On the Desires of Private Good

I. A Question That Has Been Obscured

Have you ever wondered about this: why do all disciplines discuss "how people ought to be," yet so few discuss "what people actually want"? Ethics discusses how people ought to act, economics discusses how people ought to choose, political philosophy discusses how society ought to be organized, and education discusses how people ought to be cultivated. All of these discussions presuppose a premise: that we know what people want. But the truth is, we rarely answer this question head-on.

Stranger still, once people try to answer "what do people want," they tend to fall into two extremes. One extreme reduces what people want to selfishness, greed, and the lust for power; the other romanticizes it as love, cooperation, and self-actualization. But people in reality are neither purely evil nor purely good: a person can hurt others for a small piece of bread, yet sacrifice himself for a promise; can be selfish to the point of outrage, yet selfless to the point of tears. These contradictory phenomena cannot be explained by any single label of "innately good" or "innately evil."

The starting point of this book is the simplest of phenomena: human beings are naturally inclined to "make things good for themselves." When hungry, they eat; when cold, they seek warmth; when hurt, they retreat; when insulted, they resist; when controlled, they struggle free; when ignored, they feel sad. Whether we call these tendencies instinct, need, or desire, they are in essence the inner driving force directed toward one's own survival and development. This tendency is not a moral choice—you do not need to "decide" to eat, you do not "choose" to avoid danger; it is the way you operate as a living being. What this book sets out to do is, starting from this single simplest phenomenon, to systematically derive a complete theory of human nature—the Theory of Private Good.

II. Core Weapon: The Eleven Private-Good Desires

The most central discovery of this book can be summed up in one sentence: To be alive is to want things to go well for oneself. This is not selfishness; this is life. But what, concretely, does "making things good for oneself" point to? Through long-term phenomenological observation, analysis of Chinese conceptual distinctions, and repeated classification, this book extracts eleven private-good desires, organized in two layers.

The first layer: the maintenance of life and self-perfection (manifest even on a desert island). Preservation—protecting one's physical safety and the integrity of body and mind; care—attending to the everyday needs of one's own survival and development, so that one's actions proceed unhindered; enrichment—accumulating resources to meet future risks; beauty—maintaining the order and harmony of one's self-image and environment; pleasure—pursuing pleasing experiences and dissolving spiritual anguish; compassion—feeling for oneself in pain and longing for others' understanding; reflection—coming to know the world and forming one's own judgments.

The second layer: the development of the agent and social existence (unfolds fully in interpersonal life). Confidence—believing in one's own abilities and building a foundation of trust; strength—enhancing one's abilities to meet environmental challenges; esteem—securing one's social position and being respected as a person; freedom—having space for the activities and choices of body and mind.

These eleven desires are the deepest driving force of human beings as living organisms. They are eternal and unchanging across cultures, eras, institutions, and races. But one fundamental misunderstanding must be cleared up: privacy is not selfishness. Selfishness is a way of thinking and acting that centers on oneself and does not hesitate to harm others; privacy is the instinctive driving force by which human beings satisfy the basic needs of life and carry out productive activity—it is neutral, objective, and necessary. A person who eats when hungry is not being selfish; that is the self-maintenance of a living system. A baby who cries for milk has only physiological needs; it has no concept of "selfishness." "Privacy" is a condition of life's existence, not a result of moral choice. A being that gives no thought at all to itself is not morally exalted; it is a life whose vital forces are failing.

III. Good and Evil Are Not Labels but Relations

If human nature is inherently private, where do good and evil come from? The central claim of this book is: good and evil are not labels attached to persons; they are relational properties. Good and evil occur "between" agents, not "within" an agent.

Consider a few examples. A husband provides material abundance, protects his wife's safety, and keeps her life glossy—he has delivered public goods along the dimensions of enrichment, preservation, and beauty; but he speaks condescendingly, disrespects her personhood, and restricts her freedom of movement—he imposes public evils along the dimensions of esteem and freedom. Ask whether he is a good person or a bad person, and no answer is possible, because along different dimensions he is simultaneously good and evil. A country that provides material aid and economic support to another is delivering public good, but if it keeps interfering in the other's internal affairs, denying its national dignity, and stripping away its right of independent choice, that is public evil—the mere input of economic benefit cannot compensate for the absence of dignity, autonomy, and other crucial dimensions. These phenomena show that: good and evil are not "what this agent is" but "what this agent does in relations."

The concrete framework for judging good and evil is this: privacy is stillness; once it begins to move, the movement is either good or evil. If the object is the self, it is private good or private evil; if the object is the other, it is public good or public evil. Private good is the tendency to treat oneself well, nourishing the self; private evil is the tendency to treat oneself badly, consuming the self; public good is the tendency to treat others well, nourishing the other—that is love; public evil is the tendency to treat others badly, consuming the other—that is hatred or harm. The four quadrants are structurally isomorphic and share one set of eleven subdivisions: private good projected onto others becomes public good, private evil projected onto others becomes public evil.

