Part 1: Core Ideas

This article summarizes the core ideas that I think an individual should hold. My basic view has several layers. Some parts look modern and liberal, while other parts look conservative, so it has often been hard for others to understand it as a whole. In this article, I clarify the innermost layer: how each person should think about the self. After writing it, I also realized that this view is practical and can greatly increase the happiness of both individuals and groups.

This is the first article in a three-part series. The three parts cover core ideas, how to deal with the inner layer of one's network, and how to deal with the outer layer of one's network.

Purpose and Principles

The highest purpose of my thought is this: to make myself, the people I care about, and the people they care about happy over the long term, across both distance and time.

People are connected to others not only by blood, but also through love, memory, values, and inherited stories. In that sense, the self extends outward. When I say "myself," I do not mean only the body I live in. For this reason, the happiness of the people I care about is not opposed to my own happiness. Their happiness directly becomes part of my happiness.

Because of this principle, duty is rarely the reason for action. I help people close to me, or people I care about, not because of responsibility or obligation, but because I want to. The basis is voluntary will.

At the same time, I value the dignity of others in human relationships. But this does not mean non-interference. Each person is bound to their own body, so we cannot truly share the same sensations. Because of that, in important relationships, I accept active intervention, persuasion, and conflict.

In other words, each person's will is the root of everything. Institutions, property, states, marriage systems, and work are all transformed forms of will. They are tools for expressing will. More specifically, they are tools for increasing happiness, self-sovereignty, the ability to survive, and the ability to pass something on.

The Definition of Happiness

My definition of happiness is very simple.

1. Being able to eat enough.
2. Having a safe place to live and sleep.
3. Not having one's freedom unfairly restricted in ways one did not choose.

These may sound obvious, but they are very difficult to secure. They are also easy to stop noticing once they become part of everyday life. Still, all higher forms of happiness depend on these three things, so I treat them as the foundation for higher happiness.

This view does not aim to maximize the present utility of one individual. It aims to sustain the happiness of connected people across time. Happiness is not something one feels alone. When it is shared by oneself and the people around oneself, it becomes something deeper and more lasting.

The Definition of the Self

In this view, the self does not mean only the ego bound to the body. In the world of the mind, everything is one. If we accept this, then we cannot completely separate another person's happiness and interests from our own. So the psychological boundary of the self is wider than the boundary of the body.

In this article, I call this the "extended self." The self is carried on through love, genes, memory, relationships, values, and stories. To put it more simply, human beings are formed by genes and stories.

What It Means to Inherit

In this view, the things a person can leave after death can be divided into two broad types: genes and stories.

Extending the Self Through Genes

Genes are mainly inherited by descendants. When a part of the self continues beyond the body and into the future through descendants, that is an extension of the self through genes.

Extending the Self Through Stories

Stories are not limited to genes. Friends, students, companions, and members of a community can also inherit values, memories, ways of living, and ways of seeing the world.

If I can say of someone, "If this person lives on, part of my story will remain in the world," then I recognize that person as an extension of myself. In this way, the self spreads not only across space to other people, but also across time into the future.

Therefore, intergenerational inheritance in this view is not just the transfer of property. It is also an act of continuing a part of the self into the future. In that sense, it is not different from the self continuing to live.

Love

Erich Fromm said that love involves care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge. In this view, I want to describe love in an even more practical and simple way.

To love someone means to treat that person as part of oneself and to feel that person's happiness as one's own happiness. This makes love different from simple affection. A loss suffered by the person one loves is recognized as one's own loss. The happiness of the person one loves is recognized as one's own happiness.

Also, the strength of love does not match the frequency of contact or physical distance. It is possible to love someone deeply even if you do not meet often. Conversely, it is possible to see someone every day and still not feel that person as part of yourself. So the strength of love does not depend on physical or social distance.

Love and Attachment

Love and attachment often look similar from the outside. Both can involve strong concern for another person and a feeling of not wanting to be apart. But in this view, they should be distinguished.

Love means treating the other person as part of the self and feeling that person's happiness as one's own. The center is the other person's happiness. Attachment is closer to trying to fix the other person or the relationship as a way to satisfy one's own desires. Its center is the desire not to lose, the desire to control, or the desire to remove anxiety. In my experience, when judgment becomes distorted, attachment is often mixed in.

I have not fully defined this boundary yet. It remains something to think about. But at the very least, I take the position that "feeling strongly" and "loving" are not the same thing.

Duty, Responsibility, and Self-Sacrifice

In this view, duty, responsibility, and self-sacrifice are not objective things that exist in the world. They are not there like the laws of physics. They are concepts that humans later attach to actions and roles. Even in the same situation, some people feel them and others do not. Therefore, I do not derive action only from claims such as "You have responsibility because you are family" or "You have a duty to the community."

To go further, it would be better if these concepts did not exist in the world. When people act based on duty or responsibility, voluntary will becomes weaker. The happiness of the other person and one's own happiness become a kind of balance sheet imposed from outside. The same is true of self-sacrifice.

