I believe that every individual has a different viewpoint on how self-interest and the common good should be balanced. I believe that, in general, the rights of the individuals are more important when and where they do not encroach on the rights of another individual, and when they do interact, the good of society must come first. At this time, I believe that, in most people's minds, their rights as an individual come first. The common good does not just happen. To establish and maintain it you first must need the cooperative efforts of some, most times many, people. This can be very hard to find, and some argue impossible because different people have different ideas about what is worthwhile and brings them the happiest or the best life. Very important issues that have gone on and still go on today include making employment opportunities more equal and making the health system more affordable. Thinking about the health system, we’ve been hearing a lot about ObamaCare. It’s more affordable is what they’re saying. I’m not going to try to persuade you either way, however wouldn’t the common good of all the people be more appealing? Wouldn’t it be nice if all the sick or elderly could afford to take care of themselves? This might involve insurers to accept lower premiums, or maybe physicians accepting lower salaries. This might not sound like such a great idea if you’re that physician, but again, think of the society. Maybe there is a patient with cancer. Their medical treatment are going to get pretty costly, wouldn’t it be nice if we could lower that for them? Our survival rate may even go up if things became more cost efficient. Who knows though, unless we try. When we think about equal job opportunities, most of us think that it's all just a thing in the past, which isn’t totally true. Some people would still choose the white male over the minority sitting next to him. When this was still a larger issue, white men