Everyday life

So today I'm going to start in on some examples and things that I hope will make my theory sound more plausible. The first is an appeal to everyday life. People every day, at least in my opinion, choose to act in an elitist way (elitist as in the ethical theory, not as in a pompous jackass). Imagine a student. Tomorrow, he has an economics mid-term that, if he fails, will most likely result in a failing grade for the entire semester (since his mid-term is worth 50% of his grade). His friend calls him up and asks him if he wants to go out and play some cricket. At this point, the student has two options (he may have more, but for the sake of argument, let us assume he can ONLY do one of these two things due to some preternatural force): study for his econ mid-term, for which has not studied at all as of yet, or go and play cricket. If he ends up playing cricket, he will fail his mid-term. If he studies, he will not.

Now, let us say that this student abhors studying, such that whenever he studies it decreases his wellbeing. Also, he only mildly enjoys cricket, such that playing cricket does not affect his wellbeing all that much, perhaps only slightly increasing it. However, passing his mid-term due to studying would increase his wellbeing greatly, much more so than playing cricket. Being the good student he is (and unknowingly the good elitist he is), the student elects to study instead of playing cricket, as he desires to pass his econ mid-term. Thus, he has elected to decrease his wellbeing as one point, yet still keep it above the minimum level for a life worth living, in order to gain a higher peak value of wellbeing later on.

This scenario, of choosing to do something that decreases wellbeing in order to have a higher wellbeing than one would have otherwise gotten, seems to be an everyday occurrence in many people's lives. Other examples are donating to charities (for the tax rebate of course), going to work everyday (with the possible exception of those very few who actually like their jobs), paying taxes (so as to not go to jail), etc. These everyday scenarios are elitist through and through, and yet no one realizes it.

Tomorrow I will show why people will balk at this, even though they do it seemingly every day.