Well any contribution is going to lower your net worth. Lets say those dont count as we havent taken into account Bill Gates previous donations we are talking about the main contribution. Yes I do think it is lower obviously, maybe youre leveling me here FTW. I said you can lower the percentage to what makes you feel comfortable.

Im not saying that money is the key component, its the generosity regardless of dollar amount that is noble. I personally think that theres something more noble about a homeless man giving his last can of food to another man whos in dire need of food, while he starves is and act of tremendous generosity.

It DID seem like you were belittling and discrediting (regardless of your disclaimers) Gates/Buffets contribution to society.

This is why I asked if you would be willing to donate nothing but your spare time, something that costs you nothing, to charity, homeless shelters or soup kitchens. It would cost you 0% of your net worth and only a 1/3rd of what you probably have ample supply of and can go with out, spare time. Itd have 0 affect on your day to day runnings of your life and more importantly for you no adverse effects on your bank balance.

I do agree that their donation isnt going to adversly affect their lives even if they give away 59 billion, 1 billion is clearly enough to live off. and as I am aware they will give it all away before he dies. So can you like I asked 4 times donate something that wont adversly affect your life? Spare ti me.

If not I dont see how you have and grounds to discredit/belittle/criticize whether intentionally or not their philanthropic deeds.

Those, like Kant, who accept a form of practical reason do not (usually) claim to derive moral conclusions from amoral premises. The point is that they think that reasoning about morality is different than theoretical reason. So they'll start with normative premises. But look, mainly I am pointing this out to say that hey, you seem to be taking for granted a claim that many moral philosophers disagree with. This doesn't mean your claim is false, but it does mean that it only has provisional merit as a premise in other arguments.

I'm saying that utility is itself a standard of evaluation. That's why I said I think we are understand the word differently. Traditionally, utility has been defined as happiness, or pleasure. So we can say that $100 brings more happiness or pleasure to the poor man than to Bill Gates. The truth of this claim does not depend on either Bill Gates or the poor man's agreement.

Utiles? Not sure what you are looking for here. Obviously utilitarianism has some serious measurement problems, but it seems pretty implausible to think that we can't rank utility in at least some cases. Most obviously, for almost everybody, being able to spend $1000 has greater utility than being able to spend $1.

I'm in All-In-Flynn's camp I think - I agree with everyone.

One error (in my view) that seems to be creeping in is the assumption that one can somehow rank "goodness". I don't think it's meaningful to compare the moral actions of a donor with a net worth of $100k and someone with $60B (in a financial setting - we can compare how they talk to their mother).

As you get more wealth, you have a greater scope for action in the world and the moral challenges facing you become different. I think Bill Gates is terrific (another bone of contention with my father, almost as bad as being a theist). I think Warren Buffet is terrific (I was sold when he named his private jet "The Indefensible"). In the cases we're talking about, they are both moral and both doing good things - it's not meaningful to say "whose doing the best" or "are they as good as some hypothetical guy who gave away 90% of his $1m". I think any comparison such as this implicitly adopts some scale against which all moral acts can be judged independently of the context in which they occur, the context in this case being the circumstances of the donor. Personally, I think the context is an essential part of determining the morality or otherwise of an action.

A billionaire who gives away $22B to help alleviate poverty is behaving more morally than if they spent it on giving themselves an even more idyllic life. Most other comparisons are not meaningful in my opinion.

I have and I will continue to. Not that that has anything to do with the discussion as I have repeatedly pointed out.

Yeah youre sounding a little vague for me...

That's too bad. But do not let me stop you from sharing your philanthropic activities. Perhaps you have been goading me to provoke that challenge so that you can impress us. Feel free.

Nice level attempt. But no thanks. Im not the one trying to discredit philanthropists.

No problem. I recognize I have no right to ask for personal information. I just wanted to give you the chance if you were trying to set that up.

From earlier:
He's not discrediting philanthropists - for one he's glad for the good that will come from such a sizable donation. All RLK is saying is that Bill Gates may or may not be a good person and that this donation doesnt tell him very much about that, since RLK values the sacrifice people make when evaluating their morality. Later in the thread, when he learnt of the effort Gates was putting into running his foundation, RLK indicated that was much more significant in judging the morality of his actions.

He was also pointing out that (from a theist's perspective) God doesnt need to look at the amount given or even the visible effort. What's in his heart is what matters and God will give him credit for that.

really, even if bill gates sat on his ass, and just donated $22 billion dollars, you have to remember, he has no compelling reason to do so other than the fact that he *actually wants to help people*. That makes him a good person in my book.

who cares if he still has $30 billion to live comfortably with, there are a ton of people in his position (who have more than enough money to do whatever they want), and you don't see them making these kinds of donations. Why? They don't need to. Theres no tax reasons, no need to improve their image, nothing. They do it because they want to help and make a difference. Even if its *easy* for them to do, it doesn't discredit his charity.

and the reason why you would give up $20billion if you suddenly were given, let alone having to work sleepless nights to earn, $50 billion, is because you are probably a pretty decent person too.

Pointing out that giving away is voluntary and losing is not doesn't really do anything for your point. If you're pointing out smth else I really must be missing it. The intention of the suicide example is to show the value of money (to that person).

Great, I must have gotten confused since you were agreeing so much with RLK.

...

Surely you can see why you come off as belittling.

Oh good, someone mentioned Elton John. Now I don't have to create a separate thread for this. Here's what he said about Jesus: "I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems."

Discuss?

I'm saying that one is voluntary and the other not, and that because of that, it's not unreasonable to suppose they will impact the individual in very different ways. Or maybe you expect the guy who wakes up in a bathtub full of ice with a strange abdominal scar to feel the same way as someone who donates a kidney to their spouse?

The claim that moral conclusions can't be derived from amoral premises isn't a claim that many moral philosophers (to my knowledge) consider false. That's the essential claim that's relevant.

Then this just comes down to word games. It doesn't matter how utility is traditionally defined. We're evaluating the rationality of billionaires, and I consider "conclusions do not (validly) follow from premises" to be a necessary condition for irrationality. If a billionaire's actions are consistent with his own definition of utility, whatever that happens to be, then that billionaire isn't being irrational in valuing his money.

"For almost everybody" doesn't really matter here when you're trying to characterize a specific person as irrational. Unless you can establish that the person in question falls into the "almost everybody" category in this respect.

I agree with the bolded statement 100%. One of us is missing the other's point and I'm not sure whether it's me or you