Is All Pleasure Selfish?

What If There Was a Child in Front of You?

If a child were standing in front of you, drowning, begging for you to help, would you help them? What if you were wearing really expensive shoes that would be ruined if you stopped to help the child? What if you had an important meeting to get to that you couldn't miss? Most of us would help the child without hesitation.

One life for one pair of shoes is a good trade... unless we cannot see the life. Unless the life is staring us in the face, "someone else will deal with it." But if everybody thinks that someone else will save the life, then nobody will save the life.

What If You Couldn't See the Child?

But now imagine the same child, with the same pain, same emotions, same family, same history, same everything, was in a different country. All you had to do was give up your expensive shoes to save them. Now, most people would no longer do this. Well, we may say we would, but we wouldn't. If you think you would, next time you go to the shoe store to get new shoes, buy a used pair and donate the difference in cost to charity.

A simple change of distance decreases a life's worth to us. A life 10 feet in front of me is worth exponentially more than that same life 1,000 miles away. Why? Inherently, we all believe in some sense that it is no longer our responsibility when we cannot see the life. If the child were in front of me, I would be the only person who could save this child, and they would die because of me if I did nothing. But that child starving in Africa? Well, someone else will donate food to them. They should have worked harder. That's just how life goes.

Let's say we admit that the decreased value of life is purely mental, and in reality, that life is worth the same amount whether they are 10 feet away or 1,000 miles away. Then, it is my responsibility to save that life, since if I don't, then someone will die. (If 1,000 people donate to save 1,000 lives, the 1,001st child will die without my donation. No matter the situation, the lack of my donation directly results in the loss of a life)

But this idea can be brought to the extreme.

Why do anything for ourselves, when we could be doing things for others?

The extra $2 we spend on soda instead of water could feed someone who has an empty stomach. If that person were in front of us, we may have given up the soda, but when the person is out of sight, not a second thought crosses our minds. Why buy soda? Why buy a phone? Why buy a new car? Why buy anything when the money could be donated?

But wait. This isn't just about money. Why should I spend time enjoying a hobby when I could spend the time advocating for those in need? Why get a job at a tech company when I could go into volunteering? Once again,

Why do anything for ourselves, when we could be doing things for others?

People Suffer For Free

People suffer for free every day. People are tortured, killed, raped, starved, drowned, bombed, every single day. They do this for no benefit to themselves or someone else, and through no choice of our own. But for us, our inconveniences mean something. The inconvenience of not buying candy results in someone who needs money getting it.

We trade our inconveniences to help others, when others face atrocities thousands of times worse for no benefit to anyone.

So, why allow ourselves any pleasure at all when removing a small amount of our own pleasure can result in aiding someone who truly needs it? You may expect me to give an answer. Something to make you feel better about choosing the soda instead of the water. But the truth is, there is no reason why we should allow ourselves pleasure. We have the privilege of living in a place like this purely coincidentally. We did not earn it, nor do we deserve it. What makes us deserving of Starbucks every day while others starve to death?

If I cannot find a reason why we should not allow ourselves pleasure, am I an advocate of removing all sources of pleasure in our lives? Well, clearly not, as if that were true, I would have sold the laptop I am writing on and donated the money to charity.

So why should we talk about this? Why talk about this when we are all going to go on with our lives, forgetting about those in need and those suffering? Is this all just to make ourselves feel bad for a couple of minutes, just to return to our cave of ignorance?

Hit The Bullseye, Don't Create It

Well then, what should we do? I believe that we should not create a veil of ignorance for ourselves. Living pleasurably is selfish; there is no logical way around it. But here's the thing, even if we cannot be perfectly moral, that doesn't mean we cannot strive to be moral. Every day, we throw a dart at a dartboard, where the bullseye is perfect morality. Each day, we know we will not hit the bullseye. Each day, we try to get closer to the bullseye.

Knowing we will never perfectly hit the bullseye is not a reason to ignore the bullseye at all, nor is it a reason to artificially paint a new bullseye around the place our dart actually landed. Each day we strive to be better, each day we improve.

We can admit our shortcomings as long as we know we need to change.

Never accept the status quo. Never say "I am doing enough" or "this is good enough." Always strive to do better and be a better person, even with the knowledge that you will never be perfectly moral or a perfectly good person. Intention is key. Someone who goes halfway and believes it is "good enough" upholds a status quo of ignorance that is more detrimental than someone who is only a fourth of the way, but intends to go all the way.

Keep pushing. Lay the foundation of your beliefs, and work each day to uphold those beliefs to the best of your ability. Live every day knowing that you will look back and be proud of the person you were. You do not need to be perfect; you only need to be better than you were yesterday.