What We Owe Each Other
What can we expect from our fellow humans?
By Carter Starkey
We live in a world that depends on people looking out for one another, but simultaneously encourages each individual to choose whether or not to do so.
As a working member of society, I often feel betrayed by my inability to make choices for the good of the collective. The best I can do is lobby, act, and critique. In centuries past, philosophers like Locke, Rousseau, and Kant have used these methods to ask an important question: what do humans owe each other? At the very base level, what do you owe to the people around you? The school of philosophy that this line of thinking would fall under is called Contractualism. Contemporary contractualism was created by Harvard philosopher T. M. Scanlon. All you need to know are the basics.
Scanlon would argue that any action, under the circumstances, can be considered just, assuming it’s a behaviour that no one could reasonably reject on the basis of one's independent agreement with the action. That is a really convoluted way to say what he means. It’s something so simple and so ubiquitous: “The Golden Rule.” “Treat others how you would like to be treated.”
The golden rule is great. It introduces the idea of empathy to young kids and helps them with perspective. The problem is that the golden rule exists outside of our world—the real world. Hypothetical thinkers don’t have to face the answers and consequences that we do. In reality, it doesn’t matter if I object to someone's unjust behavior—they’re going to do it anyway.
In our current world, we’re asking more of one another than ever before. Facing crises like social polarization, climate change, and, of course, the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, it seems like all of our solutions rely on everyone making sacrifices for the greater good. Wear your mask in public; reduce your carbon footprint; diversify your news sources. We all can do these things, but seeing countless peers choose their personal comfort over collective action only makes these sacrifices seem harder. The people who choose to bypass the consequences, the more than 400,000 Americans killed by the virus, turn their backs to the anger climbing the shoulders of grief. I see it clearly—I face it straight on—and it scares me. It scares me when I see the proponents of selfishness, but lose sight of the effects of it.
The real question then becomes: Why can others do whatever they want and I cannot? I cannot force myself to forget the millions of coronavirus cases across the globe. I cannot force myself to stop envisioning a world ravaged by uncontrolled climate change. In a practical sense, how do I force myself to turn down social plans or set up yet another Zoom meeting when I’d much rather go get coffee with someone or have a game night with all of my friends?
I do these things because I believe that someone, perhaps long before me, made a sacrifice to give me my own choices. On those days when the line of unmasked bar-goers rounds the block, I imagine the hardships that my parents endured to provide me with the privileges that I now enjoy. I think about the challenges that those around me are facing that I may never know about. In essence, I try to imagine the world around me with complexity and, when I can muster it, with compassion.
Compassion allows you to adopt a softer perspective. You start to see the people around you as humans more often than villains. Ultimately, I think that is what we humans owe each other: compassion. Although superspreaders and oil executives may not deserve my compassion, it’s not my duty to serve as a moral judge and jury in their lives. Only in my own. Nobody is asking you to excuse terrible behavior, but simply to treat it like the mistake that it is, and hope that these people do better. Maybe they can learn from the rest of us, showing compassion, and standing strong. Probably not... but maybe.
And so, it’s inside that “Probably not... but maybe,” that we must live. I believe that if enough of us choose compassion, the rest may just follow.