We should not be
aiming at what happens to please us, or cause us to avoid pain, but at what is
right.
Ah, but whas IS right?? That becomes the key question. With, of course, why.
I think you take too narrow a view of "please us" and "avoid pain." I may very well accept pain when I think it is in my best interests, for a variety of reasons. I recall once playing soccer in sneakers, dumb move but it was a pick-up game and I didn't have my soccer shoes, and breaking my toe when I cleared a ball and on my follow-through rammed the opponent's shinguard. It hurt horribly, but I kept on playing, hoping the pain would subside since I didn't then know whether it was broken or only bruised. I have never analyzed the reasons why I kept playing, but I think it was because I was still enjoying myself despite the pain, because I wanted to prove to myself that pain couldn't stop me (I was young and virile at the time, unlike today), and probably for lots of other reasons, all based ultimtely on self-interest.
Going to the doctor or dentist is another good example, and was an even better example before anisthetics -- undergoing significant pain for the hope of long-term benefit.
So it's not just a matter of pleasure centers.
And as we both know from raising children, we often do things to benefit our children which we otherwise wouldn't consider doing, and which make us defer or eliminate the possibility of doing other things we would like to do.
But in the end, I do agree with Rand, that what pleases us in the comprehensive sense of that term as she uses the word selfish IS what's right. There is no rightness that isn't justifiable by self-interest. |
