Common Good And QURAS Project
In this article, we will go through the part of the philosophy behind our project. We hope you will enjoy reading it.
According to Aristotle, private interest is only pursued in the deviant state, while under an ideal national administration, a common good that benefits the entire population is pursued. Aristotle’s political philosophy goes on to explain that every community where people live together is organized for some kind of good as its purpose, and the best community that aims for the best good is a nation. Such a nation is created for people to survive, but it exists more for people to live better.
Politics of Common Good — Masao Kikuchi
The definition of the common good depends on an individual’s community and background. However, for a community to be maintained, common traditions, opinions, and perspectives exist which must be taken into consideration as people carefully deliberate in an effort to create common benefits rather than individual benefits. The common good is not meant to deny individual rights and freedom; rather, it is intended to complete them.
In modern time, it is a natural progression that this society accepts being a pluralistic society in which various cultures and values co-exist, and personal rights are respected, not disregarded. QURAS’s blockchain is a smart contract platform. If the idea of the common good is applied to the platform, it is necessary to consider users who remit funds, organizations that operate projects on QURAS and their project users, QURAS holders and market makers, QURAS consensus nodes, QURAS platform supporters and any influence the blockchain may give to the society.
On the platform, it is also necessary to have a system in place that offers proper incentive designs and options that balance everyone’s rights and benefits. This prevents a community from operating on the common good from being an exclusive community that forces values on community members. In addition, anonymous technologies QURAS supports such as zero-knowledge proof and ring signature protect privacy. However, due to the range of use extending from fund remittance only to smart contract, it is necessary to discuss a relationship between privacy and the common good while considering various impacts they may have.
For example, when considering health data, it is necessary to have a careful discussion regarding personal benefits and the common goods. Whether or not health data is the public good or a public asset depends on the level of integrity of interested parties, but under ethical use by trustworthy public institutions, the level of the public good increases.
The public good was originated from the science of economics and often has the problem of freeloaders who benefit themselves from the interest of greater good such as national defense, parks, and radio waves. If the majority of people decides that free riding is rational, the supply of public assets will be significantly insufficient, and to resolve such issue, it is said that proper incentives are necessary. Assuming that health data being used by a trusted public institution is considered a public asset, people would evaluate the importance of keeping their personal information private and compare it with the benefit they would get by giving it up.
When they are given an option to have a more significant benefit by acting collaboratively with others rather than acting selfishly, they are believed to have better care, improved result and reduced cost in the end. On the other hand, the increase of interested parties may lead to the lowering of public trust. For example, when an insurance company refuses to allow a patient to purchase its health insurance because the patient refused to take a specific test in order to protect the privacy of his/her medical information completely, it may lead to lowering the performance of the company and enabling the provision of insurance to the society. Thus, it is necessary to carefully consider if public benefits gained by disclosing personal medical information outweighs personal benefits.
Furthermore, accessibility has a significant impact on the relationship between privacy and the common good. Taking the publication of bankruptcy information in the official gazette as an example, such information can be viewed on the internet by everyone including case numbers, names of the bankrupt (tradename) and addresses. This information is delicate personal information and may lead to a privacy issue. Historically speaking, as a punishment, the bankrupt was expected to receive harsh physical and mental burdens and endure humiliation as a debtor. Since this is not a personal bankruptcy and goes through a bankruptcy procedure in court, this should be known to the interested parties of the debtor and the debtor shall comply with collective discipline.
On the other hand, in the world the internet, information can be accessed extremely easily and bankrupt information can be spread without limit. In this case, the problem is, even if a bankruptcy is sought and decided voluntarily, whether or not the bankrupt party will need to endure all of the above as a forever failure during the process of securing an opportunity for his or her economic reform shall be considered while balancing the benefits of the individual and a group. People make mistakes and failures are inevitable in life. There is a risk of bankruptcy for company operation due to a sudden change in the economic environment, and it is necessary to give such a business another chance to recover. Looking at the situation with this point of view, it gives rise to the idea of a right to be forgotten. Debtors themselves shall not forget these problems, but their right to be forgotten by third parties shall also be respected. Ultimately there is still room for a discussion on the dilemma of how to balance a group and an individual.
In summary, the balance between privacy and the common good is exceptionally delicate, and it is essential to weigh the benefits and disadvantages of each action. Depending on communities and issues, ways of solving problems and perspectives are different. That being said, it is impossible to resolve issues on the QURAS platform using a single approach and perspective. Instead, the platform aims for the common good by embracing a pluralistic society model and different aspects, and by providing users with opportunities to choose while growing to be a better platform.
