Arguably, the sale itself achieves only good: The buyer decides that the good is worth more to them than the money they're paying for it. The seller decides that the product is worth less to them than the money the buyer is ready to pay for it. The two persons have different interests.
A lot of other things relating to it might lead into it being bad in retrospect, though. For example, actively lying to the consumer about the value of the good, or the properties it has. Or achieving a monopoly in something that's required for people to survive, such as medicine or food, and then overcharging for it.
You interjecting some arbitrary value on the feelings one has when they purchase something is a subjective and almost laughable argument.
You interjecting some arbitrary absolute value to the goods, and to money itself, is a subjective and almost laughable argument.
Convenience is a factor. When I want to buy a bag of flour, I don't drive all the way to the fields to harvest it myself and then grind it by hand for practically free. I go to the supermarket and buy it for significantly more. Did I lose this transaction? By your definition, yes. But that's because you didn't take into account the time I'd have to spend, or the money spent on gas to get there. Or the fact that I don't feel like grinding wheat to flour right now. The subjective value of the bag of flour to me happens to be more than what the store bought it for, for a number of reasons.
It is in the interest of others to have as much resources (defined as whatever you want, but typically material goods) as they can have.
True, but that's not the only interest these people have. Time is valuable, and convenience is valuable. Even the time spent shopping can be enjoyable and therefore valuable to some.
Any action that forces me to give away resources is acting directly against my interest.
But they are not forcing you. If you do not think the value of the product is as much as it'd cost, you won't buy it.
You are also assuming that you and the salesman are the only people the sale would affect. There are employees that get paid, all the way through the production chain, and assuming that the product gets sold eventually, the person who bought it in the end benefited from you not buying it beforehand. The salesman might be working in the interests of others, just that you were not amongst those others.
It is also possible that the salesman is an evil greedy selfish bastard that hates everyone and only works in their own interests, and is only selling you stuff with the intent of ripping you off. The sale would be immoral, then. Likewise they could believe they are doing overall good to others by selling it to you, be it to you, their employees, or a charity they plan to donate something to.
In essence, you're assuming oversimplified situations and trying to apply the statement I made to them, when in practice, reality is complicated.
The relation of nations to nations is different from the relation of persons to persons. The morality of an action upon a nation is different. There's nothing contradictory in maintaining moral compunctions regarding persons in particular while also maintaining that a nation exists for its own benefit.
This argument requires the assumption that the nations are more than the people involved, or different from the people involved, and that they are that way because of some abstract reason, rather than because the people involved made them so. I disagree with that. The only way nations could be elevated into a status that would free them from morality would be by the people, and then the act of elevating them would be immoral, and the people would be responsible of the nation's actions using this freedom from morality. I.E: In the end, the people involved would still be responsible for the immorality.
I don't believe in any sort of innate morality. It makes absolutely no sense to me.
That you and I act in what is supposedly a moral manner is absolutely irrelevant in my view. We act as such because we've grown up in an environment where it is fashionable to act as such, and we've been taught as such.
Compare that to people who grew up surrounded by violence, or even with no human influence at all and in the woods!
Innate morality doesn't exist.
Innate values do not exist. Innate capability for goodness, and rudimentary understanding of the feelings of others does. It is called empathy, and it exists even in babies, as many studies have shown.
You're mistaking our judgement of morality for morality. "We believe X is moral, but other ethnic group believes X is immoral, therefore morality cannot exist." The flaw here is that the other ethnic group has things they believe are moral, just like we do. They are not the same things, but they don't have to be: They still have a concept of morality. And they operate on the same principle, motivated by empathy, as in they try to avoid making other people feel bad and try to make other people feel good. This is quite likely an evolutionary trait, and as mentioned before, even babies of three months old have rudimentary understanding of it.
It's the specifics that different ethnic groups have disagreements on. We tend to form these biased views of acceptability based on what someone held as moral. The ten commandments are a good example of this. The mistake with them is that we teach some specific instructions, that might be easy to follow, rather than teaching the basis of morality. Often these can even be counterintuitive to morality, as I see it. Take "do not steal", for example. Now, it's possible to imagine a situation where stealing something would result into more good than bad for others, and I would view that action as moral, but the ten commandments would not.
Ugh, I'm running against a linguistic wall here, because of moral as a noun and as an adjective. Bear with me. Basically what I'm trying to say here is that we're often taught morals, which might not be moral. These morals are not universal or innate, but the capability for actions that are moral, and the ability to differentiate between actions that are moral and actions that are not, is.
What if I attempted to exterminate every religious people in the view that it would create ultimate good for others?
That fits the criteria you set up here-
I honestly believe that wold improve the situation and create more good for others->moral action.
You would have to consider really hard and try to acknowledge the other side of the situation. And to remember to include the exterminated people in the list of others. And of course you should bear in mind that you could fail, and just make everything worse. And you'd need to factor that risk in, as well. I already mentioned that important part of moral action is to try to do the best action based on your judgement, and try to better that judgement. If you, in the end, would end up believing to the best of your judgement that an action towards exterminating religious people would end up doing more good than bad, that action would be moral. (Notice you still need to evaluate your actions on individual basis.)
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The Sage is occupied with the unspoken
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.
I actually support the Russians since they are the only ones "hard" enough to stick up to the west, although I don't support bloodshed, I still don't think losing its buffer zone without making any form of resistance is a stance that should be taken by a country as stalwart as Russia. No offence to Americans and EU people but I think they got enough influence on this world already.
I can sort of see what you mean. I support Russia in this case to. America thinks they have complete control over the world, they need to realize they don't. Russia and China are probably the two countries that they can't bully around. America is like the sixth grader who likes to push around first graders, then when another sixth grader comes along they don't know what to do.
That's a matter of perception. From the viewpoint of the people living in countries next to Russia, Russia is like the abusive adult who likes to put out cigarette butts on kids' arms.
Arguably, the sale itself achieves only good: The buyer decides that the good is worth more to them than the money they're paying for it. The seller decides that the product is worth less to them than the money the buyer is ready to pay for it. The two persons have different interests.
This assumes all tranactions conducted are of equal value based on nothing more than a persons willingness to enter into the transaction. Following this course of logic, it's impossible for a person to willingly to enter into a tranaction and overpay by virtue of his willingness to enter the transaction.
Your assumptions that each of the indivduals involved in a transactions who have different interst while having equal value when engaged into a transaction if both parties are reasonably aware is absurd.
Your inclusion of the term greater, indicates their is a measure of value attributed to each of the parties interest in something. Yet, your resolve this difference as mostly equal as long as the parties are reasonably aware and willing participants. This outright ignores that people make bad decisions even when they are reasonably aware. by your logic, no one gets a bad deal as long as they are reasonably ware and willing to engage in the transaction.
You interjecting some arbitrary absolute value to the goods, and to money itself, is a subjective and almost laughable argument.
I think you are confused about who is doing this....You are the one interjecting an abritary value (as determined by the indivdual) and measuring it to judge morality. Lets say a country is dying of starvation, the US, in it's interest to be noble, decides to send in humantrain aide and US forces to keep it safe....the dying country political leaders, even though its country is dying, does not want US forces and they value that higher than the aide the US can provide, therefore it would be immoral for the US to provide assistance to the country.
I find this absurd.
Another example. Geneoside.....One country could find this in their greater interest than complying with international law and it would make it immoral to stop geneoside.
The orginal qoute is abusurd on this example alone.
"Proactively acting to forward one's own interests at greater cost to the interests of others is immoral."
I think you are confused about who is doing this....You are the one interjecting an abritary value (as determined by the indivdual) and measuring it to judge morality. Lets say a country is dying of starvation, the US, in it's interest to be noble, decides to send in humantrain aide and US forces to keep it safe....the dying country political leaders, even though its country is dying, does not want US forces and they value that higher than the aide the US can provide, therefore it would be immoral for the US to provide assistance to the country.
