Every Time I Find the Meaning of Life, They Change It by Daniel Klein

Author:Daniel Klein
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-09-23T16:00:00+00:00

“In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility. ‘To do as you would be done by,’ and ‘to love your neighbor as yourself,’ constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality.”

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—JOHN STUART MILL, ENGLISH PHILOSOPHER (1806–1873), UTILITARIAN

I OFTEN FIND MYSELF COMING BACK TO THAT AFFECTING CODA TO Fanny and Alexander: “The world is a den of thieves, and night is falling. Evil breaks its chains and runs through the world like a mad dog. The poison affects us all. No one escapes. Therefore let us be happy while we are happy. Let us be kind, generous, affectionate, and good. It is necessary and not at all shameful to take pleasure in the little world.”

But increasingly that phrase, “not at all shameful,” troubles me. Like many people I know, I sometimes feel guilty for living in a fortunate bubble, one where too often I am oblivious to the evil running like a mad dog through the bigger world. Being a hedonist with a conscience can be demoralizing. It turns out that this business of feeling good often comes at the price of somebody else’s deprivation, and then I have to consider which is more important to me: feeling good or being good? Reading Mill has always been instructive for me on this dilemma, starting when I read the quoted line as a student.

• • •

I have always liked the Golden Rule, in part because it is so pithy. It makes its point fast and then lets you work out the details as situations present themselves. Very tidy. No wonder that virtually every culture has come up with a maxim that is practically identical to it.

But the Golden Rule of the Bible asks me to accept it as a matter of faith. It is the basic way to be good and therefore to make God happy with me. So, if I have a tenuous grasp on divine faith, I am left wondering, why? Why be good to others? To put it callously, what’s in it for me?

Mill has the answer: The Golden Rule is a utilitarian concept. It is in my own best interest to follow the Golden Rule because by following it I will promote the greatest good for the greatest number of people, and that, most of the time, is good for me. So what we have here is virtuous behavior as enlightened self-interest.

But I am still left with the question, how does my following the Golden Rule ensure that the people around me will follow it also? I guess it’s a deal we make with the rest of society: I will follow the Golden Rule if you do, and that way we’ll all get along just fine.

But you go first, okay?

It’s in that “you go first” business that things can get messy. It opens up what moral philosophers call the “free-rider problem,” in which all it takes to screw up a Golden Rule–abiding society is for a few people to cheat by taking a free ride on everybody else’s goodwill.

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