The Altruistâs Dilemma
NPR Debates
National Public Radio
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to NPR Debates, the show in which selected listeners meet to debate pressing issues of the day. Iâm your host, Jeff Salaby.
Two weeks ago, our debaters argued both sides of The People v. Daphne Jones, the so-called runaway trolley trial. In the following days, we received an unusual avalanche of mail from you, our listeners. Many of your letters attempted to apply moral principles from various religious traditions to the issues raised by the trial. In particular, a number of listeners sought to apply the Golden Rule: âDo unto others as you would have others do unto you.â These responses were from, of course, Christians, but also from Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Confucianists, Buddhists, and Bahaâis, who cited a version of the Golden Rule from their own scriptures.
As we looked through all of these letters, we noticed a curious phenomenon: Some of them argued for the acquittal of Ms. Jones on the grounds that they themselves would not want to be punished for a well-intended act such as pulling the switch to divert the trolley. Others argued for acquittal because they would want to be treated as she treated the five people whom she saved. Still others argued for convicting Ms. Jones because they would not want to be treated as the innocent man on the siding was treated.
So it appeared that the Golden Rule was ambiguous when applied to deciding the guildit or innocence of Ms. Jones. That got some of our more diabolical minds here at NPR Debates to thinking about how to frame a scenario in which the application of the Golden Rule was less ambiguous.
Leonard, itâs time to read the scenario!
Thanks, Jeff. Hereâs what we came up with:
You are on the siding, tied to the track. You see the out-of-control trolley careering toward the five people on the main track. By contorting your body, you can reach the switch with your foot and divert the trolley onto the siding, killing you, but saving the five. Do you flip the switch?
Okay, thanks, Leonard. Hmm, did anyone elseâs pulse rate just go up? I know mine did.
So the question on the docket today is: Is altruism always good? Here to debate that question, as it relates to our scenario, are listeners Marv Feldman from Rochester, Minnesota, and Stella Rotelli from Atlanta, Georgia. Marv and Stella were chosen based on the content of their letters. After the debate, weâll ask the audience to comment on whether it shed any light on the issues raised in the actual runaway trolley trial.
Marv and Stella, welcome to you both. Each of you will present your case in five minutes, and then there will be an opportunity for a two-minute rebuttal. So, Marv, you lead off. Tell us why we should always behave altruistically.
Thanks, Jeff. Well, the first point Iâd like to make is something you alluded to in the introduction. If most of the major religions of the world think itâs good to treat others the way we would want to be treated, surely thatâs evidence that itâs a good rule. If only one religion valued altruism, we might wonder whether it was really ancient wisdom or just some airy-fairy idealism. But it seems to be a value shared by most, if not all, of the major religions. Could they all be wrong? Sure. But I donât think so. I think itâs more likely that the ancients were onto something importantâthat weâre meant to look out for one another in this lifeâand that we self-centered modern types often blind ourselves to that truth.
The second point Iâd like to make is that this new scenario in which Iâm chained to the track seems to me to be very similar to the actual events that are the subject of the trial. The only difference is that in the new scenario, if I flip the switch, Iâm also the one who pays the price. Now, Iâm one who thinks that Daphne Jones is not guilty. I think she did the right thing by pulling the switch and sacrificing Mr. Farley in order to save the five people on the main track. But, if thatâs so, I donât see any reason why I should exempt myself from that calculation. If I was tied to the track on the siding and could still reach the switch, what possible moral argument could I give for not applying the kill-one-to-save-five rule? The truth is there is no such argument. Now, would I really pull the switch in that situation? I donât know. But the question of whether I would do it is a different question from whether I should do it, and I see no reason to let myself off the hook.
The third point Iâd like to make I got off the Web when I Googled altruism. A Princeton University philosopherâs name kept coming up, and he has made up some analogies about altruism that I find pretty convincing. And they speak to todayâs question: Is altruism always good?
Iâm probably going to screw up his scenarios a little, but here goes. One of them runs something like this:
Youâre on your way to work, and you walk by a small pond. Thereâs a little kid apparently playing in the water, which is only a few feet deep. When you get close enough to see better, you can tell that heâs a very little guy, and heâs not playingâheâs flailing about in the water, unable to get his footing and about to go under. You look around for his parents, but theyâre nowhere in sight. It would be easy enough to wade in and help him out, but you have on a new pair of shoes that cost you three hundred dollars. Theyâll be ruined if you go in, and there clearly isnât time to take them off.
So the question is: Should I wade in or not? Well, now, really. Who of us would not enter the water to save the little guy?