Have you, by any chance, read the thread in it's wholesome? Your posts would seem to imply otherwise, but I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. If you are, you have just constructed a strawman. If you happen to be god, you should be able to bring it to life somehow. It'd probably be more interesting that way.*
What matters regarding the morality of the action is the intention of the US**. Yes, they should take into accord that there are political leaders in the country that want them to stay out, but that doesn't necessarily mean that providing help would be immoral. If US honestly believes that providing help would be in the best interests of others to provide help, it would be moral to provide help. Similarly to your example about genocide: Whether the country wants help or not is a matter to consider, but doesn't ultimately decide the morality of the action.
*Is there some kind of insider joke, about how people start fighting strawmen the instant the thread gets moved to Debate. I was gone for a while, it could be I missed this.
**Also, you're using nations as single magical entities that are not made up of people that might think differently. Which I love. Have I expressed my love for this concept enough in this thread? I love it so hard I'm pooping out flowers in a massive tidal wave of flowers right now. It's especially delightful when you assume the political leaders are representative of the entire nation, or that the population having genocide committed on them isn't a factor, since they're (Presumably) in the minority.
This assumes all tranactions conducted are of equal value based on nothing more than a persons willingness to enter into the transaction. Following this course of logic, it's impossible for a person to willingly to enter into a tranaction and overpay by virtue of his willingness to enter the transaction.
Your assumptions that each of the indivduals involved in a transactions who have different interst while having equal value when engaged into a transaction if both parties are reasonably aware is absurd.
Your inclusion of the term greater, indicates their is a measure of value attributed to each of the parties interest in something. Yet, your resolve this difference as mostly equal as long as the parties are reasonably aware and willing participants. This outright ignores that people make bad decisions even when they are reasonably aware. by your logic, no one gets a bad deal as long as they are reasonably ware and willing to engage in the transaction.
I'd like to note that you're cherry picking, and ignored the point where it might even be moral to rip off people, if your aim was to use the money for something good, and you honestly believed that the overall good would outweigh the bad. Likewise, you could give away stuff for free and have that be an immoral action if the intent behind it was selfish. As such, none of this really matters, but here we go anyway:
Why would they partake in the trade if their interest in something was lower? If I think a lipstick is worth 50 cents, but you're trying to sell it for an euro, I'm not buying it. If I buy it for the euro, that means that I value having that lipstick more than I value having an euro. Sure, my perception of the value of the lipstick might differ from day to day, and there might be a store selling the lipstick for 45 cents. My estimate on the value of money might differ from day to day too, and I'm more willing to pay more for stuff when on a holiday.
Goods, and money, are only worth as much as people value them. Bad trades only happen due to ignorance or misinformation.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The Sage is occupied with the unspoken
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.
True, but that's not the only interest these people have. Time is valuable, and convenience is valuable. Even the time spent shopping can be enjoyable and therefore valuable to some.
You misunderstand. Time is a resource as well. If you can have something simply delivered to your doorstep, then that also is resource saved. Conversely, having to go out and do something yourself is resources lost, and vice versa.
But they are not forcing you. If you do not think the value of the product is as much as it'd cost, you won't buy it.
You are also assuming that you and the salesman are the only people the sale would affect. There are employees that get paid, all the way through the production chain, and assuming that the product gets sold eventually, the person who bought it in the end benefited from you not buying it beforehand. The salesman might be working in the interests of others, just that you were not amongst those others.
Don't needlessly complicate things, especially when it has nothing to do with the statement at hand. The fact of the matter is, when someone sells anything something at a profit, that someone is "Proactively acting to forward one's own interests at greater cost to the interests of others". That other people may benefit from that person selling at a profit is inconsequential to this particular sentence. The very act of profit is "forwarding one's own interest at a greater cost to the interests of others".
You're essentially saying that capitalism as its very existence is immoral. Which I don't necessarily disagree with, but I just want you to be clear.
In essence, you're assuming oversimplified situations and trying to apply the statement I made to them, when in practice, reality is complicated.
Exactly. Notice how as soon as I point out the holes in your overly general statement, you felt the need to specify by talking about business owners who want to help their employees/business owners who are just out for themselves?
Reality is complicated. I believed your statement out of touch with reality, and you more or less affirmed this by adding in qualifications.
I believe in innate human capability for goodness.
This assumes that goodness exists to begin with, and that we humans know what that goodness is. Which, incidentally, would mean that we innately know what is good and what is bad.
Otherwise it's an entirely artificial construct. One where we defined certain actions as good, and certain others as bad.
Innate values do not exist. Innate capability for goodness, and rudimentary understanding of the feelings of others does. It is called empathy, and it exists even in babies, as many studies have shown.
Empathy is recognizing and feeling understanding for the feelings of others. Goodness has nothing to do with it.
Babies also know to lie and use a variety of manipulative behavior to get what they want. I don't think you want to use babies as an example of how we are born with empathy. We're also born with the ability to lie and cheat others for our own profit if you want to go down that route.
You're mistaking our judgement of morality for morality. "We believe X is moral, but other ethnic group believes X is immoral, therefore morality cannot exist." The flaw here is that the other ethnic group has things they believe are moral, just like we do. They are not the same things, but they don't have to be: They still have a concept of morality. And they operate on the same principle, motivated by empathy, as in they try to avoid making other people feel bad and try to make other people feel good. This is quite likely an evolutionary trait, and as mentioned before, even babies of three months old have rudimentary understanding of it.
?
So you're saying that, since every human culture that we are aware of have some things that they consider moral, or otherwise a moral code of some sort, morality exists. It does not matter that those very things are often different, and sometimes complete opposites of one another.
It's the specifics that different ethnic groups have disagreements on. We tend to form these biased views of acceptability based on what someone held as moral. The ten commandments are a good example of this. The mistake with them is that we teach some specific instructions, that might be easy to follow, rather than teaching the basis of morality. Often these can even be counterintuitive to morality, as I see it. Take "do not steal", for example. Now, it's possible to imagine a situation where stealing something would result into more good than bad for others, and I would view that action as moral, but the ten commandments would not.
What does this even mean? You just wrote that morality is not innate and that it is constructed by society and can differ among various cultures.
And then in the next you speak of morality as though it is something that is universal among human beings. And yet in the previous you recognized that cultures can often have wildly different views of what is moral and immoral.
Ugh, I'm running against a linguistic wall here, because of moral as a noun and as an adjective. Bear with me. Basically what I'm trying to say here is that we're often taught morals, which might not be moral. These morals are not universal or innate, but the capability for actions that are moral, and the ability to differentiate between actions that are moral and actions that are not, is.
You still run into an issue that I pointed above earlier here "but the capability for actions that are moral, and the ability to differentiate between actions that are moral and actions that are not, is."
This can ONLY follow if you claim that we know what are moral or immoral actions. Which would have to be either innate or completely artificial.
If it is innate, then you are arguing that there exists innate moral goodness. If it is completely artificial, then the entire concept of moral and immoral is meaningless in the sense that you're trying to use here.
Here, i'll make it really simple for you-
Suppose that we decided that it is moral to think only of ourselves and screw the rest.
How do you take that statement? Would you argue that, while a society can hold that as a moral standard, it is actually not moral? How does that follow?
You would have to consider really hard and try to acknowledge the other side of the situation. And to remember to include the exterminated people in the list of others. And of course you should bear in mind that you could fail, and just make everything worse. And you'd need to factor that risk in, as well. I already mentioned that important part of moral action is to try to do the best action based on your judgement, and try to better that judgement. If you, in the end, would end up believing to the best of your judgement that an action towards exterminating religious people would end up doing more good than bad, that action would be moral. (Notice you still need to evaluate your actions on individual basis.)
