Profit as the Goal
20 Aug
And why wouldn’t it be, profit is what makes the business world go round and what gets you that ferrari. (If that’s what confirm’s you’ve made it, even if it’s just for yourself.) But could it be that profit is not worth striving for in the long run? What if profit is just our current scorecard and only justifies its strive for it because its the only scorecard we have? I could be on the wrong track here, because clearly the strive for profit is the result of the events that have formed our world in the past few centuries, but I’m thinking stuff will keep happening and the world will change some more in the time to come.
Still, I think there is some middleground to be found. In the past, profit was there, ofcourse, but there were multiple other goals; honouring your god(s), bringing honour to your name/family/parents/father/mother or just provide for your tribe by bringing home a deer you’ve killed to be eaten. Sure enough, money seems to have replaced all these values, the few values we have left are remnants of the in my little world dominant christian background. Ofcourse some people still bring home money just to feed their family.
While we are sort of changing (evolving would imply this is a good/bad thing rather than just a change) towards a stage were money is just the best means to the goal we strive for, wether its happiness, material posession or some kind of transcendence. I still think its going to stick around for a lot longer. But that does not in any way mean we should just accept the current train of thought as written in stone.
It’s definitely not money that makes the world go round, it’s the effort people put in. For money ofcourse, but what would happen if you would think of another incentive?
Als antwoord op deze post en “Social Profit”, de verschillende insteken:
Plato, Aristotle: Virtue_ethics
Virtue theory is a branch of moral philosophy that emphasizes character, rather than rules or consequences, as the key element of ethical thinking.
Kant: Principle-based:
An approach to ethics that focuses on theories of the importance of general principles such as respect for autonomy, beneficence/nonmaleficence, and justice.
Mill: Consequence-based:
A consequence-based approach to ethics gives priority to the value we attach to the results of actions.
Utilitarianism:
The theory that the right action is one that maximizes utility.
Hobbes: Social contract
Thomas Hobbes viewed the state of nature as a “war of all against all,” and, for Hobbes, the fundamental purpose of the social contract is to establish order and provide security.
Dewey: Pragmatism
“Many people assume that means we must look for moral criteria: some list of rules or principles whereby we can distinguish good from bad and right from wrong, or a list of virtues we try to inculcate. Utilitarians tell us we should promote the greatest happiness of the greatest number.”
Pragmatists: Practice is primary; theories serve practice; they are instrumental.
En als laatste Plato’s virtues:
Wisdom comes from exercising reason; Courage from exercising emotions or spirit; Moderation (sometimes “temperance”) from allowing reason to overrule desires; and from these Justice ensues, a state in which all elements of the mind are in concord with one another.