Do as I Say and Not as I Do

Many of the world's problems seem easy to fix. If people were just a little more generous and a lot less malicious, the world would be a lot better place. Malice isn't an emotion worth holding on to, and many people have much to spare. But letting go of malice and being generous requires sacrifice. And that sacrifice can seem incredibly difficult to make.

It can be a little easier to make sacrifices for those that we are close to, though. I would take on any favor that a friend might ask of me, as long as that favor didn't involve morally and ethically dubious actions. Heck, I would even take on most favors anyone might ask of me. I'm always looking for an opportunity to help people. My time is cheap, and it feels good to be able to help a person out.

Generosity can come easy in some circumstances, but malice can be hard to control even when such emotions are levied against the people we hold most dear. I'll certainly feel guilty about it later, but it won't stop me from feeling angry or frustrated and acting out on those emotions.

I hold the belief that it is in my best interest to help those around me. I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt, I'm always looking for opportunities to help people, and I try my best not to cause any trouble for the people around me. But I have a lot of other things to think about, too. My homework, my cute ecology TA, what I should do for dinner, when my next class is, the list goes on and on. I made a post some time ago detailing how it feels like I can't keep more than one thing on my mind. Between making sure I don't run into any oncoming traffic and thinking about what brand of cereal I should buy next, the welfare of others often falls through the cracks.

Now, maybe God will decide to excuse me for those times when I was simply too occupied to help others. What about those times when I am absolutely positive that an opportunity to increase the welfare of society has presented itself before me? Will I always act in the interest of the collective? No. Not really.

Of course, I think it's admirable to help people in need when they reach out for help, or when you notice that they need help. But if you hadn't helped, you might just be a bit of a dick at that point. More impressive is a person who can make sacrifices for the sake of an abstract collective, a sacrifice that fails to deliver any appreciable effect on anyone at any point. For me, those sacrifices are the hardest to make. And I suspect that people's general difficulty in making such a sacrifice has put the world in a whole lot worse of a situation than it ought to be in.

Now, behold the age-old economics lesson of the tragedy of the commons. The tragedy of the commons is a situation in which self-interested private actors, having access to a shared resource, individually overuse that resource and ultimately result in a less-than-ideal outcome for everyone. The tragedy of the commons is a fairly narrow example, but the underlying calculus that each of the actors in that situation performed applies broadly to many circumstances. It's a matter of balancing self-interest with the public good. It would be easy for any of us to say, "We should choose the public good over our self-interest." If everyone were conscientious about everyone else's welfare, then everyone would be in a better situation than had everyone only acted in their own private interest.

The thing is, no one person can be sure that even a single individual would choose to put the general public over their self-interest. You would just be missing out on precious resources while others got to enjoy as much as natural limitations would allow. Let's just say, though, for one moment, that everyone else in the world only cared about the collective good. In that circumstance, you would be best off if you enjoyed the resource to your heart's content. Because of everyone else's sacrifice, your indulgence will become sustainable. In any case, you would be best off if you just indulged.

I face similar situations every single day. I would like to think I am a reasonably environmentally conscious fellow. After all, I wanted to become an urban planner to design human environments that are more sustainable and minimize the impacts on our natural resources. However, when I'm faced with the opportunity to cut back on my carbon footprint or be a little less inconvenienced, I sometimes cave in to my desires and indulge a bit. Even if I hadn't satisfied my laziness, it would do little good to stop global warming. Even if I hadn't indulged, I can't be sure that others can make the same sacrifice.

So, what can we do about these issues? I suppose all we have to do is fundamentally rewire our society to assess the value of decisions entirely differently. It's really that simple. I'm sure you have plenty of counterexamples, but I think people are pretty logical most of the time. And as much of a proponent of rational thinking I am, it works against us sometimes. Reasonable people, every day, decide to pollute the environment more than they need to sustain themselves for the sake of convenience. We ignore the needs of others. We don't pay attention to the desires of the people around us. As cruel as it might seem to say, it just doesn't seem to make much sense to help others. There is little to be gained, and much to be lost (sometimes there isn't even). I can't blame anyone for operating only on their self-interest. But we know that the world can be a better place. When we make decisions, running on rational, self-interested thinking is simply not enough. We have to make principled decisions based on our morals, and in ways we would hope others might too. We have to delude ourselves a little bit and dream for a moment of what could be.

-Post by Kai