Q&A: Zero-Sum Game
Zero-Sum Game
Question
Suppose my child and his friend are traveling together, and in the middle of the trip I hear a rumor that there was a car accident and one of the passengers was killed. If I say that I hope to hear that my son is the passenger who survived, is that exactly the same as saying I hope to hear that the friend died? Is there a moral problem with that?
Answer
Are you asking about the hope, or about the statement that expresses it? The hope is a natural matter, so I don’t see what could be wrong with it. The statement merely expresses that hope. So that too is not a moral problem.
And on the logical level, I don’t accept your argument: I can be glad that my son remained alive, and that doesn’t mean I’m glad that the other one died, even though one entails the other. Suppose the State of Israel was established because of the Holocaust. If I condemn the Holocaust, am I condemning the establishment of the state? And if I rejoice in the establishment of the state, am I rejoicing in the Holocaust?
Discussion on Answer
On the same topic—if you asked people what they would prefer: that a relative of theirs die, or that two random people die, I’d guess that many people would choose the second option. Is there a moral problem with that choice? After all, here too we’re talking about something natural.
You didn’t understand what I wrote. The question whether to think this way is different from the question whether to hope, and from the question whether to express that hope. Naturalness is relevant to the last two questions, not the first. What is morally right does not depend on what is natural. But what I hope for is a natural matter (the hope arises in me spontaneously).
When you ask what I would prefer, that can be interpreted in two ways: 1. What do I hope for (a natural matter). 2. What would I decide if the matter were in my hands (what is right to do).
As for the question of what is right to do, I think there is permission to take care of a relative first, as in the passage about two people walking in the desert and only one of them has a flask of water. He should drink and not give it to the other. Now one can ask: what if two people are walking in the desert and they have no water, and I have some? May I choose my relative and give it to him? In my view, yes. It depends on the passage about priority in rescue in Horayot, assuming that it deals with saving lives as well (some halakhic decisors denied that).
And what would your view be regarding the trolley problem?
In my opinion it is forbidden to divert the trolley. One does not save the life of a particular person at the cost of another person’s life, even if there are several of the former; the latter is innocent. That is also the halakhic ruling, but in my opinion it is also morally correct. Note that usually such an argument is associated with a deontological consideration rather than a teleological (consequentialist) one. But that is not so. I am making a consequentialist calculation. The decision is not meant to reduce my violation of the prohibition of murder, but because the outcome that the other person will die is not justified by saving the lives of those people. Note well that this is a subtle distinction.
By the way, in the Talmud in Berakhot, regarding “May it be Your will that these not be members of my household,” the discussion revolves around praying about something that has already happened. The question of whether it is proper in the first place to want such a thing does not come up there. To be sure, that isn’t conclusive proof, because it may be that the discussion there concerns only the laws of prayer and not the laws of hopes and beliefs.