Those two aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive though. Only your own happiness really matters to you, but at the same time you are a finite being and so can’t do everything for yourself. So, on average, your best strategy is to recruit allies who are willing to help you attain happiness.
And while there may be short-term advantages to hurting others to benefit yourself, the best long-run strategy is to be the cause of as little suffering as possible because dishing out suffering makes other people less likely to help you with your own goals.
The fact that this strategy does sometimes spectacularly fail doesn’t change the fact that it’s your best bet. At least until you get to be old enough that it’s time to start cashing in favors because long-term investments are no longer likely to pay off. And even then it still pays to not alienate your friends.
Those two aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive though. Only your own happiness really matters to you, but at the same time you are a finite being and so can’t do everything for yourself. So, on average, your best strategy is to recruit allies who are willing to help you attain happiness.
And while there may be short-term advantages to hurting others to benefit yourself, the best long-run strategy is to be the cause of as little suffering as possible because dishing out suffering makes other people less likely to help you with your own goals.
The fact that this strategy does sometimes spectacularly fail doesn’t change the fact that it’s your best bet. At least until you get to be old enough that it’s time to start cashing in favors because long-term investments are no longer likely to pay off. And even then it still pays to not alienate your friends.