I read a book The Life You Can Save. The author starts with the morality of giving. He arguments: You would save a child for a small inconvenience (like jumping to a lake), it is moral to rescue the child, so it is wrong not to. And if this is true, you should think this way about charity too. It is moral to give to starving children, for the price of new shoes (that you ruin by jumping to a lake) you feed someone. Then the author presents some arguments against giving and debunks them.
His arguments seemed weak. During lunch, I discussed this with Ismail, Mary, Pepa, and Miriam. An interesting conversation followed, so I decided to write this down.
It was unconvincing for me because it was a religious argument. I agree with the statement: You should help others as much as you can. For me, religion, old wisdom, or philosophy is enough. I expected that in the book, I find a reason that describes the morality of giving to a completely selfish person.
The main argument from it was that people want to be "good" and it is moral to give. That is not a very strong argument. For the reasoning to work, you have to view everyone and yourself as good. Moreover, it not clear that giving is the best action you should take. Furthermore, Khmer Rouge, Treblinka guards, and people who have headphones on the bus, but you can still hear their shitty music are not very good people. So what to do with that? How to explain to a selfish person to be good?
Since we are all game theorists, we argued about Prisoner's dilemma. It is a game of two players. Both choose either cooperation or defection. If both cooperate, then both get some money. If both defect they get nothing. And if one cooperates and the second defects, then the defecting player robs the cooperating one. What we want to see in the world long term is cooperation, but a stable strategy (Nash equilibrium) is to defect.
For us, it is interesting to convince someone to cooperate in prisoners dilemma. The second is to convince rational (selfish) players to cooperate in charity game (it means to give to charity, to have the same terminology).
rgument that might work for selfish people to give to charity can be: it reduces crime, so by giving you are safer.
We can track any many values and then come with studies showing, for example, that the people who give:
Religious argument is usually from some authority, but that is not the most important thing about that. It says two things: You get a reward for following (heaven), and if everyone follows, the world will be a better place.
The typical golden rule asks you to treat others as you would like others to treat you And you can see that the world would be a better place if everyone does that, but if only you are doing that, it would be horrible for you. (So you will finish my paper again? Perfect. But please cook something tastier this time and do not forget to pick children from school)
The argument if everyone would follow this, then we would have benefits is crucial (every major religion wants us to be happy), but note the distinction with the selfish argument. It says: if you cooperate, you have some reward right away no matter what others are doing.
Both arguments, selfish and religious say: In the game of charity (prisoner's dilemma) the payoff matrix does not look like you imagine.
Religion says: after your death, you will get some payoff. Jesus says it, for instance, in Matthew 10, 42: And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.”
Selfish argument says: after ten years you will get payoff. I imagine such an argument concisely and scientifically described in a (fictional) paper: "Educating Disadvantaged Children Reduces Crime: Double Blind Study"
Here is the payoff with more knowledge
| Not giving | Giving | |
|---|---|---|
| In the moment | +10 | -100 |
| With Heaven | +10 - 1000 | -100 + 100000 |
| With fictional paper | +10 - 5 | -100 + 120 |
You can lie and convince him, that the matrix looks differently. But that is not a very sustainable way.
You can invest in research. Such that we know what exactly are the benefits of giving or cooperating.
You can praise people who give and cooperate. Social status is important: people buy expensive cars because of that. What if the money spent on charity would get you more social status?
You can figure a way how to get some value from people you are giving. Then you change the game. It mutates from a charity game to an employment game. There, a stable strategy is cooperation.
The world and people were less complicated when the golden rule was formulated. Everyone wanted some food and shelter. The needs of people were pretty similar.
The golden rule assumes this. You shall do to others you want them to do to you. But now everyone around you has the same necessities. And now, we are starting to differ. Someone wants recognition, someone support, someone a challenge, and so on. And we just stuck to general things. The best way how to live in such a world is to assume good intent and communicate.
Of course, what you want others to do is to find out what you want and then do it to you. But again, there might be some undiscovered desires, the way how you are learning the preferences of others might be personality dependent.
There were many other questions we tackled, but one was especially mathematically elegant. I call it Pepa's argument.
magine that you are infinitely smart (or as smart as possible), and the second player in a game of prisoner's dilemma is too. If your thought leads you to one option, then the other player follows the same logic (he is supersmart as you), so you will both play the same action (this works if the game is symmetric - you and the player have the same payoffs for same responses).
When you know that, it is easy to decide what to do. You can cooperate because cooperation is better than mutual defection. Elegant, don't you think?
So, how to make the world a better place? How to give more?
View yourself as a moral person, no matter what. And act on it! (at least a few times, it reinforces) Afterward, the cost of not doing the right thing will get higher.
Assume others are good and praise them for everything moral it is a reward for them. They will become better, and so will you (cost of nonconformity is also reasonably high).
Books that inspired the conclusion and are loosely related:
People are trying to do good things for themselves. They are usually overwhelmed by numbers of options and different payoffs (feeling good, having money, being bored). To convince them to cooperate, we need to find the reason why they would do it and then amplify it.