Almost everyone, including atheists, believes in a God. His name is Mammon. It is natural therefore that we give a value to, and put a price on, everything. Even people have a price; Afghan girls are bought and sold every day. Since the abolition of the slave-trade, where people were considered chattels (cattle), we have put a price on the head not only of criminals but of actors and sportsmen. We “trade” baseball, football and soccer champions for hard cash. When I was a Director of Human Resources for a French multinational, I had a list of the starting salaries of candidates according to the “Grande Ecole”, the private University, from which they graduated. On top of the list were the “two in one”, graduates of both l’ENA and “X” (French readers will understand).
We categorize people in terms of their “net worth” – their bank account, their real estate and the shares, the art, the jewelry, the first editions and the stamp-collections they own. Many admire them, envy them, see them even as rôle-models. We all know an ignorant ego-maniac, whose silver teaspoon, his interited fortune, allowed him not only to live a life of unbridled luxury, but coupled with his reputed business acumen, to increase his net worth and to seduce millions into electing him as President of the United States.
For religious believers, a person’s true worth is to be found in his/her immortal “soul”, whatever his/her “net worth” may be. For realists – atheists – real worth is also independent of net worth. It resides in a moral stance and life-style that is altruistic rather than egocentric, seen in the dedication and personal sacrifice of parents for their loved ones, in the service and sacrifice of volunteers helping and protecting their fellowman, in the philanthropy (“love of mankind”) of the super-rich and the generosity of more modest donors, and in the sharing, by gifted individuals, of their talent as scientists, philosophers and artists for the betterment of mankind. Some of these heroes of humanity become celebrities, but more often than not the majority remain unknown except to those fortunate enough to have benefited from their inherent worth as truly human beings. From Gandhi to Martin Luther King to Nelson Mandela to your favorite teacher, the people we most admire are those who were more dedicated to the welfare of others rather than their own.
RIDENDA RELIGIO
P O S T – S C R I P T U M : When I wrote this post, I had never heard of the young English philosopher William Maccaskill nor the Australian philosopher Toby Orb, nor of the Center for Effective Altruism they co-founded in 2012, ten years ago (!) This week’s TIME magazine (August 22-29) devotes no less than eight pages to the work of this organization, with 200 EA chapters around the world. Its aim – to improve as many lives as possible – is predicated on TIME’s challenging question : “How much comfort should we be willing to trade for potentially enormous gains to society ?”. I have been pleasantly surprised by the number of readers of my brief post promoting altruism. I encourage them and all who read this post-scriptum not to miss TIME’s demonstration that Effective Altruism is neither a pipe-dream nor an unreachable star.