Morality on "Survivor" (12/8 spoilers)

I haven't gotten around to watching the "Survivor" finale yet, but I did see that Ambimb has posted thoughts about the penultimate episode, in which zookeeper Cindy won a car in the reward challenge but then had the option to give up her car to give the other remaining survivors each a car.  She opted to keep the car, and when she failed to win immunity, she was voted out.

Ambimb writes:

So let me just get right to it: I'm appalled! How could so many of you think it was perfectly ok for Cindy to give up the chance to give four cars away!? I guess I'm just totally out of it, but my answer was Option 3 -- both 1 & 2. The choice was selfish, greedy, and stupid. And look here, people, Heather Havrilesky agrees with me, so I must be right. ;-)

One way of looking at the decision is from the perspective of game theory: did Cindy make the right choice if her goal was to maximize her winnings from the game?  Assuming that if she'd given up her car, she would've been given a pass in this tribal council (thus advancing her at least one position in the game), she would've won at least $15,000 more in prize money; and improved her shot of winning the $1 million.

But Ambimb seems to be writing from a moral/ethical perspective, not a game theory one.  Ambimb quotes with approval another blogger: "Four people get brand-new cars, four people, one of whom has never owned her own car in her entire life. Who could even consider taking a new car for herself, knowing that she cheated four people out of that experience?"

I guess I can see that point, but I'm not persuaded.  First, I'm not certain but I had the impression that Cindy herself had never had a car, or in any event, was relatively poor herself.  (And I think I've read on bulletin boards that Stephanie owns her own house, which no doubt puts her well ahead of Cindy in wealth.)  So calling for Cindy to make the other four better off is not the same call as if you were asking it of, say, Bill Gates.

Second, it's true that within the context of the game, it's a choice of 4 cars vs. 1, meaning that if Cindy turned hers down, there would be a net gain of 3 cars for the group without any other cost.  Not a pareto efficient decision, but definitely a Kaldor-Hicks efficient one.  But in the real world, those extra three cars aren't free.  In some way, indirect or not, the cost of those cars is paid by someone.  It may be that the incremental cost is minimal when spread over the consumers who purchase from that car manufacturer, but the fact is that cars aren't free.  So someone is subsidizing the four who would've gotten "free" cars.  Maybe it's not unreasonable to ask society to do that, but I don't think everyone would agree.

Comments

[Eric Goldman]

If you thought the car curse decision was a moral issue, wait until you watch the final episode!

I'm not convinced she made a bad economic decision. In terms of payoffs, the car payoff was zero risk and any future payoffs had some degree of risk. Depending on her risk tolerances, taking the car in period zero may have been higher utility than risky payoffs in periods 1-X.

However, I wonder if she considered the true costs of the car. Presumably she has to pay taxes on the car, so it's not really free to her. My wife and I both agreed that we would not want that particular car even all we had to pay was the income tax (i.e., about 1/3 its retail value).

Real tax geeks might consider the tax consequences Cindy would have incurred by "giving away" the car and causing four people to get new cars.

Eric.