The typical human with lots of money for luxury spending who lives nearby a family who had a daughter with measles would not care about saving the daughter’s life as much as saving his own daughter’s life. But he would still be willing to donate something to save the daughter’s life. This is because the typical human has sufficiently strong prosocial tendencies to be happy to part with a relatively small amount of excess wealth to help somebody in need.
Now, you may insist that this pro-social tendency is directed at helping people who one knows personally and that to generalize it to those who one doesn’t know is to behave out of accordance with one’s values. This may in fact be true for some people. But there are some people who feel that all humans’ lives are of (very roughly) comparable intrinsic value. Such people (including myself) often do not behave in accordance with this feeling. My suggestion is that stimuli like the linked video can help them behave in accordance with their values.
Okay.
The typical human with lots of money for luxury spending who lives nearby a family who had a daughter with measles would not care about saving the daughter’s life as much as saving his own daughter’s life. But he would still be willing to donate something to save the daughter’s life. This is because the typical human has sufficiently strong prosocial tendencies to be happy to part with a relatively small amount of excess wealth to help somebody in need.
Now, you may insist that this pro-social tendency is directed at helping people who one knows personally and that to generalize it to those who one doesn’t know is to behave out of accordance with one’s values. This may in fact be true for some people. But there are some people who feel that all humans’ lives are of (very roughly) comparable intrinsic value. Such people (including myself) often do not behave in accordance with this feeling. My suggestion is that stimuli like the linked video can help them behave in accordance with their values.