Now, says this professorâPeter Singer is his nameâthink about this situation. Thousands of children in Third World countries die every day from diseases that could be prevented if they had access to clean drinking water. Giving three hundred dollars to Oxfam would go a long way toward providing clean drinking water for several children. Shouldnât you always send Oxfam the money youâd otherwise spend on luxury items like fancy shoes?
Or how about this one? A stranger in the subway station offers you enough money to buy that new plasma TV youâve been thinking about. All you have to do is persuade a young street kid to follow this shady character into his car. Youâve been reading in the paper that a gang of petty crooks has been selling street kids to a âmedicalâ outfit in Haiti, where they kill the kids and sell their organs to wealthy Americans who are waiting for organs. Sounds like Dr. Mapes from the Daphne Jones case, huh?
How many of us would take the money and buy the TV with a clear conscience? None of us, of course.
As it happens, like many middle-class Americans, I own a plasma TV. Singer says that any time any of us buys a luxury item in lieu of giving the money to a charity that provides street kids with the basic necessities of life, we are doing essentially the same thing as giving the kid over to the gangster.
So hereâs my argument for altruism. All of us have some of it. All of us would sacrifice ourselves some in some situations. It seems at some level to be a universal value. But if weâre really honest with ourselves, we know we should be just as altruistic in analogous situations, including pulling the switch to save the five despite its causing our own demise. And we know down deep that the reason we arenât that altruistic in all situations is that we unconsciously or deliberately suppress what we know to be true: that the plight of others has a moral claim on us that we just donât want to face.
Thank you.
All right, Marv. Excellent. You make a very compelling case. Stella, youâve got a real challengeâmaking the case for not always being altruistic. What do you have for us?
Well, Jeff, I feel literally like the devilâs advocate, having to make the case against unbridled altruism. But I do think thereâs a good case to be made, and not just by the devil.
I took some philosophy courses back in college, and as I thought about this question, the philosopher who kept coming up for me is Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche thought that the Golden Rule has made us into a culture of wimps. He thought weâd been sold a bill of goods, mostly by Christianity, when we learned to divide people into âgood,â self-sacrificing people and âbad,â self-serving people. He said we had lost the aristocratic virtues of ancient timesâvirtues like strength and nobility and self-affirmation. In fact, we have turned those values upside down, he said.
The weak donât want to be ruled by the strong, but thereâs no way they can take them on, so they label the strong âevilâ and themselves âgoodââout of resentment. In other words, good and evil have gotten defined by the losers. If you turn the other cheek, youâre considered good in our culture, because we have been so influenced by Christianity. But Nietzsche says, if you turn the other cheek, itâs probably because you donât think youâre strong enough to hit back, and the only way you can get revenge is to label the strong guy bad. He says the ânaturalâ values arenât good versus evil. The natural values are healthy versus sickly. The strong shouldnât feel guilty about wielding power. They should take their proper place at the head of the herd. And those who arenât strong shouldnât whine or moralize or feel superior because they turn the other cheek. They should either stand up for themselves or accept the authority of the strong.
Now, I know this sounds a lot like the Tea Party or Ayn Rand or something, but I donât want to take it that far. I feel society should give some extra help to people who are disadvantaged through no fault of their own, people who are born into poverty or who are old and frail or who are schizophrenic or whatever. And I know Nietzscheâs philosophy was appropriated and misused by the Nazis. But I do think thereâs some truth in what he has to say.
I wouldnât relate it to the Tea Party so much as toâand I know this is going to sound sillyâOprah and Dr. Phil. I know, I know . . . ha, ha . . . but hear me out. I think itâs important, maybe especially for us women, to not be doormats. We spent way too many years turning the other cheek. Nietzsche was right. That wasnât âgoodâ; on the contrary, it was unhealthy! Unhealthy for us and unhealthy for our daughters.
So how does this apply to the person tied to the track? Iâd say it would be unnatural, unhealthy for someone to flip the switch and divert the trolley to run over himself or herself, even if the trolley would otherwise kill five other peopleâand despite the fact that I would divert it to run over a total stranger. And, by the way, I wouldnât divert the trolley to run over my child or my husband or my mother or even my next-door neighbor, either. It wouldnât be natural. I have a strong tie to my relatives and friends, and it wouldnât be healthyâor true to myselfâto sacrifice them for five strangers.
All right, Stella. Good job. Youâve made a compelling case for self-affirmation. Marv, you have a two-minute rebuttal.
Well, I think Stella has made some good points, but I think her way of thinking is a slippery slope. It seems to me that it would be very easy to justify good old-Âfashioned sel...