And suppose my judgment is flawed for a number of reasons, but I cannot recognize that it is because I didn't think things through/am a fanatic/w.e.
Therefore, as far as I know, I am being perfectly reasonable and acting in a perfectly justifiable manner.
No, I have not. I've used your logic and your words and applied them to show how absurd your statement was.
What matters regarding the morality of the action is the intention of the US**.
Once again taking us to this quote:
"Proactively acting to forward one's own interests at greater cost to the interests of others is immoral."
Do you believe this as a universal truth? Or does this only apply when you want it to apply? Becasue when you say something like this:
Yes, they should take into accord that there are political leaders in the country that want them to stay out, but that doesn't necessarily mean that providing help would be immoral.
Which directly contridicts your statment...."interest of others" being a key point here. You did not qaulify "others" as being anyone other than "others" which could be the population, the political leaders, warlords, etc, etc.
This statement further highlights this contridiction:
Similarly to your example about genocide: Whether the country wants help or not is a matter to consider, but doesn't ultimately decide the morality of the action.
The value and balance of each parties interest in the trasaction direcly correlates to the morality of it, according to you.
Moving on to another absurdity:
Bad trades only happen due to ignorance or misinformation.
So predatory lending is not a bad trade unless the person borrowing is ignorant or lied too? I know pay day loans are bad and as long as I'm aware of that and take their money, its not a bad trade.....bull*****. Who taught you this stuff?
Either way, I'm not too upset over the outcome. Cause United Stats has done this to Iraq, Afghan, or other middle east countries a lot in the recent history anyway.
Exactly which of those countries was annexed by the US?
Perhaps you misunderstood when people write stuff in separate paragraph.
Don't get snippy when it's your own fault for writing misleadingly. You wrote that the U.S. "had done this" - "this" is a demonstrative pronoun and must point back to a referent, which a reasonable reader would assume lies in the previous paragraph. since there isn't any in the same paragraph.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
It's not my fault for you to interpret my writing different from what I have intended.
When your writing is ambiguous and unclear, the fault is at least partly on yourself. This is true regardless of whether you worded ambiguosuly intentionally or not.
You can misinterpret or misconstrue however you want. However, in academics or journalism, scholars and reporters often ask the author for clarification, in questions. That's how professionals do things, instead of writing condescending and hostile comments toward the author.
As for this... you are the one who started acting in a condescending and hostile manner with your statement: "Perhaps you misunderstood when people write stuff in separate paragraph" implying that I was incapable of understanding grammatical structure. Don't get all butthurt when someone points out that My understanding was a reasonable one given proper grammar.
But, regardless of any of that, Lets assume instead of me asking "Exactly which of those countries was annexed by the US" I asked "Exactly which of those countries was invaded by the US with the intention of annexation"? Since that *is* what has happened in Ukraine's Crimea region, and is not dependent on future events.
Don't needlessly complicate things, especially when it has nothing to do with the statement at hand. The fact of the matter is, when someone sells anything something at a profit, that someone is "Proactively acting to forward one's own interests at greater cost to the interests of others". That other people may benefit from that person selling at a profit is inconsequential to this particular sentence. The very act of profit is "forwarding one's own interest at a greater cost to the interests of others".
Your assumption here is still that my actions cannot forward the interests of others. Let me bring out the iron wire and demonstrate this.
I'm a woodcutter, and I live on a deserted island with a fisherman and a exotic dancer. I decide to cut trees nearby, in order to construct a boat. In doing so, I do hurt the interests of others, as those trees are no more. I estimate the cost for them to be 20 units of resources.
I do, however, use that wood to construct a boat which I let the fisherman use every other day, assuming he wants to. This is valuable to him, and say I estimate the benefit is worth 60 resources.
The cost I've ultimately created for others in this equation is negative. In other words, the others as a whole benefit more from my actions than they lose, despite part of it being detrimental to their resources.
You're essentially saying that capitalism as its very existence is immoral. Which I don't necessarily disagree with, but I just want you to be clear.
Ideas aren't immoral or moral, since they are not actions.
The claim that "By that logic Capitalistic society has more immoral actions than moral actions.", or that "By that logic people acting in accordance to capitalistic ideology commit more immoral actions than moral actions." could be made. These aren't very valuable statements, though.
Exactly. Notice how as soon as I point out the holes in your overly general statement, you felt the need to specify by talking about business owners who want to help their employees/business owners who are just out for themselves?
Reality is complicated. I believed your statement out of touch with reality, and you more or less affirmed this by adding in qualifications.
Notice how I said that the action could be moral or immoral, depending on their intentions?
The point is that, with the information you've given me, I cannot determine whether the actions would be moral or immoral.
This assumes that goodness exists to begin with, and that we humans know what that goodness is. Which, incidentally, would mean that we innately know what is good and what is bad.
But we do. The studies on babies show that they can tell between a good action and a bad action when observing it being committed by a third party on another third party.
Babies also know to lie and use a variety of manipulative behavior to get what they want. I don't think you want to use babies as an example of how we are born with empathy. We're also born with the ability to lie and cheat others for our own profit if you want to go down that route.
I do not see how this is relevant? By the very nature of being able to do anything, we can do both bad and good.
People being able to do bad things, or doing them often, doesn't invalidate a theory on morality. In fact, if no one ever did bad things according to a theory, that might invalidate it. Or at least make it irrelevant.
So you're saying that, since every human culture that we are aware of have some things that they consider moral, or otherwise a moral code of some sort, morality exists. It does not matter that those very things are often different, and sometimes complete opposites of one another.
How does that even make sense?
What does this even mean? You just wrote that morality is not innate and that it is constructed by society and can differ among various cultures.
But the process by which morality is constructed is innate. Your argument is like saying that communication doesn't exist, because people in different parts of the world speak in different languages.
And then in the next you speak of morality as though it is something that is universal among human beings. And yet in the previous you recognized that cultures can often have wildly different views of what is moral and immoral.
Just like they speak in different languages. The morality on which their moral framework is built is the same, but they have come into different conclusions. Perhaps because the conditions were different, leading to them assigning different values on things. This leads to assumptions.
If I see every day of my life someone giving a rose to someone, and them being happy about receiving it, I will see this as a good act. (I.E: I can differentiate between the morality of the action.) A lot of cultural frameworks are born from generalizations like this, and assumptions that everyone would be happy about being given a rose. Despite being able to differentiate between the morality of the action I witness, I can make a false rule by generalizing. Similarly if I see people having extramarital relationships and them ending with sadness for everyone, I might come up with a rule of "Do not have extramarital relationships.", despite it being completely possible that there was a situation where an extramarital relationship was beneficial for everyone, and therefore moral. The issue here is generalizing, or assuming that people are identical. We can create "moral rules" that will, in fact, lead to immorality.
In other words, people are capable of distinguishing between moral actions and immoral actions upon witnessing them, but not capable of creating universal rules of morality.
Suppose that we decided that it is moral to think only of ourselves and screw the rest.
How do you take that statement? Would you argue that, while a society can hold that as a moral standard, it is actually not moral? How does that follow?
A person that believes that acting in his own interest and screwing others achieves maximal amount of good to the others would be acting morally while acting selfishly. That doesn't however mean that a person that believes that everyone acting selfishly would generate maximal good for everyone would be acting morally while acting selfishly, because he has to bear in mind that not everyone else is doing so.
Moral standards are generalized rules that are born from biased viewpoints. If I was living in a society that had decided to make "act like a dick" a moral standard, but I saw that acting like a dick did more harm than good to others, I would still be acting immorally by acting like a dick.
No, I have not. I've used your logic and your words and applied them to show how absurd your statement was.
