Some of the analogies you guys come up with are real head scratchers.

OK, ya, if we're talking about more than two people then I guess I need to change what I wrote to "voluntary on all ends."

Any more brainbusters?

The argument that paying adult prostitutes for sex is immoral because they were abused as children makes no sense. Yes, it is unfortunate that they were abused as children, and yes, it is unlikely that they would be in the whoreing business if they had not been abused as children. So?

Unfortunate things happen to every child, and these unfortunate events often shape the child's personality, causing them to act in ways they otherwise wouldn't have when they are grown. But adults who have had unfortunate childhoods, even those who have been sexually abused, are still adults. They are not children, nor are they mentally ******ed, and they don't need us to make decisions for them. If they choose to do things that we think they shouldn't, such as become prostitutes or smoke crack, that is a reflection of the difference between their subjective preferences and ours.

free market capitalism FTW

With respect to prostitutes being victims of earlier abuse: Prostitution is in this instance a symptom of the problem of sexual abuse. People do not rape and sexually abuse women at some random time in their childhood to procure them as voluntary prostitutes for someone else years in the future. And as for holding the man responsible for what we claim to be a bad decision on the part of the woman in selling her body this is asking a little much I'd say. We'd have to hold men to the same standard when they have one night stands with women who are promiscuous for the same reason.

Its surprising upsetting and interesting and must have some root cause that sexually abused women become prostitutes but to me does not speak to whether prostution should be legal. I tend to think of things in terms of evolutionary psychology. From an evolutionary standpoint A woman who is a whore has very little social value to a man because you have no reason to raise a kid that is not neccessarily yours. In this sense I think its always going to be challenging for whores to be respected and for the double standard of promiscuity to go away.

I don't believe in morality or free will. I was hoping phone booth would reply because he had some argument for why prostitution is illegal that had nothing to do with morality but something to do with the class system I think.

The poll option "Should be legalized but it would remain unethical, & still often harmful to the women" implies all cases of prostitution. I was pointing this out. In this given institution (prostitution) there will/may exist some instances where unethical behavior has taken place and some where it has not. This demonstrates that it isn't prostitution in of itself that is unethical, but the circumstances for which some instances take place.

What?!? No promises of Sky Cake?

The Sky Cake is a lie!!!

Well yeah, I'm sure there are people who force their kids to do loads of stuff in life. I haven't seen any information on other professions which suggest anywhere near the level of abuse and terror as prostitution, but I do see your point.

As for picking something less emotionally charged - did you ever think it's emotionally charged for a very good reason? Being beaten or sexually abused as a child is extremely damaging to people in ways other forms of compulsion as a child are not. I was forced to eat vegetables regularly as a child, that doesn't mean I'm traumatized by them as an adult. Same with most of the other comparisons that are coming out.

This thread is throwing up some ethical statements I find rather puzzling.

Let me pose a question along similar lines.

Let's imagine you're a tobacco company executive in the early 1960s or whenever it was that conclusive evidence about the harmfulness of smoking was starting to come in. You know that your products are going to eventually kill tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people. Yet you ignore the evidence, publicly rubbish it, and keep marketing your tobacco products.



None of your actions are initiating violence, theft or fraud. But are you acting ethically? Should that man feel guilty for making money encouraging people to buy products he knows to be lethal, or are his actions fine according to the Randian enlightened self-interest that seems to be popular in this thread, since people "are solely responsible for themselves and their own well-being."

P.S. You guys should watch Mad Men. I think you'd enjoy it.

It's not unethical. If people still want cigarettes even though they are terrible for you then that's their choice. It's like how people choose to do extreme sports even though they are dangerous. Of course if you falsely claim that the science is wrong and cigarettes don't do any harm then you may be committing some sort of fraud.

Also about child rape and so forth I definitely agree that it is emotionally charged for a reason. I just don't agree with your eventual conclusion about the morality of using prostitutes. Also I don't see much of a difference between child rape and plain child abuse.

Ok, so if we put aside the subject of fraud which is tricky, cigarette companies bear absolutely no moral responsibility for the death of millions of smokers and the people who ran those companies should not feel in the slightest bit guilty?

No.

Should pool builders feel morally responsible for the countless drowning deaths that occur in pools?

