Social good and Individual good essay

The conflict between the social good and individual good emerges. Basically, the conflict of individual and public interests is quite natural but individuals often face difficulties with setting priorities. Traditionally, individual interests turn out to be more important than public ones. As a result, individuals neglect public interests and pursue personal success, wealth and well-being. More important, they do not think of consequences of their short-run success. In fact, short-run goals seem to be more achievable for individuals and they often turn out to be prior to long-run goals. Obviously, an individual would more gladly accept the prospect of short-run success and wealth, instead of a long-run achievement of the social well-being. For instance, an individual can make an invention that has a negative effect on the environment but can bring the individual considerable benefits and wealth. As a rule, individuals choose short-run benefits and wealth, instead of a long-run prospect of the deterioration of the environment and its negative impact on the society.

In fact, private interests cannot bring to long-run positive effects because they are destructive in their nature. Individualistic interests lead to the neglect of the public good. People pursue their private interests and forget about long-run consequences of neglecting the public good. They are not willing to understand the fact that their pursuit of short-run benefits leads to destructive, long-run effects on the entire society and contemporary civilization. Instead, they prefer short-run benefits, even if the entire civilization will vanish in a long-run perspective.

On the other hand, public interests remain hostile to individuals, who prefer their personal interests to interests of the society. In fact, the priority of public interests to private interests of individuals is hostile to the private market philosophy. Individuals cannot accept the idea of sacrificing their interests for the sake of public interests. Such philosophy is destructive in a long-run perspective.

However, individuals should sacrifice their egoistic interests for the public interests because, in a long-run, public interests will match interests of each individual. In fact, such sacrifice is essential for the survival and the further successful development of the contemporary civilization. The compromise between private market, individualistic interests and social interests is essential for the balanced social life. An individual cannot be absolutely happy and successful in the society, where conflicts comprise a norm of the social life. An individual cannot be happy and successful at cost of oppression of interests of others. The persistence of the private market philosophy will lead to the decay of the contemporary civilization because today this philosophy puts under a threat the survival of the mankind.

Thus, taking into consideration all above mentioned, it is important to place emphasis on the fact that the private market philosophy is hostile to the socially conscious philosophy, such as the environmentalist philosophy. However, the environmentalist philosophy focuses on long-run goals and well-being of the society and the entire planet. In fact, socially conscious philosophies focus on the long-run development of the society but individuals prefer focusing on short-run goals and the private market philosophy turns out to be ideal for them, although this philosophy is destructive for the environment and society. Hence, people should consider long-run consequences of their current philosophy and look for options to change the situation for better. The change of the private market philosophy to the socially conscious philosophy is the first step toward salvation of the contemporary civilization.