Adjusted by the person who has the morals, or most often by the group who shares the moral values. Frex, big corporations and wealthy individual tax cheats use legal dodges that allow them to pay little or no taxes on their money. They may not think they are unethical people because they are obeying the letter of the law while violating the hell out of the spirit of it, but the $20K a year person who’s seeing 1/3 of their income sucked off in payroll taxes will likely have a different viewpoint.
Many people would see a major difference between a person who steals a TV to buy heroin and an unemployed person who steals a TV to pay the rent and avoid homelessness. Others would not.
Moral relativism isn’t a theory, it’s how the world works.
People often take the path of least resistance and in doing so, end up in situations that seem unescapable. They of course try to look for the easiest way out, and after a few minutes of thought, they realize the only thing they can think of is to do something that may be wrong, so they justify it by saying that it’s their only recourse, and that they had no other choice.
Your first example is almost irrelevant. We’re discussing morality, whereas your example combines morality and legality, and tries to draw a conclusion from that. The big corporations and such may be in the legal right, but clearly they are in the moral wrong. Law tries to be based in morality, but it’s not always the case.
The second is the same situation as we’ve been discussing. I venture to say that the man has not truly exhausted all possibilities, and probably made some bad decisions that got him into the situation to begin with.
And what in the world does that last statement even mean? Moral relativism is the idea that morals are relative depending on circumstance. How does that have any effect on the world at large? This universe could be morally relative, or morally absolute, and it would still be exactly the same.
You’re missing my point. Some of those people from the 6 billion that don’t agree, are more likely than not, to disagree in numerous ways that cause someone who is wealthy to feel threatened. What I’m saying, is that the ability to divide wealth into these lines requires violence. People don’t just all agree to it. If you have any evidence whatsoever that wealth can be divided inequitably between people without violence, I’m certainly here to contemplate your ideas. I consider that it is not controversial to state that the acceptance of the high side of inequitable wealth will demand one if not numerous homicides. Homicide is likely the kindest thing that is done on this earth to secure the stability for inequity. I wasn’t aware that this connection between the adoption of a higher class in a system of inequitable wealth distribution and the direct assent to homicide was a question. If you’re able to secure an income of 250,000 every year, you are ordering homicide, otherwise you simply wouldn’t have the wealth. The world doesn’t work that way.
The economy isn’t about individual output. There are easily 60 million jobs in the US alone that pay minimum wage and will never raise that wage no matter how much output the worker puts in. It’s cheaper just to re-hire a new worker. In fact, if you do produce more output in any of these jobs, management will fire or not schedual your co-workers on your shift. If you burn out, they just re-hire other people. Most people in the US jump between one of these jobs their entire lives. In places where people do receive a wage based on output, the incriment is so absurdly low that they can’t physically produce enough to even come close to the US minimum wage. To suggest that this has something to do with the innate value of a human being – that those who earn billions are really worth billions and those who make half minimum wage are really worth half minimum wage is a completely absurd claim, and aparently the one which you hold to. I don’t see how my statements are controversial in this discussion. Yours on the otherhand, seem a bit outrageous.
You make a lot of money because of homicide – they are not the same thing, it is a causal mechanism. Homicide is the condition to making a lot of money.
Almost everybody in the world is conspiring to take your dreams of security from you. Do you think that people have multi-million dollar houses, security teams and security equipment because they are peacable people? What world do you live in? Everyone on the planet knows that these people are murderers, that’s why they need so much security. You don’t seem to grasp the fact that a murder can be ordered without actually ordering a murder to be committed… you just walk into a system that you know only exists because murder is committed to protect it.
Wow. Can you point me to a site that shows me how to pay zero taxes? Can you show me a corporation that made a profit last year and paid zero taxes last year? In other words, do you have
Maybe in your world.
Sure they are. :rolleyes:
:dubious: People have these things because other people (not pointing any fingers) have warped views of reality where they think that people with greater wealth are screwing them.
The real world where people have to work for what they want.
