Listened to Radiolab tonight, about morality, and I thought immediately of a thread on a friends wall over the weekend, about the Batkid event. My friend saw the event as a self-serving waste of money-- money better spent on children in the worst poverty and suffering-- that would make participants get a glow of having done something good while they continued to ignore severe need. I got his point, and I know thats the utilitarian argument-- and I still thought Batkid was really a lovely bit of fun. When faced with a proximate need-- a need of someone right in front of me-- or a proximate opportunity to provide joy to someone who isnt even in real need-- I admit I go with the moment and dont make any sort of utilitarian calculation. It would seem cold to me to do so, and I suspect the effort required might simultaneously remove my compassion for remote need. I try to balance that out by planning donations to distant charities like Partners in Health, a process that feels different but also necessary. However, the bulk of my sharing goes to non-deductibles-- to people who I know need something right at the time, and I have it. I dont think about it really hard either-- it just happens that way. They need it, I have it, done deal. My friend argued that we can use imagination to realize the urgency of a distant need and thus make it proximate-- that also seems right, but the very act of calculating before responding-- I just dont know. It doesnt seem compatible somehow-- compatible with... what? With something Im having a hard time putting words to. It shocked my friend that I might make a choice to avoid coldness that would benefit fewer people-- but it doesnt exactly feel like a choice. If I spend $10 to put gas in someones car who asks me for help (as happened last week), that is $10 I dont have to send to the Philippines-- so it IS a choice, but it didnt feel that way at the time. The same with Batkid-- if someone had asked me for money to help Batkid have a fantabulous day, I think I probably would have pitched in a little and been happy about it. The Radiolab episode found two very different types of brain patterns in people making moral decisions based on utilitarian calculations vs more primitive, instinctive moral codes. It seems that choices where we take math into account are actually different-- they dont just feel different. So, I am more primitive than my friend, if they are right. We would possibly do better to meet needs that need meeting if we used the calculating part more often. Logically that seems like the way to go. And I doubt I will do it anyway-- it would just feel wrong, even if it isnt. My primitive brain is very stubborn. How about yours? radiolab.org/story/91508-morality/
Posted on: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 03:53:08 +0000
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