Question

Although Hobbes believed that we are all egocentric and self-centered, I constantly see people in the world bending over backward to help others. A great example would be of a story I heard on the news. The minor details escape me at the moment, however, the gist of the story was that a young entrepreneur was attempting to secure some funding for his business when he was rejected by the bank. For some reason, he took this very personally and set out to randomly ask people to do things like refill his completed lunch order, just to see if he would continue to get rejected. To his surprise, dozens of people willingly assisted with numerous requests he made, and some even went above and beyond.  Not every situation went his way, but like the young entrepreneur, I see more people throwing concern for their own personal benefit to the wayside, and aiding those in need. To that point, would you say that people in power have the same kind of helpful mentality as strangers approached on the street, or do you believe, like Hobbes, that regardless of their level of authority, people are only interested in their own selfish desires?

Answer 1

Personally speaking, I would say that the mentality of the person depends largely on the personal characteristics of the individual irrespective of the fact whether the person is on power or is a stranger. The values and the moral conduct of a person drive the behavior of an individual. There are people on power who are self-centered and egocentric like Hobbes said. However, there are still people on the management team who go an extra mile to help others climb the ladder. The story about the young entrepreneur was not successful in all his stints; however he found success in majority of the strangers. This is because individuals differ in their characters irrespective of the fact if they are in power or not.