Wow. You must be a freakin Master of Economics with such a keen analysis. How do you think people become management? How do you think people run companies or aquire wealth?
Murder of who? Who are all murderers with million dollar homes and who are they murdering? Why don’t you provide some specifics instead of speaking in bizzare abstractions?
Mind starting a different thread (or hijacking this one) to explain WHAT you mean by this? Not just repeat over and over that it’s somehow obvious and self-evident, as you have already done three times, I mean EXPLAIN how does that work?
People have to wait for a management position, because they’re usually occupied. When we’re talking about management in your average management position, we’re also talking about ~ $10.00 per hour, a slight increase on the minimum wage. A person may have to work minimum wage for decades, no matter how hard they work, to find themselves in a management position that pays a few more bucks per hour. This is a mandated, necessarily imposed reality for at least 60,000,000 people in the US. 60,000,000+ people, if they want to work, have to work in this exact scenario - there is no option. These people also lose 30% of their checks in taxes and the rest of their checks in numerous areas that their taxes don’t relieve them of, such as food shelter and water. It is not uncommon for people to be working 3 times as hard as a person standing next to them who makes twice as much money. Why don’t they get promotions anymore? Because good producers are harder to find than supervisors and managers. If you’re a good producer, it is in the companies best interest to not promote you, because you are actually more valuable than any manager. So you’re probably wondering why they don’t get raises. This has to do with economic theory about is cost of finding and rewarding good producers based upon their personal value in the company. Let’s say for example that the music industry only waited for Beethovens to come along… they’d be out of business. In the case of the music industry, it is more profitable to manufacture music and to give the perception of equal value between all artists by giving less coverage to gifted artists and the greatest coverage to the least gifted artists. This levelling out occurs in the average wage job given by major corperations – to use up a good producer for what they’re worth by taking people off their shift until they burn out and then hire two people in their place when they’re gone. It evens out over time with regards to the wages paid, but it saves cost in the intelligence required to discern the difference between what a person may or may not be actually worth. As a propoganda tool, it is also used effectively to keep the perception that a person in a certain position is not allowed to make more than the money allotted to that position, because it’s the rules. Positions are pay capped. Most of them at minimum wage. It’s less hassle and in the long run actually makes the owner more profit.
I’ll pick up the other topic in a new thread as suggested.
>> Moral relativism isn’t a theory, it’s how the world works. **
> Maybe in your world.
No, in all the world. There are people who have different morals than you. They believe those morals are just as fine as yours. Their morals are determined by their subcultural norms and their life experience. With the exception of psychopaths, who don’t have any moral capacity.
That’s quite as ridiculous as the argument against the relativity of truth. Actually, that’s the same argument.
Moral relativity is the belief that the morality of an action depends on circumstance. Moral absolutism is the belief that the morality of an action is independent of the cirumstances surrounding that action.
All that you have confirmed is that different cultures believe in different things. That says absolutely nothing about moral absolutism or moral relativism. In fact, like I said above, the world could be morally absolute, or it could be morally relativistic, and there would be no contradictions either way because humans are by nature irrational anyhow.
I have found just the opposite. People of wealth tend to have a better education, which is more often then not, the result of a stable family environment. I know people on both sides of the economic bell curve and I found a higher degree of morality from people who earn a higher living than those who don’t. I hypothesize that a stable family environment is in itself moral and that creates the skills needed to mature and earn a living. When I’ve met someone from a poor background who has succeeded in life it is because their parents were of high moral character or the individual rose above their surroundings (which is rare and therefore highly admirable).
I would point out that I prefaced my statement with the word “earn”. I would also point out that I only hang around people I deem moral. I’m assuming that I’m exposed to a broad spectrum of humanity and that my observations are not wholly skewed by my desire to be around moral people.
I don’t know if this is relevant to the discussion but I wonder if you could apply “morality” to the reality shows where people compete to see how they how low they can go in relation to self respect.
Evil Captor, I asked for a site, not a link to some conspiracy book on Amazon. Go find me a link to a company’s financial statements that shows them legally paying zero taxes. I’m sure it happens, but it is not standard for most companies.
