I would help, but since there are others around who are able to and also more closely related to the child, it is more of a moral obligation for them than me. Obviously, none of that would cross my mind in this instance because of the extreme and immediate nature of the situation.

The point of your OP was to ask if we are morally obliged to donate our "extra" money to charity. Besides the fact that if the answer to your question is yes, then in order to truly be moral we should all be penniless hobos with half a liver, one kidney, living off donated plasma; it ignores the millions of other people who may be considered more responsible for solving these problems and focuses on one person who has rightfully earned money he is under no moral obligation to give away.

Let's take this a step further. I believe from reading your posts, you are smart enough and capable of earning a million dollars in the next 10 years if you put your mind to it and work your ass off. Let's assume this is true. If you choose not to do this, to focus all you mind and work maybe 100 hours/week to achieve this goal, then you cannot donate most of it to charity; therefore, even though you were capable of donating this money to charity you are immoral for not doing it.

Keeping your second kidney is not a trivial luxury. I got Andy Fox to change his opinion on a similar matter with a ploy. I'll try the same with you. Suppose your neighbor's boy needed a kidney, he was one penny short and his only alternative was to ask you for it. Is it OK to refuse him?

You really get in trouble when you use the term trivial, because one could easily contend that anything above your needs to survive is trivial.

In that highly improbably situation, assuming I had a penny to give I would feel obliged not to refuse him one penny. Though his parents could easily find that last penny on the sidewalk or even have the procedure's cost reduced by a penny.

We all seem to like to use wildly extreme examples to hopefully prove our point. You guys seem to be marking the line at amounts that are "trivial." Who decides what is trivial to everyone? Maybe giving one penny might easily be considered trivial in this unlikely instance. But what about a more realistic instance where the boy is $1000 short? Am I immoral because $1000 is not a trivial amount of money to me, since I am certain I am capable of earning millions if I just tried harder?

lol, how did u

How do you guys respond to the question I've been asking for a while? Rephrased: If someone has worked hard enough to earn enough money so that $10,000 is a "trivial" amount and he is therefore immoral for not donating it to charity, then why is someone who has the same capabilities who was just too lazy work hard enough to earn that kind of money (or maybe just had other priorities) more moral, simply because that $10,000 is not trivial to him?

i think not drowning someone is the rule and saving someone from drowning is the exception. if you save them you are nice, if you dont you are neutral (if you drown them you are bad). you cant expect someone to do you favors, that's why you say thank you when they do.... and im pretty sure thats the definition of a favor.

just because many people around someone would think he's a dick if he didnt save someone from drowning doesnt mean he's a dick, it means in the opinion of many he is a dick.

Wow. So someone is by the side of a pool while a little kid is drowning; your saying that person doesn't even have the moral obligation to reach in and save the kid at virtually no personal expense?

This is basically correct. I dont like your use of the terms nice and neutral though. A nice person would save them.

The main thing is that not saving them and drowning them are massively different morally.

Ugh, I hate this example because it no doubt shows that exerting a "trivial" amount of effort can save a kid's life and therefore not doing so is actually trivially different from actually drowning the kid yourself. In special scenarios like this I am willing to say we are morally obligated to save the kid.

But then using this example to claim the same is true for someone who has legitimately earned his money - very likely with more than a trivial amount of effort - is immoral for essentially earning too much money (so as to have enough to be both "trivial" to him and make a difference to someone else) is too much of a stretch. And it leads us down a road which implies we are all immoral if we don't join the peace corps, or at very least work as hard as possible to make as much money as we can to donate to charity.

It's not about "having" money; it's about spending money on trivial things when that money could instead be spent on something vital.

I'm also really not saying I agree with op, I'm just making the argument; which is why I try to argue for how spending money on luxuries can be a boon to the world economically. I have no real data, but I could believe that spending money in markets probably benefits the markets of the world more (and thus potentially combating poverty) than spending money in charities.

Is it ethical to buy a Ferrari is not the only question, the other, is it ethical to make a living making and selling Ferraris?

What's the difference between spending the money on trivial things or just keeping the money in your bank account? Either way you have decided not to give it to charity. I'm convinced that money legitimately earned should be considered yours to do with whatever you wish, and you are under no moral obligation to spend it on anyone. Any charitable contributions are admirable acts, good deeds you should be applauded for making.

I'm sure there is a strong correlation between moral people and those who do good deeds, but just because someone withholds a good deed he could have performed rather easily does not in itself make him immoral. This is important because there is an important line between what society deems voluntary and what is expected. It seem some people ITT expect every rich person to donate large sums to charity or else they deem that person less moral than they, even though there is probably nothing stopping them from working their asses off to make the same money, so by that measure they are just as immoral.

shouldn't have deleted this from my last post; "Warren Buffet said that he could do more good for the world by investing his money, and then donating it to charity when he was dead. I see no real argument against this."

Also:

What if you had every piece of food in the world; All piled up in a big mountain, and man sledding down this thing is really fun. Now there is no other food in the entire world, and people wont have time to plant seeds or whatever before they die from starvation. Are you ethically obligated to give any of your food away? Doing so would be a net loss for you, because you value your sledding hill more than anything.

This is simply not true. In a case where two people are making $15,000 a year, if one of them donates $5 of their weekly pay to charity and the other uses that $5 to buy cigarettes , all else being equal, the moral difference between the two people is trivial.

In a case where two people are making $1,500,000 per year, if one of them donates $500 per week to charity and the other uses that $500 to buy golden toilet seats, additions to his home, fancy cars, etc., all else being equal, the moral difference between the two people is not trivial.

I hope you can see why without me having to explain the difference any further...


No one decides absolutely what is "trivial." It is generally agreed upon, though, on the basis of whether that particular decision generally made life significantly better or worse for a large number of people, yourself included. In the case you describe, you're immoral to the degree that you spend that $1,000 in a way that makes life worse for a large number of people. It's a continuum of sorts. So, near the limit, you'd be incredible immoral if you not only didn't give the $1,000 to the boy but instead gave it to Al Qaeda or something.