Consider the case of Thomas Midgely, who introduced the idea of adding lead to gasoline to stop engines from knocking. He later helped develop commercial chloroflourocarbon (CFC) for use in refrigeration. For many decades lead and CFC were used in cars and refrigerators. Both turned out to be among the worst pollutants the world has ever seen. But is Midgely himself guilty for having caused more pollution than anyone else in the twentieth century? I do not know if he could have foreseen the consequences of his inventions. The same action and outcome can lead to quite different assessment of moral responsibility, depending on your judgments about the person’s foresight, control, and intentions.

The Gap
Thomas Suddendorf

 

 

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Thomas Midgely
1889-1944

Midgely was an American mechanical engineer and chemist. He was a key figure in a team of chemists that developed the lead additive to gasoline as well as chlorofluorocarbon (CFC). Midgley died three decades before the ozone-depleting effects of CFCs in the atmosphere became widely known. Another adverse effect of Midgley’s work was the release of large quantities of lead into the atmosphere as a result of the large-scale combustion of leaded gasoline all over the world.

Studies on hunter-gather societies suggest that people have a tendency to act for the greater good, rather than for their own immediate personal interests, as was long assumed. Moreover, experiments in economics have demonstrated that people often prefer win/win situations over outcomes in which they win and another loses. People often make generous offers when they could be selfish, reject “unfair” offers even if it means losing resources, share when they do not need to, and contribute to public goods even when they could get away with not giving anything. We believe in a better world — and we tell others about it. Every day millions of sermons are delivered about how we ought to act.

The Gap
Thomas Suddendorf

We have become so successful that many of us think a god singled us out to run the world. Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions, for example, all share the fundamental belief that a universal god created humanity in his image, that only we are imbued with a soul, and that a glorious afterlife awaits those who follow a set of divine prescriptions. Nonhuman animals in these plots are cast as extras, and humans are given express rights to exploit them.

The Gap
Thomas Suddendorf