John in NM
The only available good comes from trusting your fellows to eventually come around to the understanding that society's best interests and their own lie along the same path. Nothing else works, whether in our personal relationships, our work relationships, or our civil relationships.

Civil society only functions when I trust you to not murder or rob me, and you trust me to extend the same courtesy to you. This trust is what prompts most of us to obey traffic signals, not fear of retribution from the authorities. Not everyone participates in this trust, but enough of us do that the system functions. This is nothing more than the social contract.

To address your concept of the greater good, I will just point out an example of it's abuse that I recall clearly - the torture of individuals defined as enemies of the US in order to gain information. An horrific, indefensible policy justified by the fig leaf of that greater good - the promise that it was saving lives.

That was no more a greater good than yours is. Yours is working locally because it is in line with your locality's take on the social contract. It won't serve world wide however, and that is why I take issue with it in this case.