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How generous are you? (Part I)

How much do you allocate to the other person?

  • Total voters
    43
This is probably much less difficult than I'm making it out to be but I want to assume it's not a word trick question and I was simply given a choice to give some, or none, of the money to the other person. If true then I would give 50% without hesitation. I would feel good about myself and I'm sure the other person would too. However, I would leave immediately not wanting to know what the other person is going to do with their share.

Bee
 
Interesting...exactly half of us would give exactly half of the money to the other person.
 
Well the description said "Asked to Split it" So unless I was forced to split it in order to receive any I would keep it all since I know nothing about the other person except they are from the same country. Then I would make my donation to a group that I know would put it to good use.
 
The most ethically 'optimal' decision (removing other complications) under most mainstream ethical systems (i.e. Virtue Ethics, Deontological Ethics, Consequentalist Ethics) would be to give the other man everything. On the other hand, 50% isn't unethical under most considerations.
 
I realize there is a lack of information in this poll. That is deliberate.

There are no additional details to this situation than what is already given. If you are not comfortable voting because of this, then don't vote.
 
I would definitely have to have a long discussion with him first.
 
JustinS said:
The most ethically 'optimal' decision (removing other complications) under most mainstream ethical systems (i.e. Virtue Ethics, Deontological Ethics, Consequentalist Ethics) would be to give the other man everything. On the other hand, 50% isn't unethical under most considerations.
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How so? I've got ethical obligations to people and that money would go a long way toward me upholding them-- even shares is a fair distribution when neither of us earned the money, it shows respect and generosity for the other person... and it also allows me to do things for the benefit of my family and friends, showing loyalty.

All of my virtues say 50% is ideal. Giving up my self-interest to help a random stranger-- who is in no more need of help than myself-- isn't virtuous, it's stupid. Stupidity is not a virtue.
 
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Viktyr Korimir said:
How so? I've got ethical obligations to people and that money would go a long way toward me upholding them.
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That's an extra complication which definitely could chance the ethical circumstances.
 
This is tough for me, because I don't even know if I'd accept it myself.

We all have grand ideas of what we'd do if we fell into a large sum of money, but statistically, such a person is likely to wind up in a worse financial position than they started in a short few years later.

We aren't very good with managing such a fast shift in our economic status, and such fast shifts tend to result in financial ruin more often than financial success. I consider myself very self-aware, and I would still be very concerned about how I'd spent that money and if I could handle it. I'd be far more concerned for someone I don't know.

My first impulse is to say "split it 50/50," because it's "our" money which neither of us actually earned, and that seems fair. My second impulse would be "donate all of it - none for me, none for them," because I feel more certain of it doing some good that way. But there's no option for that.

I'm stuck. I didn't vote.
 
Without knowing just how much there is then I can't give an honest answer. 1,000,001 dollars is more than 1 million but it would take the whole of it to set my family up on a permanent lifetime basis. Where as with 2 million I could give 50% of it to the other guy. If its 100 million then I could give 10% to the other guy and give all but 1 or 2 million to various charities.

About the only honest answer that I could give is that I would keep enough to take care of my family and give whatever is left away.

Yeah it would be great to recieve the money but I wouldn't want to depend upon that. If I did then I'd more than likely screw myself over in the end and be worse off than I am now. I would rather depend upon the money that I earned myself. That is why I'd only take enough to set up my family on a permanent basis. (that permanent basis being 4 bedroom house, 2 cars, an education for both me, my wife, and my kid's college fund, and to pay off current bills)
 
jamesrage said:
A million dollars is still a lot of money to a lot of people in this country.
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True....
My daughter and son-in-law will easily earn over one million in their life time.. . My family(man and wife) may have come close...
Interesting , if the money source is the American taxpayer and the recipient is our government.
 
JustinS said:
The most ethically 'optimal' decision (removing other complications) under most mainstream ethical systems (i.e. Virtue Ethics, Deontological Ethics, Consequentalist Ethics) would be to give the other man everything. On the other hand, 50% isn't unethical under most considerations.
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Then in this particular case, the Optimal Decision is a Stupid One.

Who makes this stuff up?
 
I don't think the poll question is legitimate in that it has no relationship to actual reality or the real political or ethical principle.
 
Even if I intended to give all of it to charity, why would I give anything to that guy?
 
I'm sticking with 50% because it satisfies the unknown. Whether I, or the other person, was either rich or poor we would both be satisfied.

Bee
 
We've got plenty, more would be just for show. I'll give him all then he can deal with the 'strings' attached.
 
mpg said:
Even if I intended to give all of it to charity, why would I give anything to that guy?
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Because it isn't your money to decide what to do with. You're only responsible for it.
 
Brewster's Millions?

First, I wouldn't touch the money if it didn't come from a clean source, I really don't need the money.

Second, I wouldn't be able to keep all the money even if I wanted to nor could the other guy even if I gave it all to him, unless he is Uncle Sam already...
 
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joko104 said:
I don't think the poll question is legitimate in that it has no relationship to actual reality or the real political or ethical principle.
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Actually it is. It's called the Dictator Game and is a test of personal utility vs. altruism. It's been done in person in a lab setting many times.

Interestingly, in all experiments involving this game, most of the participants in the dictator role end up alotting money to the other person instead of keeping it all.

Wikipedia: The Dictator Game said:
This game has been used to test the homo economicus model of individual behavior: if individuals were only concerned with their own economic well being, proposers (acting as dictators) would allocate the entire good to themselves and give nothing to the responder. Experimental results have indicated that individuals often allocate money to the responders, reducing the amount of money they receive.[3] These results appear robust: for example, Henrich, et al. discovered in a wide cross cultural study that proposers do allocate a non-zero share of the endowment to the responder.[4]

If these experiments appropriately reflect individuals' preferences outside of the laboratory, these results appear to demonstrate that either:

1) Proposers fail to maximize their own expected utility,
2) Proposers' utility functions may include non-tangible harms they incur (for example self-image or anticipated negative views of others in society), or
3) Proposers' utility functions may include benefits received by others.

Additional experiments have shown that subjects maintain a high degree of consistency across multiple versions of the dictator game in which the cost of giving varies.[5] This suggests that dictator game behavior is, in fact, altruism instead of the failure of optimizing behavior. Other experiments have shown a relationship between political participation and dictator game giving, suggesting that it may be an externally valid indicator of concern for the well-being of others
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It shows that humans have an altruistic core, even with others they don't know. While theorists offer explanations for why the dictator would not maximize their own alottment, it may also partially disprove the economic theory that all humans are purely self-interested actors. I wanted to see if the results would be similar with people at DP and they were. The overwhelming majority would give some portion of the money away instead of keeping it all - and more would give half than in any other category. The fact that people know practically nothing about the receiver does not change the outcome.

Thanks everyone for participating.
 
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