:Analogies for Sustainable Development/Cooperation as sitting in the same boat

Quote Bank

Greene (2013):

"Suppose that two people, Art and Bud, are at sea in a rowboat, trying to stay ahead of a violent storm. Neither will survive unless both row as hard as possible. Here self-interest and collective interest (in this case, a collective of two) are in perfect harmony. For both Art and Bud, doing what’s best for “Me” and what’s best for “Us” is the same. In other cases, cooperation is impossible. Suppose, for example, that Art and Bud’s boat is now sinking and that they’ve only one life vest, which can’t be shared. Here there is no Us, just two different Me’s. When cooperation is easy or impossible, as in the two scenarios above, there’s no social problem to be solved. Cooperation becomes a challenging but solvable problem when ... individual interest and collective interest are neither perfectly aligned nor perfectly opposed."

"The problem of cooperation, then, is the problem of getting collective interest to triumph over individual interest, when possible. The problem of cooperation is the central problem of social existence."

"Most cooperation among humans is of the interesting kind, the kind in which self-interest and collective interest are partially aligned. In the first case involving Art and Bud above, we stipulated that their interests are perfectly aligned: Both must row as hard as possible or both are sunk. But cases like this are rare. In a more typical case, either Art or Bud could row a little less hard and their boat would still arrive."

Further Resources

Analogies for Sustainable Development