Assignment task:
Perform the following thought experiment and then answer the questions below:
You have been journeying for days, following the completion of a quest that has left you with the gratitude of the people whom you saved from a violent beast ravaging the countryside, but nothing else. You are penniless and hungry. For the past few hours, a farmer, who looks quite anxious, has been walking on the same country road up ahead of you.
At one point, you notice that a gleaming red object falls out of a pouch fastened to the farmer's waist belt. As the farmer walks on, unaware that they have dropped the object, you approach it, and discover that it is a rare and highly valuable gem. You consider calling out, but after reflecting upon your situation for a moment, you pocket the gem and continue on your way.
Some time afterward, the farmer ahead of you realizes that they have dropped the gem, turns arounds, and rushes in the direction from which you both came. You continue on your way without stopping him, and after a few hours, you arrive at a large city, where you immediately find a jewellery shop and sell the gem for a large sum of money, which allows you to secure luxurious food and lodgings.
The next day, while enjoying an outrageously expensive meal at a well-to-do tavern, you overhear two people talking about a nearby farmer who had promised to make a mortgage payment with a valuable red gem (a family heirloom), but failed to do so, and that the bank consequently foreclosed on the mortgage, which would leave the farmer and the farmer's large family without a home. You feel terrible, and think to yourself, "I wish I could turn back time to that moment when I took the dropped gem, to make a different choice!"
At that moment, a mysterious, sinister-looking figure approaches you and says to you (having read your mind): "I can turn back time to that exact moment when you took the dropped gem. Absolutely everything will be just as it was just before you made the choice to take the gem. Shall I make it so?"
You are overjoyed, and agree to be transported back in time. The mysterious figures does exactly what they said they would do. Everything is exactly as it was just before you made the choice to take the gem - including you! You have no memories of anything that happened from after the moment you took the gem the first time. You are exactly the same person you were just before you took it. Every thought and feeling in you is exactly what it was the first time around, before travelling to the city, selling the gem, and learning about the fate of the farmer who lost it.
The mysterious figure laughs a malicious laugh, and then says: "Another naïve person who thinks that they have the freedom to behave in different ways under one and the same set of initial conditions! There is no free will, and the adventurer will make exactly the same choice they did the first time!"
Discussion Activity Questions:
1. Do you agree or disagree with the mysterious figure's prediction and reasoning concerning the actions of the person you were asked to imagine yourself as in the thought experiment? Do we have the freedom to act in different ways under one and same set of circumstances, or does that set of circumstances determine one and only one possible course of action for us?
2. Psychological egoism is a descriptive theory of human behaviour according to which we are psychologically hardwired to secure our own benefit in every circumstance. Do you agree with this theory, and so think that we are fooling ourselves when we think that we can act selflessly? Or do you think it is possible to act in genuinely altruistic ways (i.e., from a purely other-regarding motive, to secure another person's benefit, regardless of our own benefit)?