Oscar Galeana

11/8/2015
Peoples Morality is Due to Self-Interest
Why is a society moral. There are good reasons why people in our society today state
they do justified, good acts. It can be simple as just trying to be nice, or as complex as if it is
their life call and duty to help others as much as they can, most do it by donating their time,
money and resources. People also state that doing the right thing is just natural behavior for
them, that they could never perform an unjustified act. If you believe all these ideas, then you
could state that a reason a person is moral because its just who they are and who they were born
to be. However, I believe that is not the case. I am conflicted with this notion that a person can be
a hundred percent genuinely good without ever thinking what they can get out of it in return. The
reason for that is people tend to be selfish and only care about how they can benefit. This might
not be the whole reason to perform the moral action, some people from time to time will do good
acts just out of the kindness of their hearts, but the majority of people in society will be moral in
order to get something in return for themselves. However, there is another reason why we should
be moral, for the social stature it can give you. People are always thinking about how others see
them and wanting to be liked by others, doing moral actions will enhance your appearance.
Mostly people are and should be moral for social appearance and what they can get out of it in
return.
What is the number one fear people in society have: speaking up in front of their peers.
Why, because they are afraid of messing up and their social appearance being bad. No matter
how much people say they do not care what others think about them. Everyone does. It is not a
bad thing, I believe that it is a totally normal human behavior and reaction to have.

People try their hardest to be moral in order to get something for themselves in return.
For example, like when it's the first day of school everyone tries to act as nice as possible in
order for others to think they're a good person, so you can make a lot of friends. Also, when
you're at a job interview you try as hard as you can to act nice and moral in order to get the
employer to like you so you can eventually get hired. In order to get the job you're going to have
to be seen as a good person by whoever is hiring you, because they wouldnt want anyone cruel
or immoral working for them. So you must give that vibe that you are moral. As well as when if
you're trying to make friends. People want nice and good people to be their friends, so if you're
not seen as that in society likelihood is that you wont have as many friends.

People need to have a positive social appearance so they do moral acts in result of it. For
example, like holding a door out for someone, giving up a seat for an elder and even letting
someone cut in front of you in a food line. You dont receive anything physical from doing these
acts and you probably would of liked to sit down and order first in line, so why would someone
do them, but because you did do them you are seen by the person you are doing the moral act for
and the people around you as a good person, in result your social appearance goes up, and thats
what you receive in return. We see these types of moral acts all the time in our society, but they
never receiving anything in return so it must be because humans want to be seen as good and
genuine people.

People fear dying alone because we are social animals. Never being able to feel the love
of another person. This is hard and difficult to achieve. In society when we are seen as having an
unjust and bad social appearance people will often hate you and when people hate you how could
they possibly love you. So how do we as a society counter this, we try to act moral. We pretend,

in a way, and go out of our way to do good acts, so our social appearance in society will be seen
as nice and genuine. For example, when you help out a friend with their homework, or you let
someone borrow money for something they really need. These acts are done in order for you to
be seen as moral, theres no other gain to it, except for the social reputation you can get. In Why
Be Moral? by Plato, he states I will show that all men who practice justice do so against their
will of necessity, but not as a good ( pg. 535). Plato is basically saying that people have to be
moral in society. It is not a choice. If you want to have a good life filled with friends, laughter
and love then you will have to be moral in order for others to like you. So when people perform
moral acts their doing it for themselves.Moral acts are not done as a heartfelt action, that does
not have another goal other maintaining a good social appearance.
No moral acts are done unconsciously, because they are an unwanted necessity in life that
everyone has. Some peoples character and behavior that they are born with is not justified, some
people can be as immoral as they want, but not most because the majority of people try to act as
nice as they can. For example, when you meet your parents friends for the first time, you try to
act as genuine as you can get them to like you and see you as a moral person. If someone did not
have to be nice and could be as rude as they wanted to, without thinking about the repercussions
this could have on their life, I bet they would not want to, but no one wants that in their life, no
one wants to feel loneliness or sadness or feel like the whole world hates them. People in society
want to be loved, accepted and they need to have a good social appearance in order to get those
things. This why we should be moral to feel the love of others.
Now Im not saying that all people just dont care about others and just perform moral
acts in order to help themselves out. There are people on this world that do, from time to time,

moral acts in though of others. But the majority of the time people perform and should perform
moral acts so they can receive something as well.
This can be seen as not genuine, but that performing moral acts just so that you can have
something in return is being a fraud or being phony, but I dont believe that. Because it allows us
to be social. In Virtue by Colin McGinn he conveys Most people find it natural to act from a
variety of motives...they would like to do something for others, but they also want to do
something for themselves (p.98). We perform a moral act, its helps out someone else and
yourself at the same time. That does not make you impure because you want to receive
something in return for what you gave. Its a natural human behavior. So when you perform
moral acts to get something in return, like a high social appearance, it's completely natural.
Going on with that it not just everyday people that perform moral acts even companies,
perform moral acts to have a good social appearance and get something in return. For example a
company donates money to a cause like the national cancer research foundation or provides food
or clothes to the poor in a third world country. They weren't doing it out of the goodness of their
hearts they were doing it because they wanted the exposure that the news and people will give
them because they did such a moral act and hopefully it would help their products sales in return.
Companies pretend as if they they are a moral company that thinks about the well being of the
world, when they mostly just care about their social appearance and how it will help them.

This doesnt just happen in business, in government we also see this with political
campaigns. When the a presidential campaign, or a mayor campaign is going on we often see ads
about the people running and how to they care so much about saving the woods and ecosystem
or the helping out the poor or lower class etc. They say and promote those moral acts in order to
get a better social appearance with the people in order to get more votes in return. Same with

celebrities. Celebrities often promote moral acts that they do so people can like them more and
when they have a high social appearance more people will go and watch their movies or buy
their products in return. In religion we also see this as well. Some religions state that if you treat
others well and with respect in this life you will be rewarded in death in your second life. So they
feel as if they must act moral and if they don't have a good social appearance they wont get their
reward after they die.This is a natural action to have as a human and that has been going on
forever. To do a good action for someone else in order to get something in return. These moral
acts are done in order for society to like them.
So as you can see, society should be and is moral as it raises their social appearance and
from that they get rewards for themselves in return. People will argue that society should be do
moral acts out of the goodness of your heart and not look for anything in return. Well why cant
cant you perform it and also receive something in return. Its not hurting anyone to receive
something and you are still performing the good act.

McGinn, Colin. "Moral Literacy." Gerald Duckworth, 1992. Web.

Plato, Benjamin Jowett. "Why Be Moral." The Republic (1937): n. pag. Web.