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Stoic q&a: Would Epictetus save his mother or two strangers?
C. Writes: I just finished reading Strangers Drowning by Larissa MacFarquhar. It is a collection of profiles of people who go to extreme length to help strangers. The title comes from a thought experiment discussed at the beginning of the book — “Should you save your mother from drowning, or two strangers?”
Utilitarianism tells us of course we should save the two strangers — two lives are more important than one. The do-gooders in the book all took this route to great extent, giving up many things normally considered good — money, time, pleasure, health and social status — in order to help strangers.
However, this also affected their own family negatively, which is a bit unsettling for me. This seems to be very much contrary to what we always hear in films and literature — “Family always comes first!” For example, a US Christian missionary in the book took her young children with her to Africa when she worked there, and one of them almost got kidnapped by a mob.
I wonder how a Stoic sage would answer this question. Would Epictetus save his mother instead of two strangers?
Well, I ain’t no Stoic sage, but I will try nevertheless to channel by inner Epictetus. I think the answer, as usual in virtue ethics, is “it depends.” That’s because of two reasons: (i) real life…
