Good Pain Defined

 

Hedonistic ethicists suggest that humans are naturally built to gravitate to pleasure and to avoid pain.

 

That seems right but what these words mean is tricky to explain.

 

I would argue that enlightened self-interest is good, so pursuing actions that fulfill the agent’s enlightened self-interest are good pleasures, but those are not much the pleasures that he naturally seeks.

 

He may discipline himself to pray to God every morning but that is hard work, and it requires self-discipline and steadfast determination to pay homage to the Divine Couple. He learns to pray every morning until it is his unwavering custom, and then the effort becomes easier, as it takes not much willing to stop and converse with the Father and the Mother each morning. This communion with the good divinities is his duty but it is now his greatest joy, once he learned to enjoy this spiritual communion. It is a higher pleasure and a good pleasure that is good for him personally, and good for the community because a good praying believer is likely a moral person, and that benefits the community indirectly.

 

If a person steals, lies, steps out on his wife, or cuts others off on the freeway, it is in his self-interest in some cheap, mean way to so act, but this pleasure has an ugly, foul aura about it. It is not in his long-term interest to so act and he might end up in an accident, divorced or jailed for his dishonesty, so the long term pain may not be worth his indulging his immediate need for gratification. This bad pleasure is not worth it.

 

If he chases after bad pleasure, perhaps he is a heroin addict or drunk, and he feels intense pleasure immediately, but sick and empty when he comes down. This bad pleasure will wreck his life and perhaps kill him or land him in prison.

 

If he has a learning disability, so he had to work three times as hard as anyone else to graduate from high school, and then graduate from college with his business degree, his struggle and hard work would have steeled his character, making him resilient, strong, resourceful, and versatile. His good pain will have made him able to thrive as an adult, a business owner, as a husband and father.

 

To be morally unworthy is to act in ways that are wicked, hurting the self and others, while betraying the Good Spirits.

 

To be morally worthy is to act out of love for the self and others, so that all are uplifted by one’s choices and actions, and these behaviors will please the Good Spirits.

 

Now I have asserted that people are mostly born wicked, but still have some residual capacity to become good if they work hard at becoming good. It is a heavy lift but doable.

 

I define wickedness as hatred of the self (bad altruism or other-centeredness) more than love of the self (bad selfishness). A wicked person would be a child molester, a car thief, one that abuses another verbally and emotionally, ripping them to shreds by incessant badgering, gaslighting and putting them down for months or years.

 

Bad altruism is also group-living as a non-indivuduator, refusing to answer God’s call to stand tall, maverize, develop one’s abilities, and share one’s gifts with the world to make it a better place. The selflessness of these bad altruists also makes them very selfish in a bad way.

 

I define good selfishness as enlightened self-interest, where one self-realizes and takes care of one’s chores, duties and needs so that one is not a burden on others to be care for. If all people acted with enlightened self-interest, or, even going farther, by self-realizing, the community would be filled with rational, strong, individuators that would learn to cooperate and work out their differences calmly and reasonable, and that would be of great general benefit.

 

As a rule good selfishness leads to good altruism, or community benefit, and bad selfishness, where people group-live, but live like animals in the jungle, and do not work hard or develop their abilities, they find pleasure in misbehaving and seeking immediate self-gratification, but long-term they are failing to take care of themselves and the community, If enough average people so misbehave and make terrible decisions, the community will collapse in anarchy, poverty, and lawlessness and chaos.