Begs the question. If you’re not obligated to “A”, then you do not need a “good reason” to NOT-“A”. NOT-A becomes the default.
(Randians would say that you can engage in as much virtuous deeds as you want, as long as you do it exclusively out of your own will and not because it is “expected”)
We can take the debate over antibiotics elsewhere, because its kind of a tangent, but I know that 5 of the 7 drugs currently used to treat TB come either directly out of a government lab, or from government-funded grants to pharmaceutical companies.
It’s beside the point though. Your make two arguments, I’ll address them separately.
- Buying luxury items helps the economy which raises all boats.
This has several major flaws. First, the marginal impact of your purchase of a luxury item on the economy is nothing compared to the marginal impact of your buying a course of antibiotics for someone. Second, helping the US economy does not necessarily mean that the economies of sub-saharan African countries (for example) are better off. Indeed, it might mean the opposite (concentration of wealth issues). Third, this assumes trickle-down economics works. I’m not saying it doesn’t, but I think its a proposition that requires more support than your tacit assumption of its truth.
- If everyone gives up luxury items, there will be no incentive to work.
There are, of course, many incentives to work other than pay. I imagine that most scientists working at a government-lab could be making more money elsewhere. They are working at the lab because they get some other reward from it (like developing drugs to save thousands of lives). Essentially, your question is why would someone be a corporate lawyer if they end up taking home as much pay as a fast food worker. Well, I can think of a few reasons (and I’m sure you can too).
But again, I’m not proposing communism, or that everyone live in poverty. How does not purchasing luxury items equal not getting a salary?
You’re right, if you’re not obligated, then Not-A is the default. I worded that question poorly. But I think our moral intuitions tell us that, for example, if a doctor walks by someone who is choking without helping the person choking, the doctor needs a good reason for not having helped. The doctor may have a good reason (the person choking is evil, or they fear malpractice, etc.) However, without a good reason we might call that doctor immoral, right?
If the argument is that ethically speaking you have an obligation to give to the poor then I don’t think a valid counter argument is that I won’t work without incentives. Ethically speaking you ought to help others when you can whether it be saving a drowning child or running DNA sequences in a lab. If the outcome of an action is good you taking that action shouldn’t hinge on a direct or lack thereof benefit to you.
Certainly practically speaking paying you luxuries for say an AIDS vaccine will create a favorable outcome. But does that make it ethically acceptable for a person to horde wealth? Clearly the overall outcome is good but it would be even better if you took the wealth you gained from your work and spent it on feeding the poor instead of a luxury yacht. I would argue that you have an ethical obligation to take actions that have the best outcome not necessarily just a good one.
In other words an argument can be made that it is ethically right for an unequal distribution of wealth becuase it produces a good argument but that does not justify the individual to horde wealth.
I don’t think ethics provides a motivation for doing anything rather a guide to what should be done. For example if I accidentally run in to someones car ethics tells us that I should take responsibility for my actions. But what rational reason (excluding avoidance of legal punishment) do I have for taking responsibility? The best benefit to me would be to drive off and not pay for the damage I caused.
Yep. I’m fundamentally selfish. When suffering is not immediately in front of me, I choose to pretend it doesn’t exist so I can continue to live my comfortable life. Even when suffering is right in front of me, I often choose to believe the suffering of others was their own fault so I don’t need to accept any responsibility. This has often proven not to be the case, but its more comfortable to live with this rationalization.
Funny, I feel no sense of guilt or ethical dilemma whatsoever for buying or wanting to buy luxury items.
I must be a freakazoid, or something, if the OP’s position is sound.
What is your moral intuition about the doctor situation? (three posts up)
Right there with you, Bryan. I worked for my goodies, and I have absolutely no problem with enjoying them. People are starving…so? This affects me how? If I give to those less fortunate, it is because it makes me feel good, not because I feel it is ethical.
Life is unfair. Deal with it.
I’m not convinced that this is actually the case. The latter has the disadvantage of being a one-time beneficence; the former has the advantage of sustaining a long-term income stream for the producers of the purchased goods. (That is, the two cases correspond to “give a man a fish” and “teach a man to fish”.)
Unless you can come up with reasons that will motivate a sufficient number of people to fill the various essential and demanding professions, you can’t refute the basic argument that financial incentives are necessary.
I should think that it’s obvious that giving away your money instead of using it to purchase what you want is effectively equivalent to not getting that much money in the first place. (Hell, the IRS recognizes as much by providing a deduction for it.)
Well, let me first address your profound misunderstanding of economics. In any complex economy, people have a variety of needs and wants - some trivial, some essential to survival. All of these needs and wants create a demand for work to be done. We live in a society where technology has made it possible for 99% of us to not be engaged to critical survival activities - hunting, gathering, etc. That means that most of our resources are free to develop less critical (IOW luxury) items. No matter how stupid or ostentatious a good or service, it is derived from someone’s labor that they are compensated for. It is that constant exchange of goods, services, skills and capital that increases everyone’s standard of living.
Well, yes. It is in fact a distribution problem. Very few people starve to death because they can’t afford to buy enough food to survive. The majority of widespread famine is caused by war, natural disaster and corruption.
