Greed

The word greed is tossed around alot. When somebody says that somebody else is, "greedy", all that really is, is a subjective evaluation. It doesn't indicate if the person's greedy behavior is unethical or not, and it doesn't imply if their behavior is moral or not. It says more about the ethics of the person using the descriptor, and of their degree of entitlement, degree of envy, and their principles.

The goal behind this post is to propose the idea of redefining the term, "greed", so that it can be used as an objective descriptor. To define it in a way that if somebody were to claim that somebody's actions were greedy, that it would imply that their behavior is immoral, instead of leaving that open for determination. One must first accept the concept of objective morality in order to construct and apply a definition of that nature to the term "greedy".

Objective vs. Subjective descriptors for behavior.

An easy way to tell if an interaction is moral or not, is to remember that an immoral action is any action that violates the nonconsent of another individual.

Objective descriptors
-Describes behaviors.
-Not influeneced by personal feelings.
-Determines the morality of the behavior.

Examples: aggressor, defend, theft.

Subjective descriptors
-Describes behaviors .
-Integrates, requires, or invokes personal feeling, opinion, and or subjective evalution.
-Doesn't determine the morality of the behavior.

Examples: hasty, greedy, arrogant.

Commonly accepted defintions

Self interest: one's personal interest or advantage, especially when pursued without regard for others.

Self desire: to wish or long for; crave; want.

Selfish: (of a person, action, or motive) lacking consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure.

Greed: excessive or rapacious desire, especially for wealth or possessions.

Exposing equivocation due to ambiguously defined descriptors

Self-interest, self-desire, selfish, and greed have all been conflated. It would often be much more appropriate to use the word, "selfish", in place of "greedy" in most cases, oppose to equivocating, as there is a difference in my opinion.

As is, things are too ambiguous, equivocation is constant, and they're all left to subjective evaluation.

Greedy is commonly defined ambiguously and is used as a subjective descriptor. It leaves it entirely up to being a subjective evaluation, and or a mere opinion. Selfish is defined slightly more specifically in the sense that it specifies that a lack of consideration for others is required, but it still lacks the details needed to determine if a selfish action is universally an immoral action. As defined, a selfish action could be an immoral action, or a moral one; same thing with "greedy", and to me, that is a problem.

If a selfish act can be considered moral or immoral, then there needs to be a different descriptor to distinguish between the two to hault equivocation. I suggest greed to fill that void.

Greed is ambiguously defined and left for subjective evaluation. The commonly accepted defintion for, "self interest", is the more objective and fitting definition for, "greed".

Self interest should be defined how self desire currently is, and greedy should be defined just about how self interest currently is.

To me, and to most Austrian economist, self-interest is commonly erroneously defined, since, after all, all acts are in the self interest of the actor. The commonly accepted definition for self-desire is better fitting and will avoid equivocation; for that reason, I'll be using the term, "self desire", instead of, "self interest", when constructing my defintion of, "greed"; but I think it's important to point out the distinction between self desire(self interest) and greed, oppose to equivocating.

Important distinction:
All actions fueled by self-desire are not greedy(immoral), while all actions fueled by greed are out of self-desire, selfish, and are immoral.

Similarly, all selfish actions are not greedy actions, but all greedy actions are selfish actions.

Viewing "Greed" as an objective descriptor

Perhaps "greedy", or, "greed", should be redefined as:

Greed: (of a person, action, or motive)
When self-desires are valued more than that of respecting an individual's inherent rights.

That would make greed an element of only immoral actions, while rendering self-desire(self-interest) an element for all human action.

A greedy action is when an actor pursues their self desire at the detriment of another individual's self ownership.

That would make all greedy actions universally immoral actions.

How selfish, greedy, and acts of self preservation effect ethics and morality.

When you care more about your self-desires than respecting people's rights, you're greedy, and when you demonstrate that as true through action, you are immoral.

All selfish actions are not to be viewed as being a dichotomy between immoral or unethical. When you care more about resources than somebody's welfare, but you do not violate their rights, you're selfish, and probably unethical, but not neccessarily immoral, or greedy.

A lost man alone in the woods believes that is about to rain, so he seeks shelter. (Self preservation, moral, ethical)

A person in a monogamous relationship could be subjectively evaluated as selfish, by either his wife, or other men, for demonstrating his lack of consideration for them by setting the condition and or expectation that no other man is to sleep with his wife. (selfish, moral, ethical)

A person who knowingly sleeps with a women who is in a commited monogamous relationship, could be subjectively evaluated as selfish when he demonstrates a lack of consideration for the partner of the women when he sleeps with her. Though, he doesn't violate any body's non-consent. (Selfish, unethical, moral)

A rapist demonstrates that their preference is to fulfill their self desires over respecting the rights of the victim when they initiate the rape. (Selfish, Immoral, unethical, and greedy)

Recap:

• Self Interest and Self desire are the same thing.

• Self interest / self desire: The desire to elicit personal benefit through action.

• Greed: (of a person, action, or motive)
  When self-desires are valued more than that of respecting an individual's inherent rights (Objective descriptor)

• Selfish: Excessively pursuing one's personal interest while lacking the consideration for others. (Subjective descriptor)

• Greedy actions are universally immoral.

• Selfish acts are subjective evaluations

• You can be selfish while remaining ethical and or moral.