And that isn’t “immoral” anyway. There is no moral obligation to pay any more than the law says you have to pay.
In my world, you work hard to build wealth and keep as much as you can because there are plenty of people - the government, deadbeats, moochers, even your employer who will try to take it from you.
You either figure out how to make the system work for you, or you lose your mind like olanv and sit around writing conspiracies and wondering where all the money went.
With regards to the OP, I see the opposite to be true. I think that most poor people are very similar to most wealthy people in terms of their cognitive and physical abilities. I even see that they are mostly similar in their ethical make-up. One thing that I do note in my personal experience is that rich people by default cannot be ethical, while it is at least possible for ethical being to be found in the poor population, even though most of the poor population is practically interchangable with the rich population excepting the fact that they don’t actually possess the commodity and thus aren’t labelled rich. One advantage that all wealthy people have over poor people is the vast amount of income that they can devote to propoganda of their supposed ethical nature. That’s the only relation between wealth and “the ability to be ethical” that I can see. Wealthy people have the luxury to buy propoganda to make them appear ethical, or to allow their ethics to be more commercialized or even noticed.
As stated above, the world does not allow wealth to be distributed inequitably without homicide. To accept the high end of the inequitable side, places a wealthy person in the position of effectively sponsering the homicide that is committed in order to secure this inequitable distribution. The answer to why these measures are required is simple, people don’t accept inequitable distribution of wealth unless they are on the high side of that distribution. That’s the way the world works. Millions of starving capitalists in the US aren’t agreeing to the vast amounts of dillitantes (sp?) or aristocracy that occur in this country. You can’t just make that tension go away, it requires force, or a military of some sort to secure even the ability to have inequitable wealth distribution of this degree. You have poor capitalists and rich capitalists who are all equally capable excepting the difference of who is able or not able to defend their inequitable horde. The difference is that poor people can actually be about something different that capitalizing, while rich people by definition of even accepting the inequitable situation, necessarily are capitalizers. It’s by definition. The entire personality make up of wealthy people is homoginized, because the same belief and denial structures are required in order to accept the mechanisms that protect inequitable distribution of wealth. Those who are not wealthy, or not trying to be wealthy have the luxury to not be forced into this homogineity. One could even suggest that “yes, morality is expensive, which is why people who have it are not wealthy.” Understand?
I was thinking about your critisism of abstract language. There is no question that any theory of observation requires an abstraction of some sort, and that some abstractions are less familiar than others to certain people. I don’t see how my abstraction is either complex or that particularly questionable. You didn’t ffer another model except to critisize the fact that i used an abstraction, as if that’s a charge that negates the observation. I even asked to to suggest a model that allows inequitable wealth distribution to occur without homicide, to which you did not respond. Again, I believe this to be the case because it is self evident that homicide is required in order to maintain this type of situation. I don’t think you have an argument to refute this observation. It’s like my stating that you must exist in order to possess knowedge of some sort, to which you attack me by stating that it’s only an abstraction and you require evidence. To which I reply, well, then suggest a model to which people can have knowledge without existing… which you avoid.
I also meant to include nepitism, which is another aspect that clearly determines inequitable wealth distribution and causes tremendous tension that requires homicide to abate.
I’m jumping into this late and didn’t have time* to read all the earilier posts, so apoligies if I’m covering ground here that has already been discussed.
Morals are the principles by which one lives one’s life. They are not a luxuray, but a necessity. Humans don’t act on instict, and so must be guided by principle. If you notice that poor, desperate people seem not to have morals, what you are actually seeing is simply a different set of morals. And, btw, I don’t consider that to bet merely a semantic issue.
No, I don’t understand. Your theory is rambling and incoherant. it is so “abstract” as to be meaningless. Are you trying to say that you think wealth inequality incites violence and that only violence and the threat of violence allows wealth inequality to happen? I suggest starting a new thread and restating your theory in a non-“Justhink”-esq manner instead of hijacking this one.