Because it isn’t. An am in no way obligated to give a shit about my next door neighbor and there is no moral way you can force me to. And your “obligation” sounds an awful lot like a Robin Hood-esq wealth distribution scheme.
I’m not sure if you really understand Reaganomics, in theory or how it was actually applied:
The theory is basically sound - government is a horrible distributor of resources compared to the free market. Better to cut government spending (Reagan did not really cut spending) and lower taxes to stimulate economic growth. This would allow businesses to grow, hire more workers and meet more of the needs and wants of society. I know this is contrary to neo-hippy liberal bullshit economics but I’m going to stick with what I know.
I don’t know shit about tuburculosis but I do know that a society with a healthy economy more able to meet the needs of it’s people than a society on welfare.
In any event, I am a more in favor of fixing the systems that allow people to learn to fish than giving 99% of the fish that I catch away. It puts me in a perpetual state of depriving myself of the rewards while others live off my labor, and that’s not much of an incentive.
I wouldn’t automatically attach that label, and general legal standard (as I understand it) regarding watching people die is that one doesn’t need a reason to not intervene, unless a positive duty already exists. No such duty is legally attached to holding an M.D. in the sense that failing to act could lead to criminal charges, though regional licensing regulations may come into effect. For example, to get a medical license in New York requires “good moral character”. Whether immorality per se can cause one to lose a license is unclear, as is whether or not your example would be judged by a licensing board as immoral.
My own general definition of “moral” requires a denied or embraced negative. One is moral if they have an opportunity (and perhaps personal incentive) to do something evil and choose not to. One is immoral if they recognize an opportunity to do evil (without an overpowering incentive) and pursue it. Doing something good (or declining to do something good) doesn’t really enter into it. The exception is the positive duty mentioned above. If I have a child, I am morally obliged to see to that child’s needs. It would be immoral to deliberately ignore those needs.
The doctor who walks by is not immoral, by my standard. He might be considered unethical, if his membership in a professional medical association imposes an ethical standard on its members. The “good moral character” standard of New York strikes me as a bit slippery. It might be interesting to look into how many medical licenses have been lifted in New York on moral grounds.
So to answer your question, I don’t find the doctor’s behaviour to be immoral. He doesn’t need a reason to do nothing. Similarly, I don’t need a reason to buy a Lexus, even if I have to walk past a choking person to get to the dealership.
Should the Doctor help the choking victim ** Bryan Ekers **?
Sure, he should. But he’s not immoral if he doesn’t.
I guess I am a bit confused by something here. Ethics and morals are a guide on how to act in a certain situation. If you act according to morals or ethics you are acting moral or ethical but if you take the opposite choice you are acting immoral or uunethical. It seems to me that according to your morals or ethics he should help the victim but you don’t consider the contrayer action immoral or unethical?
You said it, in such a case he DOES need “good reason” because in your example the society has established a formal structure of professional ethics (not just “moral intuition”) that creates an obligation – in this case, that there exists an immediate, direct confrontation of imminent danger to party A with the ability of party B to actually save party A, as long as B does not place himself or others at undue further risk (of lawsuits, of evil person A killing other people, etc.).
OTOH, from the point of view of his personal morals and professional ethics, he may still feel that he is ethically entitled to choose that his regular practice of medicine is going to be as doctor-to-the-stars helping the Posh Crowd get over their drug habits, making money hand over fist at it, rather than putting in long nights in a Public Health Service clinic across town treating poor kids and the elderly at a government-service scale salary.
Okay, the situation may seem confusing becuase the thread started asking if performing a particular act (while declining to perform another particular act) was ethical, i.e. buying a luxury instead of feeding your neighbor, whereas that doctor question was specifically about morals.
My working definitions:
Morality: A standard of behaviour imposed by a society on its citizens. Among relatively liberated societies, the requirements are generally to not perform certain acts; typically violent or hurtful in nature, damaging to persons, animals or property. These standards exist to (ideally) keep the society from collapsing into chaos.
Ethics: A standard of behaviour imposed on a subgroup of a society on the members of that subgroup. Typically, membership in the subgroup is a voluntary, i.e. a professional association. These are also generally requirements to not perform harmful acts, as well as report the harmful acts of other members of the subgroup. These standards exists to (ideally) keep the subgroup from losing credibility/respect within the larger society.
I tend to view ethics and morals as guides to keep people from doing bad things (which would make them unethical and immoral), not to encourage them toward good things, especially since “good” is harder to define (with the exception of the existence of a positive duty).
And of course, if he can actually find the time to do BOTH well, then by all means let him drive the Mercedes and wear the diamond cufflinks…
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I wonder how many who respond in this fashion are Christians.
It seems to me that a lot of people who are conservatives (“I want my money and I’m going to enjoy it, and I don’t give a damn about no stinking poor people”) are also Christians (“If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me” (Matt. 19:21).")
Is the irony not obvious to them?
[/hijack]
I can’t speak for silenus, but I’m not Christian. What’s your point?
Well, to your credit, at least you didn’t bring up abortion…