Cultural artifacts and human life: On what people value and why
I don't like "the trolley problem." As a game theorist, I think that it is an example of philosophy going off the rails. You know the trolley problem, right? Here goes. Snidely Whiplash ties some woman-- let's call her, "Nell," to some train tracks. On a parallel set of train tracks, Snidely binds not one, but oh, say, five people. The tracks actually meet at a junction, and your train is headed for that junction. Right now, the switching mechanism has you set to run right over those five people. If you do nothing, five people die. Or, you can pull the lever, switch tracks at the junction, and kill Nell. Philosophers get themselves all up in knots about whether it is better to let five people die through inaction, or take action when that action results in the death of one, even if the result is a net reduction of four in total loss of life.
Philosophers spend entirely too much time thinking about putting their hands on their levers.
Me? I'm a game theorist. We don't care what label you put on a strategy, like which strategy gets called "action," and which one gets called, "inaction." We care about the consequences of your choice. Pull the damned lever!
Annoying question.
With that said, here's today's version of "the trolley problem." Some wacko supervillain rigs up a contraption to do the following. If Button A gets pressed, some rando dies. Who is that rando? The point is that it is some rando. There are, like, 7.6 billion people on this planet. Pick one at random. Literally. That person dies.
If Button B gets pressed, some gas is released into The Louvre, forcing everyone out, and then a big bomb goes off. Nobody dies, but all that art... No more.
Then, our supervillain locks you in a room, and says that if you don't press one of those two buttons, he'll torture every member of your friends and family to death.
Pick one. None of that trolley problem/action-versus-inaction nonsense. Press a button. And don't pull any of that "I challenge the premise of the scenario" nonsense. This is about the ethics of the problem, and it's my cartoon villain scenario. I can write it however I want. I've read worse books.
Which button do you press? Is it at least a hard question for you?
Obviously, I'm addressing the issues associated with the destruction of historical and cultural sites, and Donald Trump's threats towards Iran. What's worse: killing humans, or destroying cultural and artistic artifacts?
I have been fascinated by the reactions to Trump's threats. Those few of you who read this pretentious, little blog know full well that I value art quite highly. And, when I was doing The Unmutual Political Blog, I devoted Tuesday's music posts to artists from around the world. Yay, art! (That was sincere. I realize that it is difficult to tell when I am being sincere. I should figure out a solution to that problem.) My point, though, is that I am fascinated by the extent to which people expressed revulsion at the idea of destroying... things... in contrast to the often cavalier or indifferent attitude people can take towards the destruction of human life, or at least, let's call it the revulsion ratio. Something just seemed interesting to me about the proportions. Why so much revulsion about the idea of destroying things, relative to the idea of destroying people?
When was the last time you thought about the 10,000 people who die every day due to waterborne pathogens? Just askin'...
Anyway, you may very well be the kind of person who would press Button A. I wouldn't judge you for that. But this has me thinking... why? Aren't people always talking about the value of human life, and all that posturing phoniness? Obviously, when I put it that way, you can tell that I don't put much stock in peoples' statements about how much they value human life. One of the other aspects of being a sorta-kinda economist is that I evaluate people through "the axiom of revealed preferences." How you rank choices X, Y and Z is not how you say you rank them, but how you behave when presented with various situations in which your choices determine which you receive. So, no, I don't think people value human life beyond whomever they have decided belongs to their own narrow tribe. It's just a question of how narrowly anyone constructs their own tribe. That's a big part of why Americans don't give a damn about the waterborne pathogen issue.
Anyway, you may be the kind of person who would press Button A. Why? How would objects of artistic and cultural significance outweigh human life? OK, maybe you say that it's the whole Louvre! What if it were just one wing? How about just The Mona Lisa? As the punchline to that rather crass joke goes, we've already established what kind of person you are. We're just haggling about the price now.
So how could objects of art outweigh human life? Because I know some people would press Button A. I'm going with these two characteristics: permanence, and influence.
Last week, I referenced Octavia Butler's Earthseed series, which is an interesting set of books, but certainly not her best. The POV character, Lauren Olamina, tries to navigate a world in economic, social and political collapse, with the second book addressing the rise of President Andrew Steele Jarret, who is a demagogic bigot elected on a platform of... yes, really, "Make America Great Again." Publication date, 1998. Anyway, Olamina founds a loopy cult called... "Earthseed," the premise of which is a deification of the abstract concept of change. Nothing is permanent or static, so label the abstraction of "change" as a sorta-kinda deity, even if it isn't an entity. Like I said, loopy.
