Ja-ah! John Locke. Ik Zou Maar Eens Schieten!

De filosoof John Locke stelt in zijn 'Concerning Human Understanding' o.a. dat mensen als gevolg van hun wild fladderende verlangens ('uneasiness of their desires') meestal het genoegen van het moment kiezen. Toekomstig goed en zelfs toekomstig kwaad tellen veel minder mee in hun overwegingen. Waarom we niet de dingen doen die goed voor ons zijn. Waarom we liever een biertje drinken en naar voetballen kijken dan mediteren en het Koninkrijk der Hemelen naderbij brengen.

"Another reason why it is uneasiness alone [that] determines the will, is this: because that alone is present and, it is against the nature of things, that what is absent should operate where it is not. It may be said that absent good may, by contemplation, be brought home to the mind and made present. The idea of it indeed may be in the mind, and viewed as present there; but nothing will be in the mind as a present good, able to counterbalance the removal of any uneasiness wich we are under, till it raises our desire; and the uneasiness of that has the prevalency in determining the will.

Till then, the idea in the mind of whatever is good is there only, like other ideas, the object of bare unactive speculation; but operates not on the will, nor sets us on work; the reasons whereoff I shall show by and by. How many are to be found that have had lively representations set before their minds of the unspeakable joys of heaven, wich they acknowledge both possible and probable too, who yet would be content to take up with their happiness here? And so the prevailing uneasiness of their desires, let loose after the enjoyments of this life, take their turns in the determining their wills; and all that while they take not one step, are not one jot moved, towards the good things of another life, considered as ever so great." (John Locke, 'Concerning Human Understanding,' Chapter 11, 37).