I don’t know if it’s a matter of owing. I guess I believe in giving what I don’t owe if I see the need and have something to give. I’m not saying I always live up to that, but I try.
I’ve been the beneficiary of random acts of kindness as well as *personalized *acts of kindness, so I try to pay that forward when I’m able.
If you’re speaking of NOT doing something that would benefit me personally because it might harm the Greater Good, then I suppose I could say that every time I don’t cuss out a slow salesperson, or flip a finger at a rude driver, or throw my trash out the car window for someone else to pick up I am resisting my selfish impulses so that someone else doesn’t have to deal with my bad behavior.
Some people don’t give back a lot, for whatever reasons, but who other than a sociopath actually consciously holds the position that they are right to take take take and never give back? (Because obviously everyone takes from society too, although I guess a complete idiot might not realize that.)
Some people are too consumed with their own problems to give a lot, but almost anyone can give in *some *way, even if it’s just being kind, taking a little extra effort not to be wasteful, etc.
A libertarian, offhand. A Randian, definitely. Your average CEO would define his own aggrandizement as the greater good. Of course, CEO’s tend to be sociopaths to a greater degree than normal, so that might be a difference that makes no difference.
Sure, plug me into the collective. I benefit from the greater good, so I’m willing to do my share.
A lot of people, actually.
Is a person obligated to sacrifice their wealth, freedom, choice of career, spouse, friends or even their life because it’s in the interest of the “greater good”?
I would even submit that there is no such thing as “the greater good”. What does that even mean? Who determines it? There are 300 million people in the USA. Every action is not going to benefit everyone equally. It’s a meaningless expression.
I think in general people should minimize the harm they do to other people and maybe even help them once in awhile. But it shouldn’t be a mandatory obligation.
**silenus **, DeweyDecibel, and **Spice Weasel **say they are acting for the “greater good”, but they are not. They are simply pursuing careers that best meet their particular needs. If they really cared about the “greater good”, they would have become lawyers, consultants or politicians where they would actually have a greater ability to effect change to larger numbers of people.
Yeah, that’s the thing, even people who aren’t giving back in any way, still generally feel that they are, or at least that they should be.
A Libertarian or Randian who actually understands what they’re advocating and the implications of it (which a lot of them don’t) is definitely a sociopath.
I feel that doing things “for the greater good” is something a lot of us do without recognizing it. For example, I have on several occasions found people’s wallets, keys, cell phones, etc., in my life, and I always returned them to the owner or to the lost and found. I didn’t loot the wallets, use the keys to try to find a vehicle I could steal, or keep the cell phone for my own. I didn’t do it out of fear of getting caught, I did it because it was the right thing to do, even at times when I was economically desperate. People have done the same for me: returned my wallet when I’ve lost it. All this contributes to the greater good, of living in a society where people are honest and can expect honesty from others.
Contrast this with a place like Mexico, where you cannot send anything of any value through the mail because it will be stolen. It’s what the Mexican postal service does. When dishonesty exists on such a wide scale, life gets harder. Honesty is a gift we all give each other. Here in the US it’s expected, and not always recognized as the extremely valuable social commodity it is. We recognize how rare it is in the political world or on Wall Street, but we rarely think what life would be like without it.
So, honesty I would call a gift given for the sake of the greater good, and one that is generally very common and largely unrecognized.
Caveat: It’s not for the ‘greater good’ if you do it for a living.
I work in a prison, caring for society’s dregs, but I’m paid well for it. Though I could be making more in the private sector.
My uncompensated work with addicts, and my work for charities counts, at least IMHO.
I do think we have some obligation to the greater good, but I often think we’re best off fulfilling it sort of Adam Smith style.
As an example, I believe that someone who has the potential to be a surgeon is serving the greater simply by pursuing their talents - society benefits directly by the surgery performed and by having jobs tied to the surgeons skill. A surgeon can’t succeed without nurses and receptionists, and nurses and receptionists have work to do thanks to the surgeon. Everyone contributes to their fullest and they all fit together.
I still respect truly altruistic behavior, but I often think of it as unsustainable. Sure you can sacrifice your career to run a soup kitchen… but what if you made a fortune as a surgeon and then hired two people to run a pair of soup kitchens? Or, it’s nice that you gave a million dollars to help a thousand homeless people for a year, but what if you’d used that money to start a business so that you could hire a thousand homeless people for a lifetime?
I often make voting decisions based on the greater good. I’m thinking about all of the hundreds of city and state propositions and initiatives that I have to vote on, not necessarily the candidate choices. Sometimes I even think, “in a world where I had absolute power, there’s no way I would agree to this. But in this world, I can see why it would be beneficial to others, so I’ll vote for it.”
No. I do not owe anything to the greater good. I give freely because it’s the right thing to do.
I don’t owe anyone anything. There. I said it.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy doing nice things or that I don’t care about the greater good. I just don’t feel a special obligation.
Sure, and not for any namby-pamby altruistic reason either: I believe I owe it to myself to work for the greater good, as it does benefit me directly and indirectly. Besides, the greater good has done more for me than I ever put in, so in that sense I “owe” too.
Absolutely.
We are social beings. Look outside. Every car, street, bridge, building, governing body, security system, whatever is a product of individuals working together for the greater good. The evil ones are the ones that exploit those working for the greater good for their own enrichment.
Give back more than you take. Being given a chance to live a life means that you should make the world a better place because of the precious life you were given. If you can’t do that then your life has been a failure.
I think I have an obligation to do the right thing, whether it benefits me or not. Not only the kinds of things that Evil Captor talks about, but also, as an example, to draw internal attention to business practices in my company that might be a little shady so they can be remedied, rather than just going quietly along with them.
But I don’t think this is so much an obligation to the greater good as it is an obligation to my own character, so I don’t hate myself.
I don’t know if that is precisely what you mean, OP, because contrary to most of your threads, the intent of this one is not clear to me.
Roddy
I don’t think I actually “owe” anything to the greater good, but it turns out that way nonetheless.
I’m an artist, because after wasting decades doing other things, it’s my “calling” and makes me happy. But whenever I sell something (or give it away) someone is receiving pleasure from it. (But I sure wish my income as an artist were as much as half what it used to be.)
Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? 
I’ve contributed to the greater good over the years, but I’m more self-involved now. I don’t think any one person owes anything specific to the greater good, but it’s a good thing for society when people feel they do. I would say I don’t harm the greater good; I’m nice to people and don’t violate the social contract with theft or dishonesty. But I don’t go out of my way to volunteer or do good except for my own partner, friends, or family. I used to volunteer a lot for random causes, but these days my time is absolutely for sale to the highest bidder.
It would be nice if I could land a job that paid well and served the greater good, but I don’t have a degree so those opportunities tend to be unpaid. I have commitments and an unfortunately limited number of hours in any given day. And, well, volunteering doesn’t put food on my and my boyfriend’s table. We come first.
Ask not what your country can do for you,…
Everyone who said they don’t owe anything also said they do nice things anyway, so we’re probably just saying things in a different way. But to me, doing something for the greater good just means doing nice/positive/helpful things that don’t directly benefit you. I don’t see how someone could think they have no obligation to ever do that. You’ve been the beneficiaries of those actions many times and society would be a very unpleasant place (if there was even society at all) if no one ever did anything that didn’t benefit them directly. So why wouldn’t you be obligated to do your part? Not necessarily a specific thing, not EVERYTHING you could possibly do…but some things.