Why should a human being live right? (Self-Reflection)

Let’s find out why we should be good and why we should live right!

 

We have heard countless times since we were children, “Children, you should live a good life!” There is an unconscious feeling that we should live rightly, as if we were brainwashed without questioning why we should live rightly. So, why should we live right? What is right and why should we live that way? Let’s look at why we “should” live right, not why we do right.
There are many kinds of wrong behavior. From things that are strictly prohibited by law, such as murder and robbery, to things like not giving way to a pedestrian, or cutting in front of people who are clearly waiting, we usually consider it wrong. One of these behaviors is very common in college. It’s called free riding, and it’s the practice of getting a spoon in a group assignment without doing anything. But why does it happen?
There are many reasons for free riding. Here are three of the most common ones. The first is when someone has a task assigned to them, but they don’t do it, so someone else does it for them (willingness denial), the second is when the division of roles in a collaborative task is unclear, so they get buried, and the third is when someone gets sick or is unable to do their assigned task due to circumstances beyond their control (ability denial).
Ideally, the best way to prevent free riding is active cooperation, where everyone voluntarily finds work to do, but this is nearly impossible. Therefore, introducing institutionalized methods of enforcement increases the likelihood that members will fulfill their assigned share. This enforcement has the net effect of preventing members from deviating through repression. However, it also has the reverse function of instilling negative emotions such as stress due to oppression and the feeling of being forced to do something they don’t want to do, which can reduce the efficiency and quality of work. Therefore, to prevent this reverse function, it is necessary to instill a positive image of the obligation to perform one’s assigned share, which will naturally trigger motivation and increase the efficiency and quality of work. It’s a bit like dealing with a horse and hitting it with a whip when it misbehaves, and giving it a carrot when it does what you ask.
The “carrot and stick” method is a way of enforcing accountability and motivating team members to do their share of the work, preventing free riding and improving the efficiency or quality of work. Once a person has failed to fulfill their assigned quota, has been disloyal to the group, or has done something that negatively affects the group’s activities, they are given a stack. Each stack has a different penalty based on a pre-determined rule. The penalties should not be personal punishments, but penalties that can positively impact the team. For example, a stack of 1 gets the team sweets at the next group meeting, a stack of 2 gets coffee, a stack of 3 gets rice after the group meeting, and so on. This stacking system reduces free rides at group meetings, and it also instills a sense of responsibility in the team because if someone does take a free ride for personal reasons, they’ll pay for the number of times they’ve taken a free ride, rather than a single harsh punishment, which will remind them to be more careful next time. For the rest of the team, it can also be a good incentive to meet their quota, as they can see that if one person piles up and pays the price for their earlier behavior, they will eventually get a positive material and mental reward, such as something tasty for themselves. In this way, coercion can be used to improve the efficiency of work and the quality of output.
So why should humans live right and not engage in selfish behaviors like free riding? In the book The Emergence of Altruism, a theory called the group selection hypothesis is introduced. This theory extends the traditional view of natural selection from the individual level to the group level. Especially in a species like humans, where interactions within and between groups are important, the group selection hypothesis is a more accessible way to answer the question of why we should live right.
Imagine, for example, that everyone in the world is programmed from birth to act altruistically. People would do good deeds for each other, spontaneously help others in need, make concessions to each other, and always be considerate. Now imagine that one day, a mutation suddenly creates a single person, A, who is not altruistic at all, but only selfish. A would use the altruism around him to pursue his own self-interest and not do good deeds for others. Again, we can make two assumptions. The first assumption is that altruistic people are altruistic to the end, and the second is that altruistic people can learn from the behavior of selfish people and selfishly pursue their own interests. In the first assumption, as a result of A’s selfish behavior, the people around him are too exhausted to help him, so he moves on to another group and slowly destroys that group. In the second scenario, altruistic people learn from A’s selfish behavior and become selfish themselves, seeking to pursue their own interests without regard for others. Gradually, the ratio of altruistic people to selfish people increases, and eventually the world is filled with selfish people. The most important thing to remember is that selfish behavior may benefit you in the moment, but if you find yourself in a predicament, you won’t be able to get help in a world where everyone is selfish. In the end, this selfish behavior will lead to self-destruction, and compared to a society with only altruistic humans, it will be on a path of decline, as people are more concerned with preserving their own lives than improving society.
According to the theory of group selection, the higher the proportion of individuals who exhibit altruistic behavior, the more likely they are to be able to withstand environmental changes and other trials, and the more likely they are to be the last group to survive natural selection. In addition, even if there are selfish individuals, if they do not abandon their altruistic behavior and keep it until the end, the group is more likely to survive than a group in which selfish individuals have acquired selfish behavior. In this way, even if there are selfish people around, selfless behavior, i.e., living rightly, increases the chances of survival of the group to which one belongs, and the whole human race in general, than if one does not live rightly. Therefore, it is necessary to live rightly for the survival of humanity.