Yes, you have. It is completely possible as outlined above that the actions of the US would lead to negative costs for others, by creating net benefit for 250,000 citizens and net deficit for 5 leaders. These all are part of the "others".
This statement further highlights this contridiction:
Similarly to your example about genocide: Whether the country wants help or not is a matter to consider, but doesn't ultimately decide the morality of the action.
The value and balance of each parties interest in the trasaction direcly correlates to the morality of it, according to you.
The perceived value. If I see a person holding 5 others hostage and planning to kill them, and the only way for me to stop it would be to kill this one person, I could draw a conclusion that the net gain for others (I.E: The kidnapper and the ones to be killed.) would be above zero if I killed the kidnapper. I could be wrong, as maybe the five others wanted to be killed, but if I believed that they didn't and valued their lives, I would be acting morally by stopping the killer.
Bad trades only happen due to ignorance or misinformation.
So predatory lending is not a bad trade unless the person borrowing is ignorant or lied too? I know pay day loans are bad and as long as I'm aware of that and take their money, its not a bad trade.....bull*****. Who taught you this stuff?
It isn't. You valued having $100 now more than having $500 tomorrow. The lender valued having $500 tomorrow more than having $100 today.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The Sage is occupied with the unspoken
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.
Russia is not provoking a war against the U.S. and the E.U. with their actions in Crimea and Ukraine.
Is Russia threatening a war against Ukraine? Sure.
Would Russia not be further in violation of international law by doing so?
You're taking a scenario in which Russia goes to war with Ukraine and the EU and the USA go in to defend Ukraine, and are declaring the EU and the US as the aggressors in this scenario. That doesn't make sense to me.
You're taking a scenario in which Russia goes to war with Ukraine and the EU and the USA go in to defend Ukraine, and are declaring the EU and the US as the aggressors in this scenario. That doesn't make sense to me.
Russia hasn't gone to war with Ukraine. Russia has sent troops into Crimea on the pretense of an existing legal treaty, and may have sent troops into Ukraine that were later withdrawn.
And, even if Russia does go to war with Ukraine, it is a state of affairs that the U.S. doesn't have much involvement with besides issues with international law.
And I never said anything about the U.S. being the aggressor. Stop putting words in my mouth, it's getting tiresome. I wrote "Doing anything provokes war, and Ukraine is not worth a war."
With which I meant that the U.S. engaging in any action against Russia can provoke a war with Russia, and that is not a war worth getting into, especially over a country like Ukraine.
And with "provoke" I meant (From the free dictionary) -
2. To stir to action or feeling.
3. To give rise to; evoke: provoke laughter.
Clearly you think I meant the fourth definition from that site. Next time, ask for clarification instead of putting words in people's mouth.
Ok, when you say "perhaps," what does that mean? If you mean it's dependent upon certain factors, which factors would make that answer a "yes" versus a "no"?
No, but you said they are threatening a war with Ukraine, thereby acknowledging that Russia is indeed threatening a war.
And, even if Russia does go to war with Ukraine, it is a state of affairs that the U.S. doesn't have much involvement with besides issues with international law.
Isn't that a reason for involvement?
And I never said anything about the U.S. being the aggressor.
You said the US' involvement would mean the US would be "provoking a war." What else could such a pronouncement be besides an accusation of the US being the aggressor?
I wrote "Doing anything provokes war, and Ukraine is not worth a war."
Upholding international law is an insufficient reason to intervene when a country breaks international law?
With which I meant that the U.S. engaging in any action against Russia can provoke a war with Russia,
Except how are they provoking a war with Russia when Russia goes to war with the Ukraine? That's Russia provoking a war and the US and/or the EU responding to the plight of an ally.
[quote from="Amadi" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/outside-magic/water-cooler-talk/546726-russia-invades-ukraine?comment=75"]
That would be incorrect if we go by the original statement, here "Proactively acting to forward one's own interests at greater cost to the interests of others is immoral."
That pretty much defines what business owners do. They are not really concerned with your interests, and will act at every opportunity to gain as much as they can. This typically means that they'll charge more than whatever that resource is actually worth.
This directly contradicts my interest, which is to gain as much resources as I can. By directly charging me resources, and more resources than that resource I want is worth at that, a business owner is acting against my interest and "acting to forward one's interest at greater cost to the interests of others".
I never saw that kind of moral evaluation in any literature, but it's pretty clearly flawed. Reasons:
i) Most of the time you're not being forced to accept a certain business prices and services. You have liberty to choose another supplier or you may choose to live without the supply. So a business does not force you to lend down resources you don't want to. All they do is give you a option. Is giving a option EVER immoral ?
ii) It's self evident that someone don't accept a trade if it's not in their own interests. Realized trades are by definition mutually beneficial and a relationship of interdependence. So you will never lend down resources to acquire something that it's not at least as valuable to you as the resources you lend down. Because if that was the case you would simply not realize the trade.
iii) "charge more than whatever that resource is actually worth". What is the worth of the resource ? You have to specify that measure in order for your argument to hold any meaning. This is a century old debate on economic philosophy and is not something you can ignore in a argument such as these.
If the worth is the price, the situation you describe is paradoxical as the price is defined by what's being charged. You can use a measure of "market equilibrium price" but then, the existence of such thing depends on the very fact no one can charge above it, so the situation you describe, under this measurement, is also impossible. The only way your argument have a shred of sense if that you adopt a objective measurement of value such as labor used - a theory that have a lot of it's own problems and I will refute if you choose to go that route.
The consensus of the literature is that there isn't a objective measure for the "worth" of something. Things don't have any worth outside of each observer perspective. There is only the subjective value derived from preference relations. Assuming "worth" is this subjective value, your situation is also improbable as no one would lend down resources to acquire something of lower value.
iv. Yes, there is a conflict of interests between business and consumers. Business wants to maximize revenue (at given costs) and consumers want to buy as much as they want at the lowest prices possible. There's two flaws in your moral evaluation of the solution of this conflict of interest. First, you ignoring the supply side of the economies - the very fact that production have restraints in what prices they can be charged and how much of things can be offered. The supply restraints makes the consumers side of the interest economically not viable and out of touch with reality as consumers are unable to grasp the supply limitations. This is the reason why business should be the ones entitled of fixing prices - they are in grasp with both demand and supply limitations, they are in grasp with scarcity.
Second, you also fail to explain why business are being immoral for defending their interests and you are not, since you promote your interests at the expense of the business. Argument to majority such as "we consumers are more, we have more rights" cannot be made here as net the benefit of profit far surpass any consumers surplus you can imagine. Profit is what allows a economy to coordinate, it is how we, mere dumb humans, know what should and what should not be produced in respect to the restraints of scarcity. Remove profit from the equation and we have a dysfunctional economy were people produce what they want and how they want with no respect to people's demands. Profit is the reason why our economy is so much more efficient then the economies of the past, it's the reason behind economic growth and development. No consumer comfort will ever be more valuable then the development that will be enjoyed by all future generations.
And, even if Russia does go to war with Ukraine, it is a state of affairs that the U.S. doesn't have much involvement with besides issues with international law.
Isn't that a reason for involvement?
So you support the potential death of may people over disputes with international law?
Except how are they provoking a war with Russia when Russia goes to war with the Ukraine? That's Russia provoking a war and the US and/or the EU responding to the plight of an ally.
Did you even read what I wrote in my earlier post about the word "provoke"?
i) Most of the time you're not being forced to accept a certain business prices and services. You have liberty to choose another supplier or you may choose to live without the supply. So a business does not force you to lend down resources you don't want to. All they do is give you a option. Is giving a option EVER immoral ?
Not relevant to the original statement at hand. Try actually reading what the statement said, instead of looking at it in a general viewpoint.
