In
class, we talked about how there's the idea that desire is the drive for all
human activities, and that our desires are not always in our best interest.
It's an exhilarating thought that our ancestors, the original Homo sapiens,
traveled away from the comfort and safety of home into waters and certain
death, with no "rational" motive. Their desire to simply see what is
out there even though it would cost them their lives is not utilitarian at all,
but in the end, the Neanderthals, who were also intelligent and resourceful,
went extinct while the Homo sapiens with their irrational desires ultimately
became masters of the Earth.
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4 comments:
Desire is a strange concept. It could be a desire for something bad for us or just something that doesn't even benefit us at all. Why do we feel these urges? It makes me wonder whether these factors are innate parts of humans or just characteristics that we created for ourselves.
Maybe they didn't move because of irrational desires but because they had to, such as food, which to me would be pretty rational. I understand your point though about the utilitarian and how every thought process has to be a rational basis for pleasure. This is dumb rational (haha get it?) to me because I do plenty of things that do not help my condition or are rational. We humans are not machines utilitarians!
I think it's interesting this is what you thought of talking about "irrational desires." I don't really have the same idea as you. When I think of irrational desires I think about me craving a huge piece of chocolate cake or me wanting to watch Netflix for 13 hours straight. Both of these things bring me happiness in the moment but the next day I know I will regret it. I think that our ancestors moving around the world wasn't about just wonder, I think they had some need or reason to do so. I have no reason to watch 13 hours of Netflix, but it does make me very happy.
@Ashley It's definitely easy for us to just let the need for instant gratification take over and tell us to do things that would harm us in the long run. But if our brains tell us that we need to watch Netflix all night and ignore the Humanities test first period the next day, would you think that something separate from our logical thinking (i.e. our desire) is controlling us, or that we are doing what is logical to us and our logic is just wrong?
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