The Myth of Choice_ Personal Responsibility in a World of Limits - Kent Greenfield [84]
This is much easier said than done, but I believe exposure to other cultures can move us in the right direction. The best ways to gain some understanding of the power of our own culture are to travel more among others and to read more about others. Occasionally watching a good movie from a different cultural point of view isn’t a bad idea, either. Excursions need not take us far away; they can be a trip to the Mississippi Delta if you’re from Los Angeles, or a visit to Castro Street in San Francisco if you’re from Des Moines. I could stand to test my own assumptions by walking across a cultural chasm once in a while.
These four ideas—recognize the power of situation, acknowledge our irrationalities, be mindful of habits, and cultivate an awareness of cultural influence—can only do so much. We can become better at making choices, but I do not believe the improvement is likely to be large. Most people do not significantly change the way they think once they reach adulthood, unless they suffer a catastrophic event, a religious conversion, or the end or beginning of an addiction. It is a humbling lesson for authors of books, preachers of sermons, and facilitators of ethics seminars to learn that people don’t generally change as a result of their entreaties.
A recent study asked seminary students to give a talk about either the parable of the Good Samaritan—where the Samaritan helps a person hurt on the side of a road—or a morally neutral topic about careers. They were each to study their topics, prepare their talks, and then walk across campus to another building to deliver it. On their way, they passed a person in apparent need of help, who was actually a confederate of the experimenters. Some seminarians had been told that they were late for their appointment, and some were allowed to walk more leisurely. Fewer than half of the seminarians stopped to assist the person in distress. Those who were in a hurry were less likely to help; those who were not in a hurry were more likely to help. But the content of the talk they had been asked to give mattered not at all. Those who were about to deliver a message about helping those in need were no more likely to provide succor than those who were to give a talk about careers.8
I am bemused but not surprised by this finding. Our situation is likely to matter quite a bit. But we’re not likely to change our natures much, whether we’re scorpions or Samaritans.
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The hard question, then, is whether we can be any more successful building choice through external rather than internal means. Can we build choice by adjusting public policy? Can we make people better choosers by changing the circumstances in which they choose?
In thinking about this challenge, there is an important distinction to keep in mind. We are not only talking about encouraging people to make better decisions. We also need to ask whether and how we make it possible for individuals to build the capacity to make better decisions. These are different challenges.
Encouraging people to make better decisions is a large part of law. On one end of the spectrum of public policies are criminal punishments. These punishments are more than encouragements—they’re mandates. To be a part of society you have to be willing to engage in specific behavior, whether you want to or not. You must pay taxes, drive on the correct side of the street, and provide clothing and shelter to your children. If you don’t, you will be subject to criminal punishment. Also, society sets some decisions off-limits by way of bans or exclusions, backed with criminal penalties. A ban on prostitution, heroin, or backyard incinerators is simply society’s way of saying that a decision to sell sex, use heroin, or burn household garbage is bad enough, enough of the time, to justify prohibiting the behavior.
Libertarian eras come and