The original statement is stating that the very act of profiting is bad. If I sold an apple to someone else and gained a ten cent profit from it, then I acted in an immoral manner as described in the original statement-
"Proactively acting to forward one's own interests at greater cost to the interests of others is immoral."
ii) It's self evident that someone don't accept a trade if it's not in their own interests. Realized trades are by definition mutually beneficial and a relationship of interdependence. So you will never lend down resources to acquire something that it's not at least as valuable to you as the resources you lend down. Because if that was the case you would simply not realize the trade.
iii) "charge more than whatever that resource is actually worth". What is the worth of the resource ? You have to specify that measure in order for your argument to hold any meaning. This is a century old debate on economic philosophy and is not something you can ignore in a argument such as these.
Why? By that line of argument the concept of profit can't exist independently either.
Things don't have any worth outside of each observer perspective. There is only the subjective value derived from preference relations. Assuming "worth" is this subjective value, your situation is also improbable as no one would lend down resources to acquire something of lower value.
By this line of logic, the concept of goods being over-priced/related concepts and price-gouging wouldn't exist either.
iv. Yes, there is a conflict of interests between business and consumers. Business wants to maximize revenue (at given costs) and consumers want to buy as much as they want at the lowest prices possible. There's two flaws in your moral evaluation of the solution of this conflict of interest. First, you ignoring the supply side of the economies - the very fact that production have restraints in what prices they can be charged and how much of things can be offered. The supply restraints makes the consumers side of the interest economically not viable and out of touch with reality as consumers are unable to grasp the supply limitations. This is the reason why business should be the ones entitled of fixing prices - they are in grasp with both demand and supply limitations, they are in grasp with scarcity.
Indeed, but as I'm sure you know, the consumer doesn't really care about economic realities.
Neither does the original statement, coincidentally.
Second, you also fail to explain why business are being immoral for defending their interests and you are not, since you promote your interests at the expense of the business.
What?
Hold on a second. Do you even know what I wrote?
Do you even know what the original statement says? Do you even know who wrote the original statement?
Or did you quote me for absolutely no reason whatsoever?
I can't believe I just spent time responding to you when you clearly have no idea what Amadi wrote, and I wrote.
It is completely possible as outlined above that the actions of the US would lead to negative costs for others, by creating net benefit for 250,000 citizens and net deficit for 5 leaders. These all are part of the "others.
How many people in Germany and other countries are economically and socially impacted by this situation in Ukraine that russia started? Germany has a direct interest in the pipelines that run through Ukraine. How many countries are impacted by Germany being impacted?
I could be wrong, as maybe the five others wanted to be killed, but if I believed that they didn't and valued their lives, I would be acting morally by stopping the killer.
I'm not sure why you think the amount of people impacted by something is rationale way to determine morality. What if the hostage taker has a family of 30 people who would benefit if he were to get away? What if the hostage taker has an unloaded gun and has no real intent to harm, only steal something? What if I merely preceived that a countries population would be better off with out their leader? Once again your argument is absurd. In the much more complex situations how do you make a determination of morality? Take a poll?
It isn't. You valued having $100 now more than having $500 tomorrow. The lender valued having $500 tomorrow more than having $100 today.
I bet you most who go to a payday lender vaues having 500 later than 100 today but have no choice due to circumstances. Need does not equate to value. I bet most would value not having to use a payday lender.
What purpose does international law have if the world is willing to ignore injustice because of the threat of force?
Precisely!
The rule of law in a given state operates ultimately because the state can inflict punishment upon individuals or organizations that flout the rule of law. In states where individuals or organizations actually hold more power than states, those individuals and organizations tend to flout the rules openly and with no consequences.
One can even suppose that this is the League of Nations all over again.
I honestly have no good answers for you regarding the issue. I just do not think that Crimea and Ukraine is worth sending many Americans to their death and potentially leading to a global warfare that can have dire consequences for many. And my personal (albeit not very well supported) opinion is that any actual attempt to force Russia to give up in this issue will lead to some form of armed conflict, and at the very least some very bad things.
The rule of law in a given state operates ultimately because the state can inflict punishment upon individuals or organizations that flout the rule of law. In states where individuals or organizations actually hold more power than states, those individuals and organizations tend to flout the rules openly and with no consequences.
One can even suppose that this is the League of Nations all over again.
But if you think that is not a good thing, then should we not take measures to prevent that from happening? Indeed, would it not be negligent of us, who have the power to prevent such a blatant wrong, to not actively take steps to do so?
I honestly have no good answers for you regarding the issue. I just do not think that Crimea and Ukraine is worth sending many Americans to their death and potentially leading to a global warfare that can have dire consequences for many.
Which countries do you consider worth protecting then?
I think stopping Russia from negating a country's rightful sovereignty through unprovoked military aggression in violation of international law is a perfectly valid reason to send troops in. That pretty much defines a just war.
And my personal (albeit not very well supported) opinion is that any actual attempt to force Russia to give up in this issue will lead to some form of armed conflict, and at the very least some very bad things.
I mean, it's not exactly the best set of choices. I'm just finding it confusing as to why you interpret US/EU military intervention against Russia invading the rest of Ukraine as the US/EU "provoking" Russia, when it seems pretty clear to me that Russia undertaking such a brazen and immoral act of aggression would be the act of provocation.
The rule of law in a given state operates ultimately because the state can inflict punishment upon individuals or organizations that flout the rule of law. In states where individuals or organizations actually hold more power than states, those individuals and organizations tend to flout the rules openly and with no consequences.
One can even suppose that this is the League of Nations all over again.
But if you think that is not a good thing, then should we not take measures to prevent that from happening? Indeed, would it not be negligent of us, who have the power to prevent such a blatant wrong, to not actively take steps to do so?
I honestly have no good answers for you regarding the issue. I just do not think that Crimea and Ukraine is worth sending many Americans to their death and potentially leading to a global warfare that can have dire consequences for many.
Which countries do you consider worth protecting then?
I think stopping Russia from negating a country's rightful sovereignty through unprovoked military aggression in violation of international law is a perfectly valid reason to send troops in. That pretty much defines a just war.
And my personal (albeit not very well supported) opinion is that any actual attempt to force Russia to give up in this issue will lead to some form of armed conflict, and at the very least some very bad things.
I mean, it's not exactly the best set of choices. I'm just finding it confusing as to why you interpret US/EU military intervention against Russia invading the rest of Ukraine as the US/EU "provoking" Russia, when it seems pretty clear to me that Russia undertaking such a brazen and immoral act of aggression would be the act of provocation.
The thing is, the U.S. and the E.U. cannot take military action against Russia. That would lead to World War III and nuclear annihilation.
Arguably, the sale itself achieves only good: The buyer decides that the good is worth more to them than the money they're paying for it. The seller decides that the product is worth less to them than the money the buyer is ready to pay for it. The two persons have different interests.
A lot of other things relating to it might lead into it being bad in retrospect, though. For example, actively lying to the consumer about the value of the good, or the properties it has. Or achieving a monopoly in something that's required for people to survive, such as medicine or food, and then overcharging for it.
You interjecting some arbitrary absolute value to the goods, and to money itself, is a subjective and almost laughable argument.
Convenience is a factor. When I want to buy a bag of flour, I don't drive all the way to the fields to harvest it myself and then grind it by hand for practically free. I go to the supermarket and buy it for significantly more. Did I lose this transaction? By your definition, yes. But that's because you didn't take into account the time I'd have to spend, or the money spent on gas to get there. Or the fact that I don't feel like grinding wheat to flour right now. The subjective value of the bag of flour to me happens to be more than what the store bought it for, for a number of reasons.
True, but that's not the only interest these people have. Time is valuable, and convenience is valuable. Even the time spent shopping can be enjoyable and therefore valuable to some.
