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Human Beings ARE NOT Selfish | Here’s Why
Let’s start this blog off with a thought experiment.
Rational or Irrational – You Decide
Imagine a scenario where you catch a taxi, and just when the taxi driver isn’t looking, you’re able to make a run for it and not pay for your ride. You can totally get away with it – the taxi driver doesn’t seem like he’ll be able to catch you. He’s not Usain Bolt after all.
So why do you ignore this temptation and pay your fare?
A free market economist would argue that you are acting irrationally in this situation. The claim is that we are all programmed to act selfishly and it would be more rational for us not to pay our taxi fares and run away instead.
Free market economist point to our actions’ hidden rewards and sanctions to explain why. These are the costs and benefits that have an impact on us in the long term, whilst it might not be immediately clear in the present day.
The reason you might want to pay for taxis is because you don’t want to build up a reputation as a fare dodger. If you had such a reputation, the word would spread and the taxi driver community would most likely shun you. This might mean you would never be able to get a taxi again.
However, this still doesn’t make complete sense because in order for the tax driver to be able to spread the word about us as a fare dodger, he would have to chase us down, take our photo and send this to all taxi drivers in the community. His taxi would also be left completely unattended in the meantime. Furthermore, if the taxi driver was a completely selfish person, why would he have the taxi driving community in mind? Why should he help other taxi drivers by doing all the dirty work and tracking this fare dodger down?
The truth of the matter is, it is somewhat true that we are all selfish to a degree. Otherwise, our species would have gone extinct by now (that’s evolution for you). However, most of us do have a moral code and have the ability to empathise with others (apart from sociopaths – they don’t have this quality). That’s what makes us human – we are pack animals, much like other apes and canines. We also pay for our taxi ride because we have standards like honesty, honour and respect.
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