The Human Condition

Imagine... A world with common mannerism, a planet with equal resource distribution, where environmental destruction and social inequality hold the highest punishment. This world has been imagined countless times throughout history, unfortunately the majority that have created history and present day society have been gravely mis-educated. This has led to values, ethics, and overall societal culture to disintegrate. But there is still hope, we can still change directions through logical initiatives; initiatives that promote environmentally sustainable economics, environmental stewardship, and social equality.

The human condition is a unique condition. No other species on Earth experiences it, so it has become almost impossible to define due to the fact that we are not able to test any other species to compare to the human condition. But it is not completely impossible to define the human condition, many philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, and historians have defined the human condition in different aspects. We will be defining the human condition using values, both intrinsic and extrinsic values. But first we must define some key terms that are foundational to explaining the human condition.

Procedural Utility: The pleasure an individual experiences from doing something, not just from owning material possessions.

Prisoner’s Dilemma: A paradox in decision analysis in which two individuals acting in their own best interest pursue a course of action that does not result in the ideal outcome.

Free-riding: The situation in which an individual enjoys the benefits of a public good without paying a share of the cost of its provision and maintenance.

Extrinsic Incentives: Incentives that are externally derived to promote desirable behavior.

Easterlin Paradox: A key concept in happiness economics. Has to do with the level of income related to level of happiness.

Now that we have defined some key concepts regarding the human condition, we can now delve further into examples regarding the human condition. To begin, when humans camp in the outdoors it is expected of them to leave the camp spot clean and in as good of shape as when they left. This is an intrinsic incentive, because if someone were to leave a camp spot worse off than when they arrived they would experience the social scorn from other members of society along with a possible monetary fine. But some members of society feel that they are entitled to whatever actions they see fit, causing disturbances abound these members are responsible for a majority of the world’s problems. So to deal with these actions we may create extrinsic incentives for the individuals that do not believe in intrinsic incentives. These extrinsic motives could be like offering free camping to individuals whose camping spots were inspected after a stay and were found to be in the same shape as when they arrived. This motive would cause people to clean their camp spots to the same level as when they arrived, which would decrease the cost for them as the camp spot would be free for use. The same could be done on the other end of the spectrum that when a camp spot is left worse off then initially the fine for such an act is tremendously more, leading more individuals to want to clean the camp spot after use to avoid the substantial fines.

Now personally through these extrinsic motives it would not change the way I leave a camp spot, as I believe in intrinsic motives and I enjoy practicing ‘leave-no-trace’ camping practices when I camp in the wild. Unfortunately this is not the case for a majority of individuals in the world, but as Mahatma Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” So only time will tell if humans choose intrinsic motives over extrinsic motives. Now extrinsic motives can result in negative outcomes all the time, a great example is a study conducted where participants performed IQ tests. One group was paid for each correct question (extrinsic incentive), while the control group was not paid at all for the test (intrinsic incentive). The result was profound, the researchers found that the group getting paid for each correct question performed considerably worse than the control group receiving no monetary gain. This example brings to question the true incentives that drive individuals to succeed.

Now successful economies abound have not managed to survive solely based on intrinsic incentives for individuals, but I also believe that economies based largely on extrinsic incentives contain individuals that are too far separated from society, which can lead to internal competition that benefits no one. I believe in an economy that concentrates more on intrinsic incentives and less on extrinsic incentives, because studies have shown that satisfaction and happiness have very little to do with annual income levels and material possession. This means that an intrinsic valued society has the same if not more satisfaction and happiness than a society that concentrates on extrinsic values. Along with higher levels of satisfaction and happiness an intrinsic valued society has lower costs as not everyone demands some extrinsic incentive for their actions. I believe the two extremes, pure capitalism and pure communism have their benefits and losses, which is why I choose to transcend both paradigms and accept both as plausible systems that can provide concepts to provide the highest level of satisfaction and happiness.

The human condition is intriguing and brings to light some dark questions, but if society may transcend the multitudes of paradigms each their own partisan competitor; the human race may ultimately realize that there are positives and negatives from each paradigm, and through transcendence we may utilize each positive and discard the polar negative to once again thrive like past ancient civilizations before us.

Thank you for your interest, please comment and subscribe.

Onward,

Hayden van Andel