Conclusion on Selfishness

Chapter 2, Section 5: Conclusion on Selfishness

Although there are reasons that we shall believe selfish is human nature and unmodifiable, yet from the perspective of economic science this really doesn't matter. What's important is selfishness is treated as a postulate and we shall not argue on that starting point. Whether such a treatment is viable in explaining human behaviors, depends on whether the refutable implications derived under this constraint together with some others can pass the tests against facts. In this game of scientific dialectics, we cannot deem human selfish sometimes while not the other times, because that would mean we cannot derive any refutable implications.

Handled in this way, the postulate of selfishness does exhibit amazing explanation power. Probably in the future some genius may propose another one that replaces selfishness but functions better. As of today we haven't had such a thing, so the postulate of selfishness still has to be sticked to. This is not stubborn, it's just some rule of scientific methodology that we need follow.

If human nature is selfish (yes or no only God knows) and can't change, then should any ism be based on human selfishness can be modified, its system and policies would definitely fail. It's the experience of past China. Nowadays in this world, believers of such a selflessness become fewer and fewer, yet they still usually get exploited by some selfish guys for strengthening the latter's power and interest.

There's another important question, which is: if human's selfish nature could be modified, and the modifier omnipotent, what would he change human into? To say that nature modifiable doesn't tell us what man should be. Like a melon and cabbage? Like a computer? Or Frankenstein? I don't know what the readers would think of it. I just intuitively feel that a man as selfless as an angel would actually look more frightening than a selfish one.

In Chinese cultural tradition, the word "private" ("si" in Chinese) never means anything good: to carry something and escape privately (xie dai si tao), to give and take privately (si xiang shou shou), to seek private interest only (zi si zi li), etc., are all belittling usage of "private". After thirty years of reform and open-up, great progresses have been achieved in mainland China, yet private enterprises are intentionally called "citizen" enterprises, where the usage of "private" is avoided. How about in the western world? There "private" is respected. Why there is such a big difference between the two is elusive to me. For the translation of "private" into Chinese, by no means can I find any other except for "si". As is said, the selfishness here only means "to seek maximum private interest under certain constraints", which, as a postulate, has nothing to do with personal value at all.