Of course, there is a point at which change will stop. We call this the cold death of the universe. No more change after that. And humanity will go extinct long before that point, if we're being realistic. However, some things are longer-lasting. The Mona Lisa was painted 500 years ago. Of course, there are older artifacts, many of which are in Iran. You know... Persia. Human lifespan? We marvel at those who live 100, but if you live past 80, you've already beaten the spread, so to speak. In the Earthseed books, Lauren Olamina lives to 81, which is somehow old enough to see the launch of interstellar spaceships carrying people in stasis headed for planets orbiting other stars (even though she was born in 2009). Um... no.
Anyway, next, influence. All that artwork has influenced a lot of people. And it will continue to influence countless people, for as long as both we, and it exist. Me? I'm nobody. I'm some pretentious, little nobody ranting into the void. For as much as we academics fool ourselves, we aren't going to be remembered. A tiny few will be. Physicists like Newton and Einstein are remembered. Within political science, Robert Dahl, Anthony Downs and such scholars will be remembered for a long time to come, but unless you study political science, or listen to people like me, you don't know who they are. And some famous academics... turn out to be frauds. As I wrote earlier, one of the big problems right now is that psychology education is trying to catch up to the debunking process, and Philip Zimbardo is more famous than the debunking of his most famous study. Most of us? We're nobodies. And too few of us understand and accept that. Leonardo da Vinci? Rembrandt, Van Gogh, take your pick. They matter in a way that we never will. Or rather, their art matters in a way that our writings never will. That influence is a lot.
So now let's reframe my version of the trolley problem. The gas is being released. You're in the room with The Mona Lisa. There's an old docent, who won't make it out alone. If you don't help him, he dies when the bomb goes off. Do you help him, or grab The Mona Lisa on your way out? Maybe confronted with the human toll, you grab the docent, which is analogous to pressing Button B, even if you would have pressed Button A when the supervillain locks you in that room threatening to torture and murder your friends and family.
People are weird that way.
Anyway, this has been a ramble about what we value, and how we react to proposals. That's all I've done here. I have given you a few situations as pseudo-trolley problems, to stimulate thought about values. How many lives would The Mona Lisa be worth? The Louvre? Some historical site in Iran? (I know relatively little of Persian history, but if you know more, fill in something equivalent, or even lesser. You get the point.) Are our reactions indicative of the relative moral weight?
Some thoughts.
Philosophers spend entirely too much time thinking about putting their hands on their levers.
Me? I'm a game theorist. We don't care what label you put on a strategy, like which strategy gets called "action," and which one gets called, "inaction." We care about the consequences of your choice. Pull the damned lever!
Annoying question.
With that said, here's today's version of "the trolley problem." Some wacko supervillain rigs up a contraption to do the following. If Button A gets pressed, some rando dies. Who is that rando? The point is that it is some rando. There are, like, 7.6 billion people on this planet. Pick one at random. Literally. That person dies.
If Button B gets pressed, some gas is released into The Louvre, forcing everyone out, and then a big bomb goes off. Nobody dies, but all that art... No more.
Then, our supervillain locks you in a room, and says that if you don't press one of those two buttons, he'll torture every member of your friends and family to death.
Pick one. None of that trolley problem/action-versus-inaction nonsense. Press a button. And don't pull any of that "I challenge the premise of the scenario" nonsense. This is about the ethics of the problem, and it's my cartoon villain scenario. I can write it however I want. I've read worse books.
Which button do you press? Is it at least a hard question for you?
Obviously, I'm addressing the issues associated with the destruction of historical and cultural sites, and Donald Trump's threats towards Iran. What's worse: killing humans, or destroying cultural and artistic artifacts?
I have been fascinated by the reactions to Trump's threats. Those few of you who read this pretentious, little blog know full well that I value art quite highly. And, when I was doing The Unmutual Political Blog, I devoted Tuesday's music posts to artists from around the world. Yay, art! (That was sincere. I realize that it is difficult to tell when I am being sincere. I should figure out a solution to that problem.) My point, though, is that I am fascinated by the extent to which people expressed revulsion at the idea of destroying... things... in contrast to the often cavalier or indifferent attitude people can take towards the destruction of human life, or at least, let's call it the revulsion ratio. Something just seemed interesting to me about the proportions. Why so much revulsion about the idea of destroying things, relative to the idea of destroying people?
