A reflection on instinctive choices.

Untangling the rationality behind human choices has always been an intriguing field. Adding my personal reflections to this theory I would like to focus on choices made instinctively in particular .

Maximization of Self Interest - A philosophical outlook.

Maximization of self interest -
This idea of maximization has been widely endorsed by utilitarians and criticized by Amartya sen in his political philosophy of capability and development and not maximization of interests as the indicator of freedom. What I propose is a different perception of "interest" itself and not restricting it to only material objects. An idea of interest would be all encompassing , ranging from materialistic greed to altruistic philanthropy. Very certainly men have reason to do acts of such moral worth that may not necessarily reflect materialistic gains , but other non tangible objects , such as contentment , joy of giving , pride of superiority , gaining worth in glory . In championing the idea I would like to clarify that it's certainly not a new idea to flow across human community. Human interest has ranged from satisfaction of ego, satisfaction of physical wants , glory , material wants, fulfillment of duty, knowing the secrets of the world, fighting against the injustices of world, and so on. It is to be noted here that although with the increase in the faculty if human knowledge , new ideas may evolve which would render this idea useless, nevertheless. , the idea doesn't falter in it's essence , even in adopting to a different faculty of knowledge , they are adopting only better prospect or rather furthering their own interest.

Vested Interests

Vested interests - means a set of rights of enjoyment , or , a group seeking a social system for their personal good. In psychology , vested interests is a method to index the consistency of choices among different groups that represent respectively , high , low and medium vested interests groups.

Balcony

A balcony - it is one of the most important part in a house. Why ? From a balcony you can sit tight or stand casually and watch the world go around you . It moves around you and gives you the philosophical sense of being the master of everything around you . You can watch them and muse over the rightness and wrongness of passerby's acts . They are in so much of hurry, they are in so much of tension . And while you watch them , you can gloat yourself at being beyond those petty worried humans or may be lesser humans as well.

YMI (Yeh Mera India)

Yeh Mera India , is an honest attempt to film a microcosm , of country, of everything that has been at the heart of an Indian . The movie had a similar voice to , Bable, another great flick that showed how different cultures and races are clamoring for a confused set of idea, none too sure . But it's here, that YMI fails. It gets didactic , preachy, opinionated. And , of course , ending is far too much abrupt, unrealistic.

Rightness of Wrong

Rightness of wrongs - for every right step/act/method there are numerous wrongs, at least in popular perception. While eulogizing democracy we never fail to add the caveat that " rights of minorities " have to be taken special care of, shouldn't we then by the same analogy infer that,being in minority is no measure of being inferior,especially if we adhere to the idea of universal justice. That a "right" act bears sweeter fruit shall be no measure of bias against wrong.

Rationality - What and Why

Does reasoning and thinking provide the rightful solution ? Is rationality absolute ? Can we depend upon rationality to guide our morals and ethics and out motivations? To gain an insight into the matter we need to define rationality first and distinguish it from reasonableness.

Intellectuals

And the question of intellect versus non-intellect surfaced again. Should a non-intellect consider itself to be at a lower level than an intellect? Intellects identify solution to the problems and make the world a better place to live by the use of their faculty of reasoning and thinking. It considerably affects the lives and actions of non-intellects, yet of what use is the "discovery" of an intellect of there are no "non-intellects". Both an Intellect and a non-Intellect need each other, they are both dependent upon each others existence.

Where and why does the comparison come into the picture over here?

Moments that Change lives.

In claiming that Mahatma Gandhi was the one that got us freedom we undermine the efforts of millions of other nationalistic workers. One can very easily attribute the cause of an effect to the event that occurred last in the long chain of events that constituted the cause like demolition of mighty British empire. A common analogy proposed for my argument goes somewhat this way: when a laborer strikes the rock and its sundered apart in multiple pieces, its not the last blow which alone did it, it was the series of blows which made fine dents into the structure of rock and ultimately led to rock being split into pieces.