IV. The First-Person Origin: A Right-Based Claim in Judging Good and Evil

One of this book's most distinctive contributions is its proposal of the "first-person origin" of moral judgment: when judging whether an act has satisfied or damaged a given agent's private good—where that satisfaction or damage has entered consciousness and been experienced—the agent's first-person experience enjoys an irreplaceable and prioritized status in the judgment. The core function of this proposition is to prevent any agent from judging good and evil on another's behalf in the name of "the whole," "the greater good," or "the long run."

A husband buys his wife expensive gifts but never asks what she actually wants. He assumes that "I give you the best" is love, but what his wife may want is companionship, a listening ear, and respect for her choices. He treats his wife the way "I think you should be treated" rather than the way "I want to be treated"—this is disguised decision-making on another's behalf, not real love. The core of the first-person restriction is to prevent any agent from judging good and evil for another.

From this follows the "projection mechanism": when an agent projects his own first-person standard of good and evil onto others—that is, when he treats others the way he treats himself—public good is generated; when he treats others in ways that consume them, public evil is generated. Projection is not the abstract "do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself"; it is concrete, item by item, unfolded across the eleven dimensions: if you want to be respected, then respect others; if you want freedom for yourself, then give freedom to others.

V. The Threshold of Public-Good Completeness: Why "Giving Everything" Can Still Fail to Feel Like Love

One of this book's most heartrending discoveries explains "why giving everything still fails to feel like love." Complete love is the coordinated operation of all eleven public goods. Even when many public goods are delivered to their utmost—material abundance, ample security, full enjoyment—if key items such as honoring others and freeing others are structurally absent in the long run, that love is incomplete, and the receiving side does not subjectively feel loved.

A husband works hard, buys a house and a car, protects his wife and takes her traveling. He believes he is a good husband. But his wife is unhappy. She says: "He never respects me. He never asks me before making decisions. He thinks he has given me everything, but I don't feel loved." The husband's logic is "I gave you A, B, and C—how can you say I don't love you?" He uses the achievements of some public goods to cover up the public evils he keeps inflicting along other dimensions. The wife's logic is "you gave me A, B, and C, but you have been steadily stripping away D, E, and F." Her first-person experience tells her: this relationship is not love; it is control. The two logics cannot talk to each other, because the husband understands love as an addition and subtraction of totals, while the wife's experience is a "multidimensional structure." The dimension violated within a structure is not automatically repaired because other dimensions are satisfied. The input of material energy cannot offset the spiritual energy drained by humiliation and control.

VI. The Single-Point Effect of Public Evil: Why One Sustained Public Evil Is Enough to Destroy a Relationship

Symmetrical to the threshold of public-good completeness is the single-point effect of public evil. Real damage on one dimension does not become "something that never happened" because benefits flowed in on another dimension. You do not need all eleven public evils to count as harm; as long as a genuine public evil occurs on one dimension, the damage on that dimension objectively exists. A husband may be generous materially, protective of her safety, and attentive in daily life—but if he persistently imposes public evil on just one item, "respect"—speaking condescendingly and disregarding her personhood—his wife has already suffered real harm. You do not need to smash every part to call it destruction; one screw that keeps prying at a core component is enough to make the whole machine malfunction.

Why is one public evil enough to destroy a relationship? Because three chain reactions occur at once: the collapse of security—the receiving party remains in a constant "state of alarm," never knowing when the next injury will come; the disintegration of trust—trust is concrete and built item by item, and when one public evil persists, the trust on that dimension disintegrates; the erosion of self-worth—the receiving party begins to doubt herself: "Is it because I'm not good enough that he doesn't respect me?" Finally there is the dissolution of the relationship's meaning—the relationship not only fails to enhance the completeness of life but continuously destroys it. This is why the sentence "I gave you so much—how can you say you don't love me?" is so powerless. Material goods cannot offset the damage done to dignity; protection cannot offset the damage of control. Love must be complete; hate takes effect at a single point.

VII. The Three States of Relationship: Cooperation, Coexistence, Opposition

Human relationships, however complex on the surface, have only three states underneath. Cooperation: A satisfies B's private-good desires and B satisfies A's. An employee gives the boss what he wants (strength, enrichment), and the boss gives the employee what he wants (enrichment, esteem, freedom); cooperation is established. Coexistence: the two parties do not encroach on each other, each independent, with neither positive exchange nor mutual harm—most human relationships are in fact coexistence. Opposition: the two parties' private goods obstruct each other; A not only fails to satisfy B but also infringes on or blocks B's realization of private good.

Relational disharmony can be summarized in a minimal formula: A cannot give B what B wants, and B cannot give A what A wants. Expanded, it includes: what A has—resources, abilities, willingness; why A cannot give it to B—psychological states, cognition, patterns of behavior; and external variables such as the natural environment, social environment, political economy, and educational environment. Getting along well is a tacit matching of private-good desires; getting along badly is a structural mismatch of private-good desires.

