Problem Synopsis

A fair-minded hungry man captures a Turtle to make soup. The Turtle pleads to be set free. Instead of throwing it straight into the boiling water, the man places a very thin bamboo stick across the pot of boiling water and says:

“If you can walk across the stick over the boiling water without falling in, I shall set you free.”

Turtles are old and very wise, and this one had little faith in humans. But the alternative was to be turned immediately into soup. So, the Turtle begins its traverse, and inch by terrible inch, manages to reach the other side of the pot.

The man claps and says, “Well done! But now, try it again.”

Where did the turtle go wrong?

My Initial Read / Thoughts

Let’s start by first accepting the problem’s premise that the ‘turtle went wrong’ (in my opinion, a dubious claim since the turtle was captured and forced into a Faustian bargain).

Next, dwell on the subversion of expectation that the problem creates. As the reader, I expected the turtle to have earned its unlikely and hard-fought freedom by making it to the other end of the pot. When the man says ‘try it again’, you realise that the inevitable has only been delayed — all other things being equal, the turtle will eventually slip whether on the next go round or the one after that (or the one after).

There’s a sense that the turtle (and by extension, you) has been hoodwinked — why? After all, the man spoke no lie: terms were cast, and a bargain struck. The man forbears from turning the poor turtle into soup once the pot is crossed; he cannot be said to have reneged on the terms as stated in the problem merely because he insists that the turtle repeat the traverse.

Did the Turtle not negotiate terms adequately?

I believe this to be unsound logic.

Let’s assume that there was a free market here and terms were exchanged; as the ‘buyer’ of terms, this point of view assumes it’s incumbent on the turtle to investigate the bargain and state the terms to the fullest clarity, i.e. the turtle fell afoul of ‘caveat emptor/buyer beware’.

I don’t think this is a fair take because a valid contract does not assume that you have investigated and addressed every edge-case in order for your own negligence to not be held against you when the deal goes south. The reason why the turtle’s predicament in having to repeat the traverse feels like a gut punch to the reader (or at least it did to me) is because there is a clear subversion of expectation — expectation that any reasonable party to a contract would have. The turtle could have drawn up a multi-page agreement, but would that stop the man from finding a loophole and condemning the turtle? If so, there was no avenue for the turtle to have survived and any bargaining would be ineffectual and meaningless.

But there is a deeper problem with this analysis, one that I think leads to the actual solution.

Was there even a contract between the man and turtle?

The more telling blow to the ‘caveat emptor’ view above is that there was no meaningful contract to start with. You cannot negotiate with a gun to your head. The turtle did not ‘choose’ to cross the pot; in all likelihood, it’d have preferred a safer and more direct route to the door. But with the prospect of being turned into soup, it preferred to delay what would prove to be inevitable and roll dice with its crossing. This is akin to a prisoner being asked to cross a minefield to earn his freedom or accept a bullet instead — if the prisoner chooses to cross, is this choice free? I think not, and if not, there is no agreement. If there is no agreement, there is no call to fault the turtle for not negotiating the agreement.

The Turtle’s Mistake

What’s clear is that the bargain was unfair and that the turtle was set up to fail notwithstanding the deceit at the very end. That the turtle made one successful crossing is an aberration of consequence — a tightrope walk offers no guarantee of safety. In choosing to make the walk, the turtle chose between certain death and likely death, hedging on the latter to deliver it to unlikely safety.

My view: if the turtle could be said to have made a mistake at all (adhering to the problem’s parameters), it’s in choosing to partake in this fatalistic game. It’s akin to placing a bet when you know that the dice are loaded to deliver an adverse outcome — when the outcome proves to be adverse (even if for unexpected or unforeseen reasons), can you still plead innocence?

What options did the Turtle have then? In my view:

  • It could have rejected the Faustian bargain proposed by the man; although this would likely lead to its almost-certain death, it’s perhaps the most ethically consistent course in not choosing to partake in a game that treats death as a foregone conclusion with an entertaining prelude.
  • It could have ‘accepted’ and then subverted the terms. As a slow-moving animal, it would have tried to indefinitely extend its movement towards the spoon and attempted to wait-out the man. This is a similar conceit as employed by the man in asking the turtle to repeat the walk, but an unfair game invites a subversion of rules. By the letter of the agreement, the man would either be okay with waiting for an interminable time before the turtle put itself in any real danger, or would break his pact and throw the turtle into the pot.

Solution / What the Author Says

The turtle’s only error was letting itself be controlled. Once it did, every move — comply or refuse — gets reframed as the turtle’s own choice, leaving the man’s hands clean.

Better to refuse the dictator outright than to play by rules designed to excuse him. It may not save the turtle. But at least the ‘fair-minded’ man will know he hasn’t got any principles.

What This Taught Me / Closing Note

My thought process mirrored that of the author. I think I went a step ahead in proposing that the turtle look to employ deceit and similarly hoodwink the man.

I think this problem has wider relevance today.

The social contract is broken and most of us are playing a rigged game. In such a scenario, should we be like the turtle and refuse to partake at all? For instance, considering an application in ethical consumerism, one could refuse to order using any e-commerce application or wear fast fashion because of their inherent exploitation of their workforce, i.e. choose to not play the game. Or, should we choose to subvert the rules of the game itself, perhaps through radical activism, like the protestors that defaced a portrait in a museum to protest environmental crimes.

It’s hard to choose a path. Maybe we ought to walk the plank while also attempting to swap positions.