Who Shall We Save?

The philosophy talk segment we listened to this week mentioned a scenario where there is a child drowning on your way to work. The women describing this scenario said that you would be more likely to save that child than to "save a child for 25 cents a day" from another country. Her explanation was because we feel closer to the child drowning because he is from America.

I strongly disagree. We are more likely to save the drowning child because it is for one, an instinct, and two, it is in the moment, the child is right there in front of you needing help. Those TV ads that we have all seen, to save a child for 25 cents a day can seem a bit like a scam and probably a lot of the time are. I do not know what my money is going to. Saving the drowning child is a one time thing and you would physically be helping someone instead of paying someone to help a child in need.

This leads to the social psychology term, diffusion of responsibility or the bystander effect. (This was brought about by the Katy Genovese murder, a women who was stabbed and killed outside of her apartment. There were no less than 38 witnesses, none of them called 911.) Basically the term is the thought "no one else is helping why should I?" Or "I don't know what to do so I'll just follow everybody else and do nothing." But you see, in the drowning incident there is no one else around you are this child's only hope and therefore feel obligated to save him/her. Everybody has seen those commercials though, and I am sure somebody else has already called to help.

My last reason is because of pride. If you were to save this child from drowning, you have much more pride than anonymously helping a stranger. Not to say that pride is a reason to help someone, but let us not lie, you are going to be pretty proud of yourself if you save a drowning kid. Is pride a reason to help someone?