On empathy, altruism, and utility

Kai Tang

Aug. 2012

(Note, a medical doctor, Dr. Donald LIU from Chicago, jumped into water to save two kids' lives, but drowned himself. A reader ******061976 posted her thought on CND, see the last, and caused heated debate. Here is mine.)

A mature woman (assuming that "1976" in the handle is what it means) could possess such cold thinking, it is just mind-appalling. I seldom debate online, as I believe it is useless for either side to try to change the other's view, but still, for the audience at large, debates are sometimes good. So, here is my 2-cents.

Being able to do cold and deep thinking and analysis is what that singularly distinguishes humans from all other animals. On the other hand, having empathy and altruism, i.e., to feel and even sacrifice for our fellow men, is also the most unique characteristic of humans. Without these two, we are just rats and monkeys, and we would be right now mating and eating, rather than debating.

Now, let me first rebut your "cold" analysis. Basically, you classify men by their utility ("status" actually, in your heart) to the society. Bill Gates must not risk his life to try to save his fellow men's lives, but a janitor can and should be, because he is more useful to the society while a janitor is simply expendable. A beautiful actress should not, but a hideous woman yes, since the former makes people happy and pleasant, while the latter causes people physically unhappy and uncomfortable. Well, if your stance is indeed "true" (from the unbiased evolution point of view), then, after these millions of years of survival-of-the fittest filtering, we should be getting more and more "useful" people and more and more beautiful ladies. We are NOT! Your classification of people and labeling them by importance, or status, might be wrong, or should not be there in the first place. It's your classification, but maybe not some others, let alone the evolution God.

Next, although you used this "utility to society" as a base for opposing Dr. Liu's heroic act, everybody - yes, I think it is everybody - can sense that you are actually against this kind of altruism (unless the person to risk his life is a useless waste in your eye). From the eye of a "selfish gene", you may be right. Wait, may be not! How do you know, perhaps one of these two boys saved by Dr. Liu will be the next Einstein? How do you know, perhaps God wants Dr. Liu to die gloriously on that day for some higher purpose? Not overstating, we humans are the king of all the animals only because we have empathy and altruism. There must be some solid reasons for the need of empathy and altruism for otherwise we mankind won't be here on this earth today. Utility is man made and earthy, it is nothing in front of these grandiose two. To say the least, in my view, empathy and altruism show the bright side of human nature to the ever coming new generations; they give them hope, let them feel love, and therefore keep the mankind going. Think about it, without these two, the entire literary - poems, novels, anything artistic, but not "real", that encourage people - can be simply wiped out. What a dark, cold, sad, and pathetic world we would live in then! A world in which every man is simply a gene machine, classified by his "utility" level to the society, eat, mate, and die of old age, no heroes, no sacrifice, no poems, no songs (except those about sex), no nothing. Do you want?

Finally, this may be not that pertinent, but perhaps connected. I notice that you have several posts on CND in which you show your obvious admiration and compliment for the so called "Wall street people". In my view, "Wall street people" exemplify the worst of human nature, greedy, selfish, irresponsible, disloyal, cheating, anything you name it. Look at what the world today they have brought us. They are to Dr. Liu as much as the S pole to the N pole of a magnetic horseshoe.

At last, I am not sure if other economists are all like you, having the same thinking on this. Let me have hope by hoping "NO".



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附：******061976's post on 2012-8-09

惋惜之于，让我说几句可能会挨砖的话。Speaking as an economist, I must say that Dr. Liu made the wrong decision in jumping into the water trying to save those two children. He, as an expert in pediatric surgery, would have saved much more children's lives, had he decided not to jump into the water. The expected number of lives saved by his decision (of jumping into the water) can be expressed by the following equation:

L = p * 2 - q * N

where p is the probability of successfully saving those two children, q is the probability of himself drowned, and N is the number of lives he would have saved as a pediatric surgeon had he lived. Because of his expertise, N would be number several orders of magnitude higher than 2. So unless p is several orders of magnitude higher than q, the value of L would be negative. A rational analysis would easily come to the conclusion that Dr. Liu should not have jumped into the water.

This example reminds us once more how much we need to let rational analysis, instead of emotion and impulse, rule our lives and our behaviors, and how much all college students ought to get some basic training in economics.