Why be good?

[Ben Davis]

Since you haven't responded to my previous post, I'll try again.

Do you try to show up for work on time every day because if you don't you might get fired or lose a pay raise? We ALL act out of fear of the stick sometimes, don't we? Not always, but sometimes?

Sometimes yes. It's the 'Sometimes, no' that you should be paying attention to though because it means that there are reasons other than fear of authority which motivate ethical behaviour.

So, I have to steer it back this way: if (hypothetically) if someone is going to scratch and claw his way to the top of the company ladder or get elected president or seduce the hottest woman in the room, etc., and these things are in his best interest, why shouldn't he prove or exert his dominance by taking that job, that woman, etc. regardless of how he does it?

Once again, you've already been given the answer to this. I'm starting to wonder if you're reading the posts. It's because we don't act solely out of self-interest. Humans (most of us) have empathy, it's a result of our evolution as a social species. So we act with an awareness of the impacts our actions will have on others and, as equally important, the impact that others' actions have on ourselves.

Don't the strongest survive and weakest die off?

No. That's completely wrong. The 'fittest' survive. That means 'the most suited'. Darwin himself provided clarification that he observed it was generally 'the most adaptable' rather than 'the most specifically adapted' who survived.

And if it is in the best interest of the strongest individual or society or nation, etc, to subjugate another individual or nation in some manner, so what? 

It's not necessarily the case. Although history gives us plenty of examples where conquerors ruled by subjugation, there are as many examples where cooperation was the cause of social success. Humanity as a whole would not have reached the level it has if people, generally, acted solely out of self-interest and eschewed cooperation.

Why be good when outweighed by the advantages of being bad?

If you really think that being 'bad' is a more successful survival strategy than being 'good', then I'm glad you have a mechanism, however erroneous, that prevents you from acting on those psychopathic impulses. I hope you realise that psychopathies are experienced by a tiny minority of humans. The rest of us get the whole 'empathy' thing instinctively.