Is it moral to believe that you're a good person having all the goods that you desire while others are deprived of their own?
Choosing to subscribe to this topic will automatically register you for email notifications for comments and updates on this thread.
Email notifications will be sent out daily by default unless specified otherwise on your account which you can edit by going to your userpage here and clicking on the subscriptions tab.
Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
Log in or create an account to join the discussions on the Atheist Republic forums.
Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
FREE E-BOOKS
Get the book "Why There Is No God" and one more book for FREE!
Sign up below for the Atheist Republic Newsletter to get the books.
Record Your Message!
Record your voice here for it to be aired on the Atheist Republic Voicemails Podcast.
Send us your views and opinions, your personal stories, messages of support, comments on recent news, or any comments you would like to share about your part of the world.
Note : By clicking record you are allowing us to broadcast your message on any of our platforms.
Affiliate Disclaimer
Links to atheist related books, shirts and movies and other atheism related products are affiliate links.
All proceeds will go to keeping the Atheist Republic website up and running; providing resources, advocacy, community tools and encouragement to atheists all over the world.
Jakquai
You have to define greed better.
The accumulation of wealth at the expense of others needs.
That work?
Yes , that would be greed. Just because you have stuff doesn't make you greedy. Yes, I have stuff that other people around the world don't have. But, that doesn't make me greedy. I'm just lucky I can buy what I have.
Above and beyond ones own needs
Hmmm...so...is the accumulation of wealth immoral?
not always
How is producing things immoral? If some guy doesn't have a sofa, that doesn't make producing furniture immoral.
@Jakquai: "is the accumulation of wealth immoral?"
No. The methods used to accumulate wealth can be immoral. But wealth accumulation through hard work, intelligence, invention, creativity isn't immoral at all. In fact, it's essential to the improvement of the human condition.
How about beyond necessity? Is there a limit when others have nothing?
@Jakquai: "How about beyond necessity? Is there a limit when others have nothing?"
Who decides what is meant by "necessity"? Where would you draw the line? Jesus supposedly said we should live for today. But human beings have the ability to think ahead and plan. We naturally want to build up reserves to see us through crises in the future. Even squirrels do that. Is that part of "necessity", or should we stop worrying about where our next meal will come from?
What reasons can you think of why others might have nothing? Can any of these reasons be eliminated by redistributing the wealth of millionaires? How long do you think wealth would stay redistributed before some people started to accumulate it again?
Are you a proponent of socio/political/economic system that eschews the accumulation of wealth?
As you well know that "morality" is subject to the society that constructs them and has nothing to do with religion unless it is the society that dictates its subjective sense of morality.
Now as a single person, YOU have to decide what is moral and immoral. Of course, you can't build a model for every situation. Therefore YOU must be able to look at each situation and decide for yourself if it is moral.
My answer to your question is two fold.
1) Striving to achieve and being able to reward yourself with luxury is not in itself immoral.
2) Ignoring a personal responsibility to the greater society IS immoral.
Clearly accumulation too much wealth isn't good for society (consider the extreme example where one person owns everything). Where to draw the line though, is far from clear.
A person can only, for example, own all the land if people voluntarily sell it to him for prices that are bound to rise to such extreme rates it would be impossible for anyone to afford.
Either way, 'wealth' refers to the utility of a given object or space. If I plant cucumbers in my back yard, I am technically 'accumulating wealth.' For most of human history things like that were what accumulating wealth were, it was only just recently that it came to refer to a specific measurement (money).
To whatever extents people increase the value of their land, or their economic value, or how many pieces of paper they collect, is none of my concern.
That sounds pretty naive to me; but maybe I'm crazy.
If you stole all the land then it wouldn't be yours, you can only legitimately acquire land by buying it from others.
History itself is practically just a record of lands taken from others by force; making your statement the most naive thing I have read in quite a while.
That's not what I was talking about- I said as long as the rule of law is upheld, one person owning everything is impossible.
No you didn't say that. Did you forget this is a written communication medium that we can check the history of?
@Algebe
What if labor was the consideration of commerce instead of the fiat money?
What do you mean by fiat money?
Jakquai: "What if labor was the consideration of commerce instead of the fiat money?"
How would that work? Do you propose a basic standard unit of labor? Or would you value different types of labor differently? Would you have exchange rates between say a doctor's labor and a hairdresser's labor? Some labor requires massive upfront investment in education and training, while other types of labor don't. How would you account for that?
What's your argument against fiat money? It's one of the greatest inventions in the history of mankind.
inconvertible paper money made legal tender by a government decree.
Labor is how you get paid. Are you saying everyone should be paid equally? Some people make more money due to getting an education at college, are you saying they should get paid less?
The point isn't fiat money but LABOR being the commerce.
Isn't labor a necessity for how the world works today?
@Jakquai: "Isn't labor a necessity for how the world works today?"
Of course. So is investment in capital facilities, equipment, R&D... Fiat money as you call it is a fictional mechanism that makes all of these things, including labor, possible. Imagine bartering 50 hours of shoe shining for 20 minutes in a doctor's surgery, or 100,000 hours of road repair labor for the cost of building a factory. It's difficult to accumulate labor or save it in a bank account. That's why we need money.
is not getting an education labor?
@Jakquai: "is not getting an education labor?"
It's labor for the teachers who provide it. For the student it's a benefit. Do you think people should be paid to get educated?
@xenoview
You ask what is fiat money? What is "getting paid"?
Pages