Well it does actually. In once instance I am exchanging money for a good or service that I desire. Both parties are better off. In your scenario, I am basically having money siphoned off to support people who aren’t actually producing anything. Not such a great deal for me.
It’s the same debate. You just don’t get it. Paying people to move dirt for shiny stones provides a living for a lot of people. I don’t know where you folks think all this wealth comes from. It comes from the exchange of goods and services, not some magical pool that we can just allocate as we see fit.
That is what’s ridiculous about this OP. There will always be winners and losers in any economy. Yes we have an obligation as well as an interest in helping those at the bottom become more productive so they aren’t a drain on the rest of us. It is absurd, however, to believe that we should all be obligated to enjoy the same low standard of living out of some bizarre sense of ethics.
Sorry, I thought you were the one arguing that money won’t help.
I need the internet for my job. But for the most part, I justify it through the same sort of pseudo-economic rationalizations as everyone else. The difference is that I’m uncomfortable with those rationalizations.
Care to respond to any of the numerous responses made to this position?
Actually, thats one of the things that makes this debate most interesting. While shiny stones certainly make a very good living for a lot of people, the diamond industry in particular isn’t exactly a bastion of ideal capitalist free trade. Slave labor, often involving children. Siphoning profits for to fund war. Black markets. Monopoly (which is one thing economist tend to agree can be a problem in a free market economy - if efficiency is the goal).
You are debating as if the exchange is always voluntary and captialist free markets always work. Neither is true, no more so than “charity always reaches the people who need it.” Most markets aren’t completely efficient, none are completely equitable.
My mistake. I should’ve said “it could”. But even if success was 100% guaranteed, so what? It remains unproven that those who have wealth shouldn’t be able to use it as they choose.
Another difference is that many of us don’t see the need for rationalizations, or discomfort. Does that make us unethical, in your eyes? Well, I guess we’ll just have to carry on regardless.
Hang on a second wealth does come from resources that we can allocate how we see fit. All of the people that were employed moving dirt for shiny stones could have been paid to move dirt for a water treatment plant. All of that equipment could have been used to build a factory. The engineers and geologists could have put there skills to use mining iron ore. All of these create things that are intrinsically valuable while the diamond mine does not.
Zhao Daoli, what do you do to help others in need?
I can’t solve world hunger. I can’t find a cure for AIDS. But every summer I do participate in a mission trip to Appalachia where we repair houses for people in need. We sleep on the floor in a local school at night, and during the day we repair wheelchair ramps, fix leaking roofs, and paint houses so they will shine for their owners. We do this for strangers. The program is Reach Workcamps. I love this program.
I’m in charge of a program in my church where we provide shelter, food, and fellowship to homeless families. We give the families a safe, warm place to sleep. We make them three meals a day, and we eat breakfast and dinner with them. We stay overnight with them so they don’t have to worry about their children’s safety. We read to the children. We helped a woman prepare for her driver’s license test. This is a network of local churches and synagogues, part of a national program, called Interfaith Hospitality Networks. I spent last New Year’s Eve throwing a small, silly party for two homeless mothers and their children in the parish hall. We do this for strangers. I love this program.
Zhao Daoli, I will listen seriously to your questions about moral responsibilities and ethical justification after I hear about what you do to help others. If you’re uncomforatable with your own rationalizations, then take the step to help other people who are in need. There are many things you can do. If you’re not doing any of them, then I’m not going to pay attention to your questions.
I think we can argue the ethics of how people choose to spend their money without having to make it “personal”–that seems to be what’s getting people so het up about. “You’re saying I’m unethical! Well, you can’t say that unless you prove you’re my moral superior!” Whether spending 40k on a 15th car is as ethical as giving 40k to an orphanage is something we can discuss without having to detail our charitable giving on either side; I don’t see how what Zhao, or Brian, or you give to help others matters about the theory of the argument. Even if Brian has never given a penny to help anyone (which I doubt) I don’t think that impairs his right to say donating money rather than luxury spending a moral null-game; even if Zhao only gives $500 a year, he can still argue that people should give more. We should be arguing theory, not who’s a better person.
Obeying the laws of one’s country or paying one’s taxes is irrelevant to the issue. Nobody is asking if you’re obligated to obey the laws of some other country, either.
The question is : “is it ethical to spend your money on luxuries when someone else is starving?”. So, once again, in what way does the place where the person is starving matter? Is it (ethically) different when the person is starving on your doorsteps, or 10 miles away, or 1 000 miles away, and if so, why?
Irrelevant. The question is not : “does poster X do X?” but “Is not doing X ethical?”.
If I were asking “is cheating on your SO unethical?”, whether or not I personnally cheat on my partner wouldn’t be relevant and wouldn’t help answering the question.
And you seem not to get (or not having read) my response on this point.
Paying people to move dirt for digging wells in Africa also provides a living for these people. So whether you spend you money on shiny stones or on charities, it doesn’t change a thing from this point of view. For that matter, spending your money on moving dirt just for the sake of moving dirt doesn’t change a thing, either. Hence, this argument is moot.
What changes, on the other hand, and that was what I was pointing at when refering to the efficiency of the allocation of ressoures, is the outcome : in case 1) you get shiny stones, in case 2) you get people who have an access to drinkable water, in case 3) you get piles of dirt. That was my point. And I still think it’s another debate lets we would derail the thread.
It can’t be proven, or else it wouldn’t be an ethical question in GD (or now, in the Pit) but a General Question waiting for an expert to give an accurate and exact answer.
I can’t answer for the OP, but for me, it’s his behavior that makes someone unethical, not his opinion. For instance, if you’re a baby-eater, and besides that a sociopath who doesn’t see anything wrong in eating babies, your belief that it’s OK to eat babies won’t change my opinion about your ethics.
In this case, since I think it’s unethical to spend money on luxuries when people are starving, I’m going to think that your behavior is unethical, whether or not you feel discomfort.
Well, there’s a difference between action X and not choosing to perform action Y. If X is unethical, it’s fair to say the person performing X is unethical. However if a choice to not do Y is unethical, the onus is on the claimant to prove that a person has an ethical duty to perform Y. I haven’t seen any proof in this particular argument.
And if you’ve ever spent any of your money on a luxury, that makes you a hypocrite. Are you comfortable with that? I am.
But that kind of prevention happens every time a resource is used. Just breathing, arguably, deprives oxygen from others. Eating deprives food from others. Owning land deprives land from others. If an ethical obligation is attached to the use of some resources, why not others? What resources are not bound by ethical obligations, i.e. you can use them for any purpose your little heart desires?
I should not have posted in this thread - my mistake. I’m not objective. I am committed to helping people in need through my actions. I don’t give a shit about the theory.