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In general I agree with your argument, I just think there are a small percentage of actual sociopaths in the world (I've met one). > I'm not sure what you are

In general I agree with your argument, I just think there are a small percentage of actual sociopaths in the world (I've met one). > I'm not sure what you are calling the premise and what you are calling the conclusion. But in general, I think that acting in your own self-interest actually results in cooperation with others and not victimizing other people. So we need to be arguing for more rational self-interest. We need to stop making the typical "moral" arguments that amount to, "If you want to be good, sacrifice for others; if you want to be happy, sacrifice other people." That is a completely horrible argument that will never result in anyone being good OR happy. Sorry for not being clear here. I meant the premise is "Trust is a common good" and the conclusion is "sacrifice for the 'common good' and be good, or help yourself and be evil"

javert 13y ago
To answer your question about rejecting the premise because I don't like the conclusion... I actually agree with the statement "trust is a common good." The problem is, people often assume that esablishing a "common good" is something that requires self-sacrifice from individual people. That's not true in general, and certainly not true in this specific case. Why? Trust is _also_ an individual, personal good. Lying, cheating, and manipultaing people is not a viable way to live a sustainable, happy life. So, if it's going to be said that "Trust is a common good," I just wanted to add, "... and also a personal good." That's why I said the person's point was a "bad way to look at it." Really, it's just an incomplete way to look at it and possibly misleading, given people's typical assumptions. Anyway, thanks for the chat and it's nice to know that we have some common ground here.