I believe that the reasons humans make the decisions they do, whether they be good or bad, is because of a hedonistic trait of humans.
Most, if not all, humans are hedonistic by nature. A hedonistic life is one that is devoted to the pursuit of pleasure and self-gratification. So, people will always make a decision that gives them the most self gratification possible. Of course, most of us are limited to the amount of self gratification that we will pursue because of the law and other repercussions for doing something for your own self purpose that you should not be doing because it affects others.
Many people do not care about the law or the effects their decisions have on other people. These people are looking for self gratification the matter who or what it hurts. They will lie, cheat, steal, hurt, or kill to get what they want for themselves. People really are a greedy bunch but it takes to really bad criminals for us to see the worst of it.
Look at what drug users will do just to get drugs for themselves. They will sell their bodies as prostitutes, steal money from their family, or rob from people at gunpoint. They will do anything possible in order to get their next hit, no matter what they have to do to get it. This is a very hedonistic behavior but it is also brought on by addiction. Still, many people recognize that their drug addiction is the problem and try to get help for. For the most part, I think that people, who know they have an addiction, will still try to cheat and steal from friends or family but try to hide by not doing it in a violent fashion. Either way it is still hedonistic behavior.
Children and parents are also hedonistic. Children will want to buy things, such as clothes or video games, without regard to the effects on society. Often times, they will tell children that they cannot have something and they will have a tantrum until they get it. If you tell them about the poor people in third world countries dying every day because they are not able to eat, many children will not care. They just want their own self gratification to matter how they get it or who has to suffer because of it.
Good parents will try to curb their children from getting everything that they want, even if they can afford it. It is good to make the children work for what they want but even then they are only doing it for self gratification purposes, not because it’s the right or best thing to do.
There are bad parents out there who tried to make sure their own children get everything that they want. This spoils the children and creates an incentive for them to continue to ask for what they want without regard to who it will affect.
A case in point is the old cabbage patch kids dolls from the 80s. They’ve were the popular and hot item for children at the time. I saw a news report with footage from a checkout line at a store selling the dolls. At the front of the line was a lady with a doll and her child was beside her. All of sudden a woman further back into line with her child comes up behind the other woman with the doll and tries to rip it out of her hands because the store was all out of dolls. The woman did not care about what was right or wrong as long as she got her way and bought the doll for her own child. This is what happens when a person becomes to hedonistic and only cares about themselves.
It is a sad thing to say but most people will only do things to benefit themselves. Even when people do good things for others, most of them are still doing it to benefit themselves in another way. Maybe they do it as a way to make themselves feel better about their actions. Some religious people do it because they think that it will give them a better place in heaven or the afterlife. They might be doing it for others what they are also doing it for themselves.
