You can only save one— who do you choose? - Doug MacKay — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:06You are the captain of the Mallory 7, an interstellar cargo transport.
2. 0:11On your way to the New Lindley spaceport, you receive a distress call.
3. 0:16There’s been an explosion on the Telic 12
4. 0:19and its passengers are running out of oxygen.
5. 0:21As you set a course to intercept, you check the Telic 12′s manifest.
6. 0:26It’s currently transporting 30 middle-aged individuals
7. 0:29from some of Earth’s poorest districts to the labor center on New Lindley,
8. 0:33where they'll be assigned jobs on the spaceport.
9. 0:36But as you approach the Telic 12, you receive a second distress call.
10. 0:40A luxury space cruiser called the Pareto has lost a thruster,
11. 0:44sending them careening towards an asteroid belt.
12. 0:47Without your help, the 20 college students headed for vacation
13. 0:51aboard the Pareto are all doomed.
14. 0:54So with only enough time to save one ship, which one should you choose?
15. 1:00This dilemma is an example of a broader class of problems
16. 1:03where a life-saving resource— such as a donated organ or vaccine—
17. 1:08is scarce.
18. 1:09There are many schools of thought on how to approach these problems,
19. 1:12and one of the most influential is utilitarianism,
20. 1:15an ethical view first systematically developed
21. 1:18by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.
22. 1:21In this view, you should choose the action
23. 1:23which promises the greatest sum of happiness.
24. 1:26Though, how to define and measure happiness is a difficult question.
25. 1:30For example, hedonists would suggest a happy life
26. 1:33contains the most pleasure and the least pain.
27. 1:36Others might say it’s the life where your desires are most fulfilled.
28. 1:40However happiness is defined,
29. 1:42most would agree that saving 30 lives has the potential
30. 1:46to generate more happiness than saving 20.
31. 1:49But is it enough to consider how many lives would be saved?
32. 1:53Or should you also consider how many life years would be?
33. 1:57Assuming a life expectancy of 80, saving the lives of the students,
34. 2:01with an average age of 20, saves 1,200 life years,
35. 2:05while saving the workers, with an average age of 45, saves 1,050.
36. 2:11All things being equal, a longer life should promise
37. 2:14a greater sum of happiness than a shorter one.
38. 2:18So perhaps saving the smaller ship actually has the potential
39. 2:21to generate the most happiness.
40. 2:24If all these calculations feel a bit cold,
41. 2:26you may want to consider a different approach.
42. 2:29The philosopher Derek Parfit argues we should give priority to the worse off,
43. 2:33since benefits to those groups matter more
44. 2:36than equivalent benefits to the well-off.
45. 2:39In this view, it’s more urgent to help those whose basic needs aren’t met
46. 2:43even if they’re harder to help than those who are flourishing.
47. 2:47But often, determining which group is truly worse off can get complicated fast.
48. 2:52In our case, Earth is still beset by drastic inequalities
49. 2:56in wealth and opportunity.
50. 2:58And those able to afford a vacation on New Lindley
51. 3:01and transport on a luxury cruiser
52. 3:03are no doubt among the most well-off people on the planet.
53. 3:07The workers, by contrast, are among the most disadvantaged,
54. 3:11traveling away from home for months at a time to perform service work.
55. 3:15With fewer resources and opportunities,
56. 3:17it’s likely they’ve experienced more hardship in their lives
57. 3:20than the vacationers,
58. 3:21so maybe they’re more deserving of rescue?
59. 3:23On the other hand, the students have experienced less life overall—
60. 3:27so perhaps they’re worse off?
61. 3:29Or maybe none of these variables should influence our decision.
62. 3:33The philosopher John Taurek famously argued that in these types of cases,
63. 3:37the numbers don’t count.
64. 3:40Each person is deserving of equal concern and respect,
65. 3:44so the best way to decide which passengers to save is to flip a coin.
66. 3:48While this might seem arbitrary at first, this approach treats all parties equally,
67. 3:53giving each individual an equal chance of being rescued.
68. 3:57Could any passenger argue that they're being treated unfairly by a coin flip?
69. 4:02It’s tough to say.
70. 4:04But how they— and you— feel about the result may be another dilemma altogether.