VIII. Reflection: The Spiritual Mediator on the Way to Public Good

Among the eleven private-good desires, reflection occupies a uniquely distinctive position. It is the only desire with no symmetrical counterpart in the negative private quadrant, because its object is not locked onto the self. Reflection is a neutral vessel of thought; by itself it has no direction—direction comes from the object-content it carries and the means of action subsequently chosen. Reflection is the spiritual mediator leading to public good. Without the capacity to bring others' situations into one's own thinking, "enlightening others" cannot occur. To help another person, one must first, in one's own thinking, understand that person's situation, needs, and suffering; to respect another, one must first understand that person's standpoint, feelings, and choices—all of this thinking is the operation of reflection. Reflection is both one of the eleven desires and the cognitive foundation of the entire public-good system; it is the spiritual bridge from "me" to "the other."

At the same time, reflection is the buffering variable in the linkage effects among the eleven private goods. Two people lose their jobs at the same time: the first reframes cognition through reflection—"unemployment is an event, not the whole of my value; I have abilities; I simply have not yet found the right place"—the second's reflection is obscured: "I lost my job, I'm finished, I can't do anything right, life has no hope"—one damaged item drags the entire psyche into collapse. The same external blow, differently processed by reflection, produces completely different outcomes.

IX. Linkage Effects: One Strengthened Helps Many; One Damaged Weakens Many

The eleven private goods are not isolated entries separated from one another. A rise or fall in one private good changes the shared material conditions of reality, which then transmits to others, producing linkage effects. Positive linkage: when strength is fully realized, the means of preservation multiply, the paths of enrichment widen, confidence grows, freedom expands, and the conditions of beauty improve—the enhancement of ability creates real soil for the realization of many other private goods. Negative chain: when freedom is severely stripped away, care, enrichment, preservation, esteem, confidence, and strength may be damaged in chain—one freedom taken away, many private goods collapse in series.

But linkage effects are sufficient conditions, not necessary ones: positive linkage does not guarantee that the others will necessarily strengthen, and negative chains do not guarantee that the others will necessarily collapse; reflection is the key buffering variable. One strengthened helps many; one damaged weakens many. This is not inevitability, but it is risk.

X. What Civilization Is: Constant Core, Iterated Means

From the perspective of private-good desires, civilization is not a "product" of private-good desires but the accumulation of "traces" and "tools" left behind in the human process of satisfying them. The core of the eleven private-good desires has remained constant since antiquity—human beings have always wanted safety, resources, beauty, pleasure, compassion, cognition, confidence, growth, dignity, and freedom. What changes is not what people want but the tools, technologies, institutions, and cultures by which desires are fulfilled. Primitive people protected themselves with wooden clubs and animal hides; modern people protect themselves with health-care systems and missile-defense systems—the means are worlds apart, but the desire to protect one's life has not changed. Civilization is not the enemy of desire; civilization is the upgrade of the means by which desires are satisfied.

The end of the human being is not merely to live, but to live with understanding. The end of civilization is not merely to be powerful, but not to destroy itself. The greatest danger of modern civilization is a powerful material civilization meeting an immature spiritual civilization. The material civilization answers "can we," and the spiritual civilization answers "should we": if reason serves public good, science can save lives, institutions can protect people, and AI can assist education; if reason serves public evil, science can become a tool of massacre, institutions can become a machine of oppression, and AI can become an amplifier of deception and control.

XI. Where This Book Stands in the System of Thought

On Private Good is the core work of the "origin" module in Hua Guoping's system of thought, the first foundation stone leading from "what is a human being" to the entire theoretical system. The core questions it answers are: what do people actually want, how are good and evil judged, how do relationships operate, and how does civilization develop. The Vanguard Concept establishes the origin of the eight-factor model—what the human being is; On Private Good unfolds the eleven private-good desires—what the human being concretely wants; On Human Nature unfolds the philosophical foundation of the eight factors—the underlying logic of good and evil, energy, and civilization; The Awakening of Value applies the framework of private-good desires to the creation of personal value, How the World Unifies applies it to global governance, Civilization of Public Good to institutional comparison, Ultimate Dao Governance to the philosophy of governance, and The Community of Human Well-Being to the future of humanity. If The Vanguard Concept is the "root" of the system, then On Private Good is the first trunk that grows from the root—it transforms the philosophical question "what is a human being" into the systematic analysis of "what does a human being want," providing the entire system of thought with its most fundamental operating system of human nature.

XII. A Final Answer

All the theory of this book can be condensed into one sentence: Life and society are the process of properly managing the structure and dynamics of private-good desires between oneself and others. Without private-good desires, people would not grow, society would stop, and civilization would end. This is not a value judgment but a fact about how living systems operate: the addict anesthetizes his desire for preservation with drugs, and the result is not release but the total collapse of body and mind; the depressed person has had all desires suppressed, and the result is not peace but the stagnation of life. Private-good desires are not "base desires" to be eliminated but life forces to be understood, guided, and fulfilled. Understand them, guide them, fulfill them—this is the wisdom of life, and the wisdom of civilization.