When was the last time you thought about the 10,000 people who die every day due to waterborne pathogens? Just askin'...
Anyway, you may very well be the kind of person who would press Button A. I wouldn't judge you for that. But this has me thinking... why? Aren't people always talking about the value of human life, and all that posturing phoniness? Obviously, when I put it that way, you can tell that I don't put much stock in peoples' statements about how much they value human life. One of the other aspects of being a sorta-kinda economist is that I evaluate people through "the axiom of revealed preferences." How you rank choices X, Y and Z is not how you say you rank them, but how you behave when presented with various situations in which your choices determine which you receive. So, no, I don't think people value human life beyond whomever they have decided belongs to their own narrow tribe. It's just a question of how narrowly anyone constructs their own tribe. That's a big part of why Americans don't give a damn about the waterborne pathogen issue.
Anyway, you may be the kind of person who would press Button A. Why? How would objects of artistic and cultural significance outweigh human life? OK, maybe you say that it's the whole Louvre! What if it were just one wing? How about just The Mona Lisa? As the punchline to that rather crass joke goes, we've already established what kind of person you are. We're just haggling about the price now.
So how could objects of art outweigh human life? Because I know some people would press Button A. I'm going with these two characteristics: permanence, and influence.
Last week, I referenced Octavia Butler's Earthseed series, which is an interesting set of books, but certainly not her best. The POV character, Lauren Olamina, tries to navigate a world in economic, social and political collapse, with the second book addressing the rise of President Andrew Steele Jarret, who is a demagogic bigot elected on a platform of... yes, really, "Make America Great Again." Publication date, 1998. Anyway, Olamina founds a loopy cult called... "Earthseed," the premise of which is a deification of the abstract concept of change. Nothing is permanent or static, so label the abstraction of "change" as a sorta-kinda deity, even if it isn't an entity. Like I said, loopy.
Of course, there is a point at which change will stop. We call this the cold death of the universe. No more change after that. And humanity will go extinct long before that point, if we're being realistic. However, some things are longer-lasting. The Mona Lisa was painted 500 years ago. Of course, there are older artifacts, many of which are in Iran. You know... Persia. Human lifespan? We marvel at those who live 100, but if you live past 80, you've already beaten the spread, so to speak. In the Earthseed books, Lauren Olamina lives to 81, which is somehow old enough to see the launch of interstellar spaceships carrying people in stasis headed for planets orbiting other stars (even though she was born in 2009). Um... no.
Anyway, next, influence. All that artwork has influenced a lot of people. And it will continue to influence countless people, for as long as both we, and it exist. Me? I'm nobody. I'm some pretentious, little nobody ranting into the void. For as much as we academics fool ourselves, we aren't going to be remembered. A tiny few will be. Physicists like Newton and Einstein are remembered. Within political science, Robert Dahl, Anthony Downs and such scholars will be remembered for a long time to come, but unless you study political science, or listen to people like me, you don't know who they are. And some famous academics... turn out to be frauds. As I wrote earlier, one of the big problems right now is that psychology education is trying to catch up to the debunking process, and Philip Zimbardo is more famous than the debunking of his most famous study. Most of us? We're nobodies. And too few of us understand and accept that. Leonardo da Vinci? Rembrandt, Van Gogh, take your pick. They matter in a way that we never will. Or rather, their art matters in a way that our writings never will. That influence is a lot.
So now let's reframe my version of the trolley problem. The gas is being released. You're in the room with The Mona Lisa. There's an old docent, who won't make it out alone. If you don't help him, he dies when the bomb goes off. Do you help him, or grab The Mona Lisa on your way out? Maybe confronted with the human toll, you grab the docent, which is analogous to pressing Button B, even if you would have pressed Button A when the supervillain locks you in that room threatening to torture and murder your friends and family.
People are weird that way.
Anyway, this has been a ramble about what we value, and how we react to proposals. That's all I've done here. I have given you a few situations as pseudo-trolley problems, to stimulate thought about values. How many lives would The Mona Lisa be worth? The Louvre? Some historical site in Iran? (I know relatively little of Persian history, but if you know more, fill in something equivalent, or even lesser. You get the point.) Are our reactions indicative of the relative moral weight?
Some thoughts.
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