fail to halt decisions that are damaging to other people. The amount of conscience differs from person to person, and your conscience also differs depending on your sense of right and wrong. One person might think doing something is right, and the other person thinks that it is not. The general amount of conscience is normally changed as a whole, while conscience on a specific matter differs when you opinion of the matter changes.

The decision itself if made by weighing all three together on your own little scale in your mind: happiness, consequences, and conscience. If happiness outweighs the others, the decision is positive, otherwise, it’s negative. If you decide on an alternative, you weigh the alternative on the same scale and look at the results again.

That’s how the human brain makes decisions, which concludes the fact that we are completely selfish because all decisions are made judging form how happy the decision will make us.

yowsers!
» lcas on 2006-12-31 06:01:06

Extremely well put!
Would you mind if I make a reference to this in our NuTang forum philosophy thread? Hmdaswani and I have been mentally starved for new intellectual thoughts from NuTang Members. Please visit the thread sometime, your input would be greatly welcomed! Keep on writing and thinking!
» JMC on 2006-12-31 06:10:58

Extremely well put!
Would you mind if I make a reference to this in our NuTang forum philosophy thread? Hmdaswani and I have been mentally starved for new intellectual thoughts from NuTang Members. Please visit the thread sometime, your input would be greatly welcomed! Keep on writing and thinking!
» JMC on 2006-12-31 06:11:15

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