This is a very valid point—but I don’t think it inherently disagrees with the core idea. The kind stranger is still someone we admire, else we wouldn’t describe him as such. The more we look up to this stranger, the more we would be willing to risk our life for him. This also doesn’t directly imply a friendship: for that, the p-values have to be a two-way street. As you are a stranger to him, suppose a true stranger, he has no idea who you are, what your beliefs, achievements and goals describe, etc… - for all he knows, you could be a murderer on death-row. Even this extremely kind stranger will probably decide that it’s not worth it.
I think a lot of people would argue along these lines, they were simply “too weak” and couldn’t go through with it. I also think that people use the word “friendship” too inflationary and a lot of these relationships are exclusively self-serving. Having fun with people and spending a lot of time with them as a result is not something rare—everyone is having a good time, naturally you would like to reinforce this behavior. But this isn’t what I look at as a friendship. A friendship is defined by what happens when not everyone is having fun, when in fact everyone is miserable. Giving when there’s nothing to give. Protecting when one needs protection themself. You mentioned someone being fine with giving money, just not this. I only think this applies when money isn’t scarce, when the incurred loss is minor. Because giving money when it’s truly scarce often implies existential problems just as much, depending on where you live.
I’ll concede this point because it’s pretty much inevitable: a hypothetical clearly has limitations. But I do think that there are proxies much alike to this hypothetical, simply not as extreme. I’m sure each and every one has at least once during school seen a person they know get bullied. Did you step in, even knowing you might become a new target? This sadly introduces a lot of secondary variables that skew the resulting answer, but it does remove the noise of a hypothetical.
This is a very valid point—but I don’t think it inherently disagrees with the core idea. The kind stranger is still someone we admire, else we wouldn’t describe him as such. The more we look up to this stranger, the more we would be willing to risk our life for him. This also doesn’t directly imply a friendship: for that, the p-values have to be a two-way street. As you are a stranger to him, suppose a true stranger, he has no idea who you are, what your beliefs, achievements and goals describe, etc… - for all he knows, you could be a murderer on death-row. Even this extremely kind stranger will probably decide that it’s not worth it.
I think a lot of people would argue along these lines, they were simply “too weak” and couldn’t go through with it. I also think that people use the word “friendship” too inflationary and a lot of these relationships are exclusively self-serving. Having fun with people and spending a lot of time with them as a result is not something rare—everyone is having a good time, naturally you would like to reinforce this behavior. But this isn’t what I look at as a friendship. A friendship is defined by what happens when not everyone is having fun, when in fact everyone is miserable. Giving when there’s nothing to give. Protecting when one needs protection themself. You mentioned someone being fine with giving money, just not this. I only think this applies when money isn’t scarce, when the incurred loss is minor. Because giving money when it’s truly scarce often implies existential problems just as much, depending on where you live.
I’ll concede this point because it’s pretty much inevitable: a hypothetical clearly has limitations. But I do think that there are proxies much alike to this hypothetical, simply not as extreme. I’m sure each and every one has at least once during school seen a person they know get bullied. Did you step in, even knowing you might become a new target? This sadly introduces a lot of secondary variables that skew the resulting answer, but it does remove the noise of a hypothetical.