But they are not forcing you. If you do not think the value of the product is as much as it'd cost, you won't buy it.
You are also assuming that you and the salesman are the only people the sale would affect. There are employees that get paid, all the way through the production chain, and assuming that the product gets sold eventually, the person who bought it in the end benefited from you not buying it beforehand. The salesman might be working in the interests of others, just that you were not amongst those others.
It is also possible that the salesman is an evil greedy selfish bastard that hates everyone and only works in their own interests, and is only selling you stuff with the intent of ripping you off. The sale would be immoral, then. Likewise they could believe they are doing overall good to others by selling it to you, be it to you, their employees, or a charity they plan to donate something to.
In essence, you're assuming oversimplified situations and trying to apply the statement I made to them, when in practice, reality is complicated.
This argument requires the assumption that the nations are more than the people involved, or different from the people involved, and that they are that way because of some abstract reason, rather than because the people involved made them so. I disagree with that. The only way nations could be elevated into a status that would free them from morality would be by the people, and then the act of elevating them would be immoral, and the people would be responsible of the nation's actions using this freedom from morality. I.E: In the end, the people involved would still be responsible for the immorality.
There is no action without a perpetrator.
I believe in innate human capability for goodness.
Innate values do not exist. Innate capability for goodness, and rudimentary understanding of the feelings of others does. It is called empathy, and it exists even in babies, as many studies have shown.
You're mistaking our judgement of morality for morality. "We believe X is moral, but other ethnic group believes X is immoral, therefore morality cannot exist." The flaw here is that the other ethnic group has things they believe are moral, just like we do. They are not the same things, but they don't have to be: They still have a concept of morality. And they operate on the same principle, motivated by empathy, as in they try to avoid making other people feel bad and try to make other people feel good. This is quite likely an evolutionary trait, and as mentioned before, even babies of three months old have rudimentary understanding of it.
It's the specifics that different ethnic groups have disagreements on. We tend to form these biased views of acceptability based on what someone held as moral. The ten commandments are a good example of this. The mistake with them is that we teach some specific instructions, that might be easy to follow, rather than teaching the basis of morality. Often these can even be counterintuitive to morality, as I see it. Take "do not steal", for example. Now, it's possible to imagine a situation where stealing something would result into more good than bad for others, and I would view that action as moral, but the ten commandments would not.
Ugh, I'm running against a linguistic wall here, because of moral as a noun and as an adjective. Bear with me. Basically what I'm trying to say here is that we're often taught morals, which might not be moral. These morals are not universal or innate, but the capability for actions that are moral, and the ability to differentiate between actions that are moral and actions that are not, is.
You would have to consider really hard and try to acknowledge the other side of the situation. And to remember to include the exterminated people in the list of others. And of course you should bear in mind that you could fail, and just make everything worse. And you'd need to factor that risk in, as well. I already mentioned that important part of moral action is to try to do the best action based on your judgement, and try to better that judgement. If you, in the end, would end up believing to the best of your judgement that an action towards exterminating religious people would end up doing more good than bad, that action would be moral. (Notice you still need to evaluate your actions on individual basis.)
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.
That's a matter of perception. From the viewpoint of the people living in countries next to Russia, Russia is like the abusive adult who likes to put out cigarette butts on kids' arms.
This assumes all tranactions conducted are of equal value based on nothing more than a persons willingness to enter into the transaction. Following this course of logic, it's impossible for a person to willingly to enter into a tranaction and overpay by virtue of his willingness to enter the transaction.
Your assumptions that each of the indivduals involved in a transactions who have different interst while having equal value when engaged into a transaction if both parties are reasonably aware is absurd.
Your inclusion of the term greater, indicates their is a measure of value attributed to each of the parties interest in something. Yet, your resolve this difference as mostly equal as long as the parties are reasonably aware and willing participants. This outright ignores that people make bad decisions even when they are reasonably aware. by your logic, no one gets a bad deal as long as they are reasonably ware and willing to engage in the transaction.
I think you are confused about who is doing this....You are the one interjecting an abritary value (as determined by the indivdual) and measuring it to judge morality. Lets say a country is dying of starvation, the US, in it's interest to be noble, decides to send in humantrain aide and US forces to keep it safe....the dying country political leaders, even though its country is dying, does not want US forces and they value that higher than the aide the US can provide, therefore it would be immoral for the US to provide assistance to the country.
I find this absurd.
Another example. Geneoside.....One country could find this in their greater interest than complying with international law and it would make it immoral to stop geneoside.
The orginal qoute is abusurd on this example alone.
calling liberals loons=not okay
The standard to which the forum moderators apply the rules here.
Have you, by any chance, read the thread in it's wholesome? Your posts would seem to imply otherwise, but I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. If you are, you have just constructed a strawman. If you happen to be god, you should be able to bring it to life somehow. It'd probably be more interesting that way.*
What matters regarding the morality of the action is the intention of the US**. Yes, they should take into accord that there are political leaders in the country that want them to stay out, but that doesn't necessarily mean that providing help would be immoral. If US honestly believes that providing help would be in the best interests of others to provide help, it would be moral to provide help. Similarly to your example about genocide: Whether the country wants help or not is a matter to consider, but doesn't ultimately decide the morality of the action.
*Is there some kind of insider joke, about how people start fighting strawmen the instant the thread gets moved to Debate. I was gone for a while, it could be I missed this.
**Also, you're using nations as single magical entities that are not made up of people that might think differently. Which I love. Have I expressed my love for this concept enough in this thread? I love it so hard I'm pooping out flowers in a massive tidal wave of flowers right now. It's especially delightful when you assume the political leaders are representative of the entire nation, or that the population having genocide committed on them isn't a factor, since they're (Presumably) in the minority.
I'd like to note that you're cherry picking, and ignored the point where it might even be moral to rip off people, if your aim was to use the money for something good, and you honestly believed that the overall good would outweigh the bad. Likewise, you could give away stuff for free and have that be an immoral action if the intent behind it was selfish. As such, none of this really matters, but here we go anyway:
Why would they partake in the trade if their interest in something was lower? If I think a lipstick is worth 50 cents, but you're trying to sell it for an euro, I'm not buying it. If I buy it for the euro, that means that I value having that lipstick more than I value having an euro. Sure, my perception of the value of the lipstick might differ from day to day, and there might be a store selling the lipstick for 45 cents. My estimate on the value of money might differ from day to day too, and I'm more willing to pay more for stuff when on a holiday.
Goods, and money, are only worth as much as people value them. Bad trades only happen due to ignorance or misinformation.
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.
You misunderstand. Time is a resource as well. If you can have something simply delivered to your doorstep, then that also is resource saved. Conversely, having to go out and do something yourself is resources lost, and vice versa.
Don't needlessly complicate things, especially when it has nothing to do with the statement at hand. The fact of the matter is, when someone sells anything something at a profit, that someone is "Proactively acting to forward one's own interests at greater cost to the interests of others". That other people may benefit from that person selling at a profit is inconsequential to this particular sentence. The very act of profit is "forwarding one's own interest at a greater cost to the interests of others".
You're essentially saying that capitalism as its very existence is immoral. Which I don't necessarily disagree with, but I just want you to be clear.
Exactly. Notice how as soon as I point out the holes in your overly general statement, you felt the need to specify by talking about business owners who want to help their employees/business owners who are just out for themselves?
Reality is complicated. I believed your statement out of touch with reality, and you more or less affirmed this by adding in qualifications.
This assumes that goodness exists to begin with, and that we humans know what that goodness is. Which, incidentally, would mean that we innately know what is good and what is bad.
Otherwise it's an entirely artificial construct. One where we defined certain actions as good, and certain others as bad.
And this leads into the rest of your post.
Empathy is recognizing and feeling understanding for the feelings of others. Goodness has nothing to do with it.
