Better

The notion of better is troubling to me, philosophically. A state, object, or direction deemed better or worse should rarely be at the hands of anyone other than oneself.

A company is geared for a better tomorrow, a better world. Is being happy better than being sad? Surely not always, as times and settings are rarely equivocal when it comes to somber versus gleeful attitudes. Is being fully satiated better than being hungry? Again, to some extent sure. This relates quite directly to my deliberations on nuance.

But quaffing on certainty around ‘better’ is most troubling: Are you certain you know what better is? Given the context, do you even have adequate context to make a judgement at all? Are you certain you know what better means for me? Now and always? How permanent is this decision that you are making, and on behalf of whom?

I’m not requiring these considerations be exhausted with each and every decision, surely intuition plays its role most keenly here. But it’s not at least ignoring many modern instances where an intuition is under-developed and cataclysmic externalities stem from ignorance of the above considerations. Perhaps an original saying, or by one much wiser than me:

Man’s greatest vice is to control others or the natural world without control of one’s self. This is the great delusion of mankind and the true personification of Vice.

So to think you or I know better. Surely we are capable, but are we certain we do, when we act like it?