how can i help?
Whether or not you identify as a hardcore utilitarian as per the trolley problem, there is an element of utilitarianism built into most modern thought. I feel that most of the disagreements amongst self-proclaimed utilitarians merely stem from what the definition of useful is, which we as a society should be optimizing for.
Before I propose my model, I’ll define a modified & simpler version of the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs:
Now imagine a society called NOI — the No Output Island. No energy or matter can come out of NOI. You have the power to “intervene” or play god, but you can only input stuff onto NOI. There are a small number of people on NOI. They have managed a lifestyle for survival; they build huts with natural materials, eat vegetation and animals, all Level 1 needs satisfied. They are strictly degrading the island’s biome (negatively affecting other species, not occupying any ecological niche, you name it).
As a benevolent puppeteer, you have many possible actions, some examples below:
- Kill all NOI-kars: they’re not gonna help anyone on Earth and they’re just worsening the biome (which you’d like to preserve for whatever reason).
- Let them live as is: after all, they’ve got Level 1 sorted.
- Provide them with more Level 1 or basic comfort stuff: air-drop good food, alcohol, drugs, etc. They can spend their entire life reveling in the dopamine and would forever be happy.
- Be the “HR”: conduct parties and games to breed more Level 2 need satisfaction.
- Provide access to education/books/art: may catalyze “self-actualization”.
- Anything else that you may think of.
What would you do and why?
Back to Earth. My personal* value system has often placed more importance on higher-level needs of the pyramid, even though in order to achieve those, the lower-level ones need to be in place. It is almost as if life is not worth living without the moments where you get Level 3 satisfaction. In trolley-problem terms, if I see a hundred happy drug addicts on one track (for simplicity, let’s assume they’ll never be rehabilitated and will always have a constant but non-lethal supply of their drug), and a sad artist on another, I will save the sad artist.
On a tangential note, it appears that the lower-level needs are something you can more directly give to someone, and the higher up one goes in the pyramid, things become more of a personal endeavor to achieve on one’s own. Due to the आपण-घोड्याला-पाण्याजवळ-नेऊ-शकतो-पण-शेवटी-पाणी-त्याला-स्वतःलाच-प्यावं-लागतं nature of self-actualization, working to achieve that myself might just be the best thing to do (if I want to increase the “net happiness” of the world), than trying to give that to others.
[* bear in mind that I have never been deprived of Level 1 needs, so my opinion may be dismissed as one of the armchair kind.]
Categories: meta