Babies also know to lie and use a variety of manipulative behavior to get what they want. I don't think you want to use babies as an example of how we are born with empathy. We're also born with the ability to lie and cheat others for our own profit if you want to go down that route.
?
So you're saying that, since every human culture that we are aware of have some things that they consider moral, or otherwise a moral code of some sort, morality exists. It does not matter that those very things are often different, and sometimes complete opposites of one another.
How does that even make sense?
What does this even mean? You just wrote that morality is not innate and that it is constructed by society and can differ among various cultures.
And then in the next you speak of morality as though it is something that is universal among human beings. And yet in the previous you recognized that cultures can often have wildly different views of what is moral and immoral.
You still run into an issue that I pointed above earlier here "but the capability for actions that are moral, and the ability to differentiate between actions that are moral and actions that are not, is."
This can ONLY follow if you claim that we know what are moral or immoral actions. Which would have to be either innate or completely artificial.
If it is innate, then you are arguing that there exists innate moral goodness. If it is completely artificial, then the entire concept of moral and immoral is meaningless in the sense that you're trying to use here.
Here, i'll make it really simple for you-
Suppose that we decided that it is moral to think only of ourselves and screw the rest.
How do you take that statement? Would you argue that, while a society can hold that as a moral standard, it is actually not moral? How does that follow?
And suppose my judgment is flawed for a number of reasons, but I cannot recognize that it is because I didn't think things through/am a fanatic/w.e.
Therefore, as far as I know, I am being perfectly reasonable and acting in a perfectly justifiable manner.
No, I have not. I've used your logic and your words and applied them to show how absurd your statement was.
Once again taking us to this quote:
Do you believe this as a universal truth? Or does this only apply when you want it to apply? Becasue when you say something like this:
Which directly contridicts your statment...."interest of others" being a key point here. You did not qaulify "others" as being anyone other than "others" which could be the population, the political leaders, warlords, etc, etc.
This statement further highlights this contridiction:
The value and balance of each parties interest in the trasaction direcly correlates to the morality of it, according to you.
Moving on to another absurdity:
So predatory lending is not a bad trade unless the person borrowing is ignorant or lied too? I know pay day loans are bad and as long as I'm aware of that and take their money, its not a bad trade.....bull*****. Who taught you this stuff?
calling liberals loons=not okay
The standard to which the forum moderators apply the rules here.
Exactly which of those countries was annexed by the US?
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
When your writing is ambiguous and unclear, the fault is at least partly on yourself. This is true regardless of whether you worded ambiguosuly intentionally or not.
As for this... you are the one who started acting in a condescending and hostile manner with your statement: "Perhaps you misunderstood when people write stuff in separate paragraph" implying that I was incapable of understanding grammatical structure. Don't get all butthurt when someone points out that My understanding was a reasonable one given proper grammar.
But, regardless of any of that, Lets assume instead of me asking "Exactly which of those countries was annexed by the US" I asked "Exactly which of those countries was invaded by the US with the intention of annexation"? Since that *is* what has happened in Ukraine's Crimea region, and is not dependent on future events.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-15/crimea-referendum-looms-as-kerry-fails-to-sway-russia.html
Obama and the EU leaders are really horrible.
Doing anything provokes war, and Ukraine is not worth a war.
Well, unless you think it is. Then by all means send letters to your congress member telling them that you support military action.
Your assumption here is still that my actions cannot forward the interests of others. Let me bring out the iron wire and demonstrate this.
I'm a woodcutter, and I live on a deserted island with a fisherman and a exotic dancer. I decide to cut trees nearby, in order to construct a boat. In doing so, I do hurt the interests of others, as those trees are no more. I estimate the cost for them to be 20 units of resources.
Fisherman: -20 resources
Exotic Dancer: -20 resources
I do, however, use that wood to construct a boat which I let the fisherman use every other day, assuming he wants to. This is valuable to him, and say I estimate the benefit is worth 60 resources.
Fisherman: +40 resources
Exotic Dancer: -20 resources
Total: +20 resources
The cost I've ultimately created for others in this equation is negative. In other words, the others as a whole benefit more from my actions than they lose, despite part of it being detrimental to their resources.
Ideas aren't immoral or moral, since they are not actions.
The claim that "By that logic Capitalistic society has more immoral actions than moral actions.", or that "By that logic people acting in accordance to capitalistic ideology commit more immoral actions than moral actions." could be made. These aren't very valuable statements, though.
Notice how I said that the action could be moral or immoral, depending on their intentions?
The point is that, with the information you've given me, I cannot determine whether the actions would be moral or immoral.
But we do. The studies on babies show that they can tell between a good action and a bad action when observing it being committed by a third party on another third party.
Empathy in itself isn't goodness, but it is necessary for it. We need it to judge the results of actions on others.
I do not see how this is relevant? By the very nature of being able to do anything, we can do both bad and good.
People being able to do bad things, or doing them often, doesn't invalidate a theory on morality. In fact, if no one ever did bad things according to a theory, that might invalidate it. Or at least make it irrelevant.
But the process by which morality is constructed is innate. Your argument is like saying that communication doesn't exist, because people in different parts of the world speak in different languages.
Just like they speak in different languages. The morality on which their moral framework is built is the same, but they have come into different conclusions. Perhaps because the conditions were different, leading to them assigning different values on things. This leads to assumptions.
If I see every day of my life someone giving a rose to someone, and them being happy about receiving it, I will see this as a good act. (I.E: I can differentiate between the morality of the action.) A lot of cultural frameworks are born from generalizations like this, and assumptions that everyone would be happy about being given a rose. Despite being able to differentiate between the morality of the action I witness, I can make a false rule by generalizing. Similarly if I see people having extramarital relationships and them ending with sadness for everyone, I might come up with a rule of "Do not have extramarital relationships.", despite it being completely possible that there was a situation where an extramarital relationship was beneficial for everyone, and therefore moral. The issue here is generalizing, or assuming that people are identical. We can create "moral rules" that will, in fact, lead to immorality.
In other words, people are capable of distinguishing between moral actions and immoral actions upon witnessing them, but not capable of creating universal rules of morality.
A person that believes that acting in his own interest and screwing others achieves maximal amount of good to the others would be acting morally while acting selfishly. That doesn't however mean that a person that believes that everyone acting selfishly would generate maximal good for everyone would be acting morally while acting selfishly, because he has to bear in mind that not everyone else is doing so.
Moral standards are generalized rules that are born from biased viewpoints. If I was living in a society that had decided to make "act like a dick" a moral standard, but I saw that acting like a dick did more harm than good to others, I would still be acting immorally by acting like a dick.
If you were truly incapable of questioning/thinking through, you could not be held to fault for not doing so.
Yes, you have. It is completely possible as outlined above that the actions of the US would lead to negative costs for others, by creating net benefit for 250,000 citizens and net deficit for 5 leaders. These all are part of the "others".
The perceived value. If I see a person holding 5 others hostage and planning to kill them, and the only way for me to stop it would be to kill this one person, I could draw a conclusion that the net gain for others (I.E: The kidnapper and the ones to be killed.) would be above zero if I killed the kidnapper. I could be wrong, as maybe the five others wanted to be killed, but if I believed that they didn't and valued their lives, I would be acting morally by stopping the killer.
It isn't. You valued having $100 now more than having $500 tomorrow. The lender valued having $500 tomorrow more than having $100 today.
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.
Hang on.
Why is it if we intervene, that's the US "provoking a war," yet you argue that Russia is not threatening a war?
How does that make any sense?
...
Russia is not provoking a war against the U.S. and the E.U. with their actions in Crimea and Ukraine.
Is Russia threatening a war against Ukraine? Sure.
Would Russia not be further in violation of international law by doing so?
