Conflict Of Public Interest Analysis

When there is a conflict of personal interest and public interest, it is hard to make a decision. As the effect of public interest may bring influence to personal interest, either side cannot be omitted. To figure out the proper choice, the prisoner’s dilemma would be discussed in this essay. The situation is that one person and his friend are both in custody and isolated. They can either keep silent or betray one’s friend, which correspond to a different prison term. There is a conflict of interest because both of they cannot be free at the same time. If one wants to be set free, he needs to betray and send his friend to prison. But if he does not want to send his friend to prison, he needs to keep silent and sacrifice himself to stay in prison.

Betraying friend is considered as a known evil because it is against the trust in-between relation with the friend, as not seen him as a friend but as a mean only to escape from the penalty. According to the second statement of the Categorical Imperative, treat people always as an end and never as a means only (Nam, 2017), because this would destroy the relationships with others, but humanity as a sociable species is hard to survive in society without proper relations. Even one can set free, as people know he betrayed his friend, they would not make friends with him by a lack of trust. While trust is hard to create and easy to destroy, betraying once is enough to damage it in whole. On the other hand, betray friend also worsens one’s behavior. Refer to the Broken Window theory, it says a building with few broken windows left not fixed, then all the rest of the windows will soon be broken (George, 1982). This theory implies that once people do evil, they would not resist to do it again next time. In this case, if one betray his friend, he would not refuse to betray another friend afterward. When time passes through, as long as people reject to collaborate with the person with bad behavior, it is no longer possible for him to have good relationships with anyone. Therefore, being a notorious man makes everyone keep distance with him and brings lots of obstacles in one’s life, no matter in career and marriage while they both needs good bonding with others. In order to maintain good behavior and relationship, betraying friend should be