Morality is another one of the numerous dualities we have in life. It changes and shifts from person to person throughout different cultures and societies.
I was sitting the other day thinking about the battle between good and bad.
How do we try our best to differentiate them based on our own moral codes but it doesn't just end there, we also try to differentiate between different types of good, hence the word "greater good."
This implies that there are indeed things we consider "lesser good", I'll be talking about this philosophy and how it affects us in different ways.
There are different scenarios in which we use this philosophy, not every instance is bad but it does get extreme in some cases.
For instance, when faced making a choice between the lesser of two evils. making such a decision even though both options are bad, gives both choices the potential of becoming the greater good.
On a larger scale, we can imagine the impact of making such decisions as it determines what happens to a group of people.
We can see this evident especially in the business world, recently given the scandal with Apple company, they were caught purposely slowing down older phone models in the name of extending battery life.
That could be a valid reason but it gives room for the user to doubt the company as a breach of trust is broken. Now, it becomes easy to imagine that the Apple made such a decision based on profit from selling faster new phone models.
We also see this philosophy in our democratic politics in various countries, sometimes the citizens are forced to pick between two bad and flawed candidates.
A lot of political decisions have been made by leaders through this philosophy, A lot of scandals are birthed from this idea. especially when the subject comes to the truth of the issue.
The idea of the greater good gives us the chance to play a god role in peoples lives because it determines the overall outcome of things.
Most times the subject in such cases will not appreciate the outcome of the greater good philosophy, this brings us back to the morality topic. It's possible that what I deem as the greater good might not seem so good to everyone else.
One of the results of the greater good philosophy is Sacrifice, sometimes we choose to go through hard times for a promise of a brighter future. We deny ourselves the good of today, for the greater good of tomorrow.
A good example can be found even here in steemit, some people choose to leave their steem assets in hope of a higher appreciation in the future.
Surely, it won't be bad to cash out your hard earned steem but the greater good philosophy through sacrifice chooses not to.
Another result of the greater good philosophy falls on a grey area called white lies and omission of truth, sometimes we also hide the truth in an effort to seem more sociable and not to be hurtful to our loved ones.
For instance, your spouse asks you how he/she looks in an outfit or how a cooked food tastes. 9/10 times we choose to give a compliment even though it may not be our true feelings about the outfit or the food.
For the greater good and esteem of our relationships we choose to tell a lie, so we can see a smile on their faces.
Thanks for reading friends, What do you think about this philosophy and how has it affected your life.
I observed that the greater good philosophy works best when we are the ones determining our own fate but when that power shifts to someone else, it leaves room for a lot of hurt because morality can shift and differs from person to person.
Determining a greater good on someone else behalf might not turn out pretty when the subject finds out the whole truth.
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