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MikeAbendSecondPaper 8 - 26 Apr 2010 - Main.PeterWade
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"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."- Samuel Johnson | | | I am not sure I agree with this. Instead of reasoning from the assumption that people are obligated to do the right thing, I think Eben is often trying to show us that the choice to "do the right thing" (or a right thing) is, in fact, NOT a choice to sacrifice our own self-interest. Much of the class seems to focus on the idea the decision is not a binary one. We do not have to choose financial success or seeking some form of social justice, we can have both. Not only that, but the choice to seek justice/do the right thing is actually in our best interest, we just don't know it yet (in large part because of the con that is law school). | |
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< | This paper is an attempt to justify altruism, acting for the benefit of others without an immediate reward; to separate pure evolutionary selfishness from the morality that often defines human behavior. | >
> | This paper explores some justifications for altruism, for acting for the benefit of others without an immediate reward; it is an attempt to separate pure evolutionary selfishness from the morality that often defines human behavior. | | | Kin Selection | | | [(cost-to-others) / (benefit-to-myself)] x (percent responsibility) | |
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> | Does this cost benefit analysis actually separate "pure evolutionary selfishness" from morality? It seems to say that if I am aware of the suffering of someone else, and thus my neglecting to help them equates to some amount of responsibility in that suffering, I will more likely ignore it/neglect it (perhaps through denial, cognitive dissonance, etc. as you mention below) if there is more benefit to me. | | | The more moral decisions are those with low "Guilt Ratios". The cost to others component is dependent on the ability to feel empathy, to understand how another human feels, while the percent responsibility is a product of personal knowledge of circumstances. | |
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> | Continuing on my comment above, does this mean that there is a correlation between a decision's moral value and its potential for personal gain? How would this benefit to myself be measured? On one level, I see how the financial compensation "promised" by less moral pursuits is one part, but if the goal is to justify altruism, should we consider to what extent choosing the "more moral" thing is actually in our best interest? | | | Defining the Variables | | | When I began writing this paper, I assumed that an individual had to "choose" how much the guilt ratio affected their decision making process. I though that self-perception and moral judgment would force a person to choose between being "good or "bad" person. However, such personality components may be completely biological and outside of the realm of free choice. Or, the good/bad distinction could be cultural and a reflection of our society's values.
Whatever the answer, I like to think that as humans we have a choice. I cannot lie to myself about what type of person I am. And while every person has his or her price (would you turn down $1,000,000,000 to kill a foreign stranger if you knew there were no consequences?), I hope I will always choose to be the "good" person. | |
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> | Since everyone has their price, is this the hope that no one will ever offer you that much money?
I like the overall points here about learning to seek out knowledge regarding our “percent responsible factor.” I agree that a major part of our work this year has been pulling back the curtain hung by various institutions in our lives, which doesn't allow us to see the injustices that should motivate us in our career (and life) choices.
But I am not sure that our motivations for such an undertaking are really being addressed here. The premise of the paper begins with the desire to separate altruistic behavior from personal gain, to discover what should make us want to perform open our eyes to the effects of the choices that we make (and don't), and why we should devote ourselves to helping others. But by setting this up as a choice between personal (presumably financial) gain and benefit to others, and then incorporating both into a pseudo cost-benefit analysis, the paper seems to define the moral decision as being the one which brings one closest to, or supersedes, their “price point.” The decision to help others is not more moral because the denominator of personal gain has increased. Am I a better person because I got paid more to ignore some terrible atrocity that I could have prevented?
And this decision is an illusory one anyway, since we don't have to choose between personal happiness/gain and justice. There can be both.
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