Please note that I have no philosophy background.
I think a lot about how to live a good life. By “good”, I do not mean in the moral sense, but rather in the “selfish” sense. That is, what causes me to enjoy life the most, or, at the very least, to not resent life?
The obvious, naïve answer is hedonism. Depending on the definition of Hedonism used, I either agree or disagree. If you mean that everything people do should be for their own benefit, I agree. If you mean that the only benefit is pleasure, that is, those things that increase dopamine (video games, sex, TV, good food, etc…), I disagree because this perspective of hedonism assumes an incorrect model of a human. Humans require more than materials to be happy - they require connections with others, as well. Far from other people being a means to an end, other people are ends in themselves.
This is because the brain is wired for social interaction. There are a number of evolutionary reasons for this. First, in order to find a mate, humans must be a part of a society. Secondly, in order for offspring to survive, a mother needs to have a relationship with her child, and, ideally, with her husband. Thirdly, society provides safety.
The less obvious answer is altruism. I also disagree with altruism, because I think that being perfectly concerned with others causes people to become disheartened. For example, how many millions are hungry around the world? A great deal. So, the altruist may think that the correct thing to do is attempt to solve this problem. However, our ability to actually solve world hunger is very limited. In fact, it's unlikely that any of us will ever be able to make anything more than a tiny dent in the problem, even with maximal sacrifice. So, if I can't solve the problem, why even try to solve the problem?
Sure, from a purely utilitarian perspective, it is better for a person to do something than nothing. However, humans aren't programmed that way. We aren't just machines that will mindlessly work at a problem until it is complete. We can lose morale and even give up if the progress is not commensurate with the sacrifice being made. Therefore, the end state for many altruists is apathy - doing nothing for society, exactly like a hedonist.
My perspective is that the good you do for others should be proportional to how socially close you are to them. To illustrate this, I divide the social sphere into “rings of concern”.
The innermost ring (circle?) is the person that you are closest to - yourself. Before taking care of others, you should make sure that you are taken care of, to a reasonable degree. You don't have to always be working to solve the world's problems, it is okay to take time to think about yourself.
The second ring is your close family. This ring includes your spouse and children. You should be prepared to sacrifice to a maximal degree for these people, and you should treat them better and give them more consideration than to anyone else.
The third ring is your secondary family. This ring includes your parents and siblings. If you do not have a spouse or children, these people should get your top attention.
The fourth ring is your friends. These are people that you like and who like you.
The fifth ring is your acquaintances. While you may not be friends with them, per se, you still see them often enough. These include your coworkers and your neighbors, if they are not in the previous ring.
The sixth ring is your local community. Caring about your local community means being concerned about the homeless population, crime, food deserts, etc in your city, town, or region. To contribute to this ring, you might donate to your local homeless shelter, or work with underprivileged kids on their homework. Most importantly, you should be aware of these problems, and participate in local government, probably through voting, although it can be easy enough for non-career politicians to get into some political offices.
The seventh ring is your nation. Why nation and not world? I believe that a strong national identity can foster civic virtues better than a global identity. Furthermore, it is easier to make changes in your nation than it is in the entire world. You participate in this ring when you are informed about politics and vote in elections. You especially participate in this ring when you serve in the nation's civil service, including the military.
The eighth ring is the entire world.
One of the inspirations for this idea was attempting to see why people care so much about politics, especially on the internet, and if there was a philosophical underpinning to it. I concluded that Twitter activism falls into a “sweet spot” of altruism and hedonism, where the importance of the issue is high, and the required investment is low. The importance of the issues are high because they effect many millions of people. The investment is low because it is just sitting on a computer screen, right?
Wrong. While the monetary cost is low, the overall psychological/“social opportunity” cost is quite high. Constantly thinking about politics induces a state of anxiety. This is mentally exhausting. Additionally, it inspires a sense of apathy towards the world, because of how bad things seem to be. Finally, and most alarmingly it introduces a faux opportunity cost to all actions that aren't advancing “the cause”. If I take an hour off of Twitter to relax, that's an hour that the left/right are gaining ground in the nation-sized tug-of-war.
The problem is that, despite expending a large amount of resources, the individual has very little power to influence national politics. So, the part-time political activist is eternally spinning his wheels to help. Meanwhile, the person could be allocating those resources to much more socially useful goals. For example, we all know that homelessness is a problem, and we would like for it to not be a problem. However, homelessness is something that the Federal government is not well suited to handling. Instead, this is the job of local governments. Therefore, focusing on national politics reduces our ability to handle these important problems.
Now, let me be clear. I am not saying you should not care about national politics. You should vote and be informed about what is happening in the country. I am merely saying that we should temper how much we care about national politics, and not let it take more of a position in our lives than what it deserves.
This system is not perfect. I have a few problems with it, despite being the one who made it up.
The biggest problem comes when everyone applies this system. Some communities have more resources than others. For example, a city in America will likely have a much larger charitable budget than a village in Africa. Furthermore, even the poorest in America have a far higher pre-charity quality of life than poor people in Africa 1).
If we apply the principle of helping those who are closest to us first, we may be spending our resources on problems that are trivial compared to the larger problems. One million dollars spent improving the education of inner city kids could be spent overseas to prevent thousands from actually dying of starvation or being severely malnourished. In this light, it seems almost psychopathic to follow my ideas.
Frankly, I don't have an answer.