Question

Instructions

Rather than living in chaos, danger, and the hostility of our neighbors, we find ways to live together. It isn't easy, but can we avoid doing so?

If everybody has self-interest in their own welfare and safety, then everybody also has self-interest in the welfare and safety of others. Self-interest involves community interest, and we must think about what we are willing to give up in order to get that safety and stability for ourselves, our families, our community, our nation, and even the world.

Thomas Hobbes and John Locke are just two examples of social contract moralists. Locke's philosophy helped Thomas Jefferson formulate the United States Declaration of Independence. We are interested in what it means to live together in an orderly way under a social contract.

1.) What is a time when you or someone you know of experienced a conflict between duty to self and loyalty to the community? What would logical reasoning say should be done in that case? Why that? What would an Ethical Egoist say to do? Why would they say to do that? Note what you feel is the best course of action.

Answer 1

What is a time when you or someone you know of experienced a conflict between duty to self and loyalty to the community?

A scenario occurred when one of my colleague Mr Vinod who recently moved to UK oxford hospital was posted for covid-19 duty. He was all taken a back as he never thought he would be facing such grim situation and on the other hand his whole family who were back in India watched anxiously various news channels and media to get a grip of the situation which their son would be facing very soon.

Under these circumstances Mr Vinod was under high peer pressure to return back to India and think about self. His mother was too upset by the hospitals decision to put her son and blamed God for untimely occurrence of global pandemic.

To top the cooking cake there was also announcement by the oxford hospital that they would not pay the nurses who joined recently and working under COVID-19 duties band 5 salaries but instead they would pay them band 3 salaries which were par less when compared.

Soon Mr Vinod had to make a choice between self and the community. I would have cursed myself if Mr Vinod had listened to me choosing self, as I was one among many who wanted him back home in India. Among all odds Mr Vinod courageously choose community that too which was foreign to him and his culture and is still serving various covid-19 patients at oxford hospital, UK

What would logical reasoning say should be done in that case? Why that?

Logically there is no answer for what should have been done as the situation and time were very overwhelming and times when you are seeing almost all your patient’s you care end up in coffins. Loyalty/allegiance is manifested paradigmatically in dutiful obedience with respect to institutions and their articulated obligations which would eventually lead to a improvement in the society.

Logically the emotional intelligence, value and virtuousness are key components that help in decision making capacities of the individual during due diligence.

What would an Ethical Egoist say to do?

The point of view according to egoist is that loyalty is something that seeks mutual self interest and benefits. There is a consensus rule that ethics will not make people more ethical. They feel reciprocity is found in social cooperation, which need not be named as loyalties, they argue that the characteristics which people represent as selfless gestures is just labelled as communal cooperation.

Why would they say to do that?

The ethical egoist represent their views because Social cooperation, optimally involving mutual agreement, trust, reciprocity and fairness, presupposes, minimally, no consensus other than the willingness to cooperate, comprising revisable agreement about the ends of, and the means for, such cooperation. Consensual social cooperation can take place in the absence of friendship, principled benevolence, compassion, or anything of the sort. Individuals or groups socially cooperate when, acknowledging relations of mutual dependence and realizing the augmented potential of collaborative action, they work together in order to produce results that are expected to be of some benefit for everyone concerned.

Note what you feel is the best course of action.

My argument with the egoist is if It must be admitted, that when some groups “cooperate” (that is, at least minimally work in conjunction), the impetus thereto and the benefits deriving therefrom are exceptionally one-sided. In general, the reciprocity of non-invidious social cooperation is primarily instrumental, in other words, “contractual”, a relationship that, in the most positive sense, calls for impartiality in the implementation of procedures, techniques and responsibilities agreed upon, but not necessarily mutuality in personal affiliation.

I argue that my views clearly states sacrifice and self interest are opposites of each other. I am more sceptical that loyalty has no boundaries and it has no religion its pure personal and it’s a choice that makes us human