The Good of the Other: The Problem of Identification

Abstract

An attempt is being made to correlate the moral requirement “Contribute to the good of the other!” and various approaches to the question of what kind of life is best for a particular individual (the question of his/her well-being). The author proceeds from the assumption that the best life has an objective component, which can be divided into two parts. The first part includes the realization of various aspects of a full and perfect human existence. I. Kant tried to prove that promoting the perfection of another human being cannot become a moral obligation. The paper puts forward the thesis that Kant’s argument is, at best, a “slippery slope” argument and,as such, is based on excessive precaution. The second part of the objective component of the best life is related to the rational filtering of hedonic experience. The paper summarizes various forms of irrationality in in the realm of pleasure seeking and suffering avoidance and analyzes the ways in which they can be taken into a consideration by an agent trying to contribute to the good of the other. The author emphasizes that it is necessary to be very careful identifying another person’s irrationality in relation to his/her own good. The history of D. Kahneman’s concept of objective happiness is used as evidence to support this thesis. Over time, Kahneman moved away from the belief that people’s assessment of their quality of life based on “fallible memories of pleasure and pain” is a manifestation of irrationality (cognitive bias) and began to consider the pleasures and pains associated with the two selves of any individual (“experiencing” and “remembering”) as two equally important components of his/her well-being.