Thought experiments are imaginary scenarios that help us rethink our ideas and develop new ones. They are tools that scientists, economists, historians and thinkers have used to elicit "a heartfelt intuition that knocks the table," as philosopher Daniel Dennett writes. In this series of articles we examine some of the best-known philosophical thought experiments.
You are in a lifeboat in which there are 50 people. Another hundred have survived the wreck and are approaching the boat, asking us to help them up. We can only go up to ten, but how do we choose them? Who get there first? Those who most need our help? The ones with the best chance of surviving? To nobody? Everyone even at the risk that the boat ends up sinking? Can we use force to avoid sinking?
In 1974, the American zoologist and ecologist Garrett Hardin published Lifeboat Ethics , an article in which he posed this scenario. The rich countries are the lifeboat and the poor, the shipwrecked. Hardin was not at all compassionate: there is not room for everyone on the raft and, once full, the survivors have no obligation to help those who continue to swim. And what about the pangs of conscience? His solution: "Get off and leave your site to another." That is, for Hardin, rich countries are not obliged to help the poor, since this aid could lead to widespread shortages.
A lifeboat with first class seats
Daniel Dennett explains in his book Intuition Bombs (the name he gives to thought experiments), that one way to know if these philosophical tools are useful is to manipulate them and see what happens if some of their elements are modified. That's what philosopher Onora O'Neill did in her Lifeboat Earth , an article published in 1975. In this article, the author suggested a different scenario than Hardin: instead of shipwrecked (the countries poor) and lifeboats (rich countries), O'Neill suggested that we are all in the same boat. In addition, in the same article, she points out that there are classes on the boat, almost like on a cruise: the first-class have all the food and drink and distribute it to the rest, which in her opinion is an “adequate
With this approach, the scenario changes, because the question is no longer whether or not we can rescue anyone, but whether we can deny provisions to people who are already with us on the boat. O'Neill wrote that all people "have the right not to be killed without justification" and that "any distribution of food and water in a well-equipped lifeboat that leads to a death amounts to a homicide." In the event that there are insufficient supplies, O'Neill points out that some death may be unavoidable, but that does not justify murder or make it equivalent to self-defense. That is to say, that it is inevitable that someone dies does not mean that any death is justifiable.
Scarcity scenarios
Ángel Puyol, professor of Ethics and Politics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and author of books such as Philosophy of Social Epidemiology (2016), recalls that Hardin was a social scientist, while O'Neill was a Kantian-inspired philosopher. This led her to consider the same problem by emphasizing our rights and duties.
His approach, explains Puyol, also includes John Locke's idea of the social contract. In his second treatise on civil government and starting from a liberal defense of private property, the British thinker recalls that our right to goods and resources, although they seem public and open to the first arriving, are limited to “leaving available to others in equal quantity and quality ”. As Puyol explains and as O'Neill points out in his article, there are two shortage scenarios:
1. Avoidable shortage, such as if there are plenty of supplies in the boat. Can we prevent a castaway from climbing while we eat a cookie with our free hand? Or let someone starve so that we can have a whole beer each before they rescue us? According to O'Neill, no.
It must be remembered that Hardin was especially concerned about the excess population of the planet. In his opinion, we ran the risk that in the future there would not be enough resources for everyone. But the prophecies of the Malthusians have not come true, even though they are still present in popular culture: remember how in The Avengers, Thanos believes that he can solve the problems of the universe by eliminating half of the living beings.
In fact, and as Puyol also recalls, the technological capacity for food production far exceeds the needs of the planet's inhabitants. According to data from Max Roser, an economist at the University of Oxford, the percentage of the world's population living in extreme poverty (people living on less than $ 1.25 a day) has fallen from 60% to 10% since 1950, thanks to the increase productivity, which has offset the fact that the population has tripled since then.
That is, in this situation, it is not justified to prevent someone from getting on the boat or to deny him provisions if he is already on board (nor the extermination of Thanos). At least, that's the opinion of O'Neill and also of the philosopher Peter Singer, who was another of those who criticized Hardin's conclusions. It must be remembered that Singer's starting point is practically the opposite of Hardin's: he considers that "if it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we should do it," he writes in his Practical Ethics book . That is, helping is not a complimentary attitude, but something that we are, in principle, obliged to do.
2. Pure scarcity. In these cases, O'Neill contemplates that it may be inevitable that someone will suffer. As has happened, Puyol recalls, with fans during the worst moments of the pandemic. Of course, “we can ask ourselves why and how this situation has come about, but once we are there, we have no choice but to choose. They are tragic dilemmas, because whatever you do, people are going to suffer ”. Puyol recalls that it is important to have clear and well-studied criteria because although all the results are detestable, "not all are equally detestable."
In other words, the boat scenario is not only applicable to international cooperation, but to many other shortage situations in which we can face almost impossible decisions. Can something similar happen with the vaccine? Puyol explains that the scenario is not so similar: "It will be a matter of time." It could be compared, for example, with a rescue operation of a hundred castaways that we can only collect ten by ten. Who do we take to shore first? Who is weaker? Who does not know how to swim? Who can help us in the rescue? "We will have to choose who we give the first doses to," explains Puyol, who points out that "almost everyone agrees that it will be to health workers ... To those in the first world, because there is no talk of poor countries at the moment" . But it is not so easy to know who will come next: those over 60? 70? People with respiratory diseases?
And what can we do?
Singer does agree on one thing with Hardin. Although he does not speak of throwing himself into the sea and giving up our place in the boat, the Australian philosopher appeals, above all, to our personal responsibility. For example, it proposes to donate a part of our income to the countries most in need, especially considering that development aid from most countries is far from the target of 0.7% of GDP set by the UN ago. already years.
Puyol points out that Singer "hands over all moral responsibility to the individual and does not take into account that institutions are also morally responsible." Ethical responsibility depends on our power, Puyol also recalls. We can, as Singer suggests, improve the lives of many people, for example, with donations. But our power in deciding whether rich countries have to help vaccinate the poor (for example) is much less, beyond putting pressure on governments or voting accordingly.
By the way, such a campaign would not be so far-fetched: in his Doing Good Better, William MacAskill, a philosopher at the University of Oxford, writes that probably the greatest success story of an international cooperation program was the eradication of smallpox in 1980, which meant that between 60 and 120 million lives have been saved since then.
Other thought experiments:
- Theseus's ship: what a rebuilt ship teaches us about identity
- The Chinese room: can a machine think?
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