You're taking a scenario in which Russia goes to war with Ukraine and the EU and the USA go in to defend Ukraine, and are declaring the EU and the US as the aggressors in this scenario. That doesn't make sense to me.
Perhaps.
Russia hasn't gone to war with Ukraine. Russia has sent troops into Crimea on the pretense of an existing legal treaty, and may have sent troops into Ukraine that were later withdrawn.
And, even if Russia does go to war with Ukraine, it is a state of affairs that the U.S. doesn't have much involvement with besides issues with international law.
And I never said anything about the U.S. being the aggressor. Stop putting words in my mouth, it's getting tiresome. I wrote "Doing anything provokes war, and Ukraine is not worth a war."
With which I meant that the U.S. engaging in any action against Russia can provoke a war with Russia, and that is not a war worth getting into, especially over a country like Ukraine.
And with "provoke" I meant (From the free dictionary) -
2. To stir to action or feeling.
3. To give rise to; evoke: provoke laughter.
Clearly you think I meant the fourth definition from that site. Next time, ask for clarification instead of putting words in people's mouth.
Ok, when you say "perhaps," what does that mean? If you mean it's dependent upon certain factors, which factors would make that answer a "yes" versus a "no"?
No, but you said they are threatening a war with Ukraine, thereby acknowledging that Russia is indeed threatening a war.
Isn't that a reason for involvement?
You said the US' involvement would mean the US would be "provoking a war." What else could such a pronouncement be besides an accusation of the US being the aggressor?
Upholding international law is an insufficient reason to intervene when a country breaks international law?
Except how are they provoking a war with Russia when Russia goes to war with the Ukraine? That's Russia provoking a war and the US and/or the EU responding to the plight of an ally.
I never saw that kind of moral evaluation in any literature, but it's pretty clearly flawed. Reasons:
i) Most of the time you're not being forced to accept a certain business prices and services. You have liberty to choose another supplier or you may choose to live without the supply. So a business does not force you to lend down resources you don't want to. All they do is give you a option. Is giving a option EVER immoral ?
ii) It's self evident that someone don't accept a trade if it's not in their own interests. Realized trades are by definition mutually beneficial and a relationship of interdependence. So you will never lend down resources to acquire something that it's not at least as valuable to you as the resources you lend down. Because if that was the case you would simply not realize the trade.
iii) "charge more than whatever that resource is actually worth". What is the worth of the resource ? You have to specify that measure in order for your argument to hold any meaning. This is a century old debate on economic philosophy and is not something you can ignore in a argument such as these.
If the worth is the price, the situation you describe is paradoxical as the price is defined by what's being charged. You can use a measure of "market equilibrium price" but then, the existence of such thing depends on the very fact no one can charge above it, so the situation you describe, under this measurement, is also impossible. The only way your argument have a shred of sense if that you adopt a objective measurement of value such as labor used - a theory that have a lot of it's own problems and I will refute if you choose to go that route.
The consensus of the literature is that there isn't a objective measure for the "worth" of something. Things don't have any worth outside of each observer perspective. There is only the subjective value derived from preference relations. Assuming "worth" is this subjective value, your situation is also improbable as no one would lend down resources to acquire something of lower value.
iv. Yes, there is a conflict of interests between business and consumers. Business wants to maximize revenue (at given costs) and consumers want to buy as much as they want at the lowest prices possible. There's two flaws in your moral evaluation of the solution of this conflict of interest. First, you ignoring the supply side of the economies - the very fact that production have restraints in what prices they can be charged and how much of things can be offered. The supply restraints makes the consumers side of the interest economically not viable and out of touch with reality as consumers are unable to grasp the supply limitations. This is the reason why business should be the ones entitled of fixing prices - they are in grasp with both demand and supply limitations, they are in grasp with scarcity.
Second, you also fail to explain why business are being immoral for defending their interests and you are not, since you promote your interests at the expense of the business. Argument to majority such as "we consumers are more, we have more rights" cannot be made here as net the benefit of profit far surpass any consumers surplus you can imagine. Profit is what allows a economy to coordinate, it is how we, mere dumb humans, know what should and what should not be produced in respect to the restraints of scarcity. Remove profit from the equation and we have a dysfunctional economy were people produce what they want and how they want with no respect to people's demands. Profit is the reason why our economy is so much more efficient then the economies of the past, it's the reason behind economic growth and development. No consumer comfort will ever be more valuable then the development that will be enjoyed by all future generations.
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
So you support the potential death of may people over disputes with international law?
Is it worth a war in your opinion?
Did you even read what I wrote in my earlier post about the word "provoke"?
Not relevant to the original statement at hand. Try actually reading what the statement said, instead of looking at it in a general viewpoint.
The original statement is stating that the very act of profiting is bad. If I sold an apple to someone else and gained a ten cent profit from it, then I acted in an immoral manner as described in the original statement-
"Proactively acting to forward one's own interests at greater cost to the interests of others is immoral."
Not relevant to the original statement at hand.
Why? By that line of argument the concept of profit can't exist independently either.
By this line of logic, the concept of goods being over-priced/related concepts and price-gouging wouldn't exist either.
Indeed, but as I'm sure you know, the consumer doesn't really care about economic realities.
Neither does the original statement, coincidentally.
What?
Hold on a second. Do you even know what I wrote?
Do you even know what the original statement says? Do you even know who wrote the original statement?
Or did you quote me for absolutely no reason whatsoever?
I can't believe I just spent time responding to you when you clearly have no idea what Amadi wrote, and I wrote.
What purpose does international law have if the world is willing to ignore injustice because of the threat of force?
How many people in Germany and other countries are economically and socially impacted by this situation in Ukraine that russia started? Germany has a direct interest in the pipelines that run through Ukraine. How many countries are impacted by Germany being impacted?
I'm not sure why you think the amount of people impacted by something is rationale way to determine morality. What if the hostage taker has a family of 30 people who would benefit if he were to get away? What if the hostage taker has an unloaded gun and has no real intent to harm, only steal something? What if I merely preceived that a countries population would be better off with out their leader? Once again your argument is absurd. In the much more complex situations how do you make a determination of morality? Take a poll?
I bet you most who go to a payday lender vaues having 500 later than 100 today but have no choice due to circumstances. Need does not equate to value. I bet most would value not having to use a payday lender.
calling liberals loons=not okay
The standard to which the forum moderators apply the rules here.
Precisely!
The rule of law in a given state operates ultimately because the state can inflict punishment upon individuals or organizations that flout the rule of law. In states where individuals or organizations actually hold more power than states, those individuals and organizations tend to flout the rules openly and with no consequences.
One can even suppose that this is the League of Nations all over again.
I honestly have no good answers for you regarding the issue. I just do not think that Crimea and Ukraine is worth sending many Americans to their death and potentially leading to a global warfare that can have dire consequences for many. And my personal (albeit not very well supported) opinion is that any actual attempt to force Russia to give up in this issue will lead to some form of armed conflict, and at the very least some very bad things.
But if you think that is not a good thing, then should we not take measures to prevent that from happening? Indeed, would it not be negligent of us, who have the power to prevent such a blatant wrong, to not actively take steps to do so?
Which countries do you consider worth protecting then?
I think stopping Russia from negating a country's rightful sovereignty through unprovoked military aggression in violation of international law is a perfectly valid reason to send troops in. That pretty much defines a just war.
I mean, it's not exactly the best set of choices. I'm just finding it confusing as to why you interpret US/EU military intervention against Russia invading the rest of Ukraine as the US/EU "provoking" Russia, when it seems pretty clear to me that Russia undertaking such a brazen and immoral act of aggression would be the act of provocation.
The thing is, the U.S. and the E.U. cannot take military action against Russia. That would lead to World War III and nuclear annihilation.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.