Even when an action looks like sacrifice from the outside, under the extended self it is not always sacrifice for the person doing it. Continuing an unwanted job may have negative utility. But if the positive utility of feeding someone important outweighs that, then it becomes an action one wants to choose. Acting for others and acting by one's own will can exist together.

As I said at the beginning, the basis of action is not duty, responsibility, or self-sacrifice. It is voluntary will: "I do it because I want to."

Rejecting the concepts of duty, responsibility, and self-sacrifice does not mean indifference. It is also healthier for the mind not to think, "I fulfilled my duty," "I took responsibility," or "I sacrificed myself so much."

Love and Responsibility

Fromm includes "responsibility" as an element of love, but this view does not use that word. Strong involvement with someone one loves does not arise because one has responsibility. It arises because the other person is part of the self, so that person's happiness and loss are felt as one's own.

Therefore, it is inaccurate to describe involvement in love as "fulfilling responsibility." It is not the performance of duty. It is the operation of the extended self. Removing the concept of responsibility does not weaken commitment through love. Rather, by freeing commitment from responsibility as a kind of balance sheet, involvement can continue more voluntarily.

Love and Self-Sacrifice

Actions based on love are often called self-sacrifice. But under the extended self, acting for another person does not necessarily mean cutting away part of oneself and handing it to someone else. If the other person's happiness is part of one's own happiness, then the action is chosen within one's own structure of utility.

The word sacrifice assumes a conflict between self and other, where one side loses and the other gains. Love breaks down that conflict. For this reason, this view does not praise the practice of love as self-sacrifice, nor does it demand self-sacrifice as a virtue. Even if the visible form looks like sacrifice, the reality is voluntary choice.

Voluntary Will and Duty

Duty places the reason for action outside the person's own will. Voluntary will places the reason for action inside the person's own will. This view accepts only the latter.

When helping family or companions, and when acting for a community, the reason is not "because it is my duty." It is "because I want to." In the past, I considered the possibility that duty might exist as an independent principle of action, because people sometimes prioritize a community even at a personal cost. But I now think this can also be explained by voluntary will. Under the extended self, the community's interest can already be part of one's own interest.

Removing duty as a principle of action does not mean having no norms. Love, dignity, and the pursuit of long-term happiness guide what one wants to do. What remains after duty disappears is not disorder, but strong commitment based on voluntary will.

Dignity

Protecting another person's dignity means protecting one's own dignity. It means treating the other person not merely as a tool for achieving one's own goals, but as a subject equal to oneself.

Dignity and Non-Interference

Protecting another person's dignity does not mean accepting every choice that person makes without question. If someone important to me is making a choice that looks destructive, I may give my opinion, reject the choice, explain, persuade, or strongly try to stop them.

This is based on a view of human beings: people cannot fully understand themselves. Since each person is bound to their own body and cannot share the same sensations as others, active intervention may be necessary in important relationships. Therefore, respecting dignity is not the same as non-interference.

Respecting dignity while actively intervening in one another's lives can promote mutual understanding.

Freedom and Self-Sovereignty

Freedom and self-sovereignty are both conditions that support long-term happiness. Freedom concerns the room to make decisions within relationships. Self-sovereignty concerns control over the resources that make that room possible.

Freedom

In this view, freedom does not mean "a state where no one interferes with me at all." Human beings live in relationships, so the more important a relationship is, the more mutual interference will occur. Freedom and interference are not opposites.

At the same time, it is not desirable for a relationship to be permanently fixed against a person's will. The ability to leave a relationship is an important element of freedom. Strong intervention and the final possibility of exit can exist together.

Self-Sovereignty

Self-sovereignty means being able to control, as much as possible, the resources needed for our survival and decision-making. These resources include income, assets, housing, food, technology, knowledge, means of production, and human networks.

Self-sovereignty is not the final purpose. It is an intermediate goal for improving survivability, increasing options, reducing dependence on outside actors, strengthening bargaining power, and protecting freedom. It is a tool that supports long-term happiness.

What May Change and What Must Not Change

The ideas above can be organized by how fixed they should be.

The most fixed thing is the long-term happiness of myself, the people I care about, and the generations beyond them. This is the highest purpose of this view, and it should not be replaced even when conditions change. Beneath it are dignity, voluntary will, freedom, survivability, and inheritability. Self-sovereignty is not the final purpose, but as an intermediate goal that supports these values, it should remain relatively fixed. The extended self, love, and inheritance through genes and stories are also interpretations of the purpose itself, so they should not be discarded for the convenience of a means.

On the other hand, marriage systems, monogamy or polygamy, forms of residence, states, occupations, asset allocation, household systems, means of production, and educational methods are all means for achieving the purpose. As stated at the beginning, institutions, property, states, and work are only transformed forms of will. They are flexible tools for increasing happiness, self-sovereignty, survivability, and inheritability.

Therefore, one must not sacrifice the purpose in order to protect a means. If conditions change, institutions and lifestyles should also change. If a better means is found, it should be adopted. What does not change is the purpose and the higher values, not visible institutions.

In the next article, I will write about the inner layer: what to value and how to act in relation to oneself, one's family, and one's tribe.