I love tobacco companies. As we speak their investing millions to find a cure for cancer and other diseases. They receive revenue by providing people with a product they want and whilst abstaining from their product, I still get to reap the benefits of their investments and research.

I can kind of see your point that sometimes this is a bit arbitrary and indistinct, and that might be looking into, but I think some of these voluntary actions are pretty clearly wrong, or would at least be accepted as wrong by about 99% of the population if pressed.

How about an arms company who sells weapons to brutal dictators? Completely voluntary right? The arms company isn't responsible for what the dictator does with those guns.

Or we could even take the United States government who, as I'm sure you know, has provided money and arms to every third world dictator from Saddam, to Suharto, to the Pinochet. The actual action of giving those guys arms and money is neither right nor wrong in any sort of ethical sense, the only objection comes from the fact that force was used to obtain that money in the first place?

I don't really know, but I'd hazard a guess that they're investing all that money into finding cures for cancer and other diseases in an effort to improve their image, i.e. because so many people think they are unethical scumbags and if they don't reverse that perception then their business will keep on declining.

Yes, of course its due to the profit motive. Are you really going to start demonizing the profit motive?

This instance, is a perfect example of the invisible hand. Their funding of cancer research is out of self interest because more people would take up smoking if there was a cure for cancer or knowledge of greater preventative measures. The unintended consequence is that the rest of us who don't smoke/financially contribute to their revenue, get to benefit from the funding/research.

Markets work. People like smoking; hence the tobacco industry. If people liked snorting petrol; then likewise there would be a petrol snorting industry to accommodate the consumer demand. As Mises said, in a free market: the consumer is king. People make dumb choices... I like being rewarded for my good choices and am happy to see others get punished for their bad ones.

No, but following the profit motive does not preclude having a conscience and not pushing products which have killed millions of people. People, in general do not blindly seek profit with no moral conscience, they are not little profit-seeking robots, nor would it be desirable for them to be.

You forgot to mention why they like smoking. It's not like people just suddenly think: "gee, you know what, I'd like to breathe the smoke of some plant which someday might kill me." Could it have anything to do with being bombarded with messaging from an early age with the sole aim of convincing them that they want to smoke? I'm not arguing that people lose all free-will and moral agency due to marketing, or that they lose responsibility for their own bodies, but devoting yourself to manufacturing wants in people which you know have a good chance of killing them doesn't strike me as a great thing to do with your life.

Let's try and make it more personal and take the business side out of it, since that is a sure-fire way to get warped responses. Would you be pissed at the boyfriend of your daughter if he convinced her to get onto heroin? Why/why not? Hey, he didn't force her! He just supplied it to her and convinced her it was a good idea! Oh noes, now she's hooked! Stupid daughter, it's all her own fault. The boyfriend had nothing to do with it, he was just supplying her demand for heroin!

The profit motive saves the lives of millions of people. The great medical innovations and advances were not borne out of benevolence.

That's precisely what a lot of people think. When I was of age, I more or less though to myself 'I want to regularly drink poison (alcohol) which might kill me...because it's a price worth paying for the realized (i.e. not just false marketed) benefit.

Heroin suppliers in a free market would be providing a very beneficial service. They would be reputable companies supplying heroin without impurities, dirty needles and inflated prices as in the current black market. If heroin was made legal, but all the legitimate companies morally refrained from selling heroin, then this would be terrible. The violent unaccountable black market drug cartels would continue to monopolize. Targeting hypothetical legitimate free market suppliers, as opposed to the choices of the sovereign consumer, is very stupid. Whilst we should target the reasons for the demand, we shouldn't harm the supply.

Its also a perfect example of large negative externalities and a case of what is not seen. Noone knows how the world w/o tobacco products would look like but we do know that enormous resources are spent on smokers directly and indirectly who cares if a small % of those resources bring positive externalities to the rest of the world? Its like saying that WW2 was great because we speeded up the development of nuclear power plants by 2 year or w/e.

also if its true that they sponsor cancer research its probably more due to the fact that ,everything considered, its cheaper to prolong the life of existing customer then it is to recruit new customers.

Also, I wouldn't necessarily be pissed at the boyfriend. My grandad probably popped down to the pharmacy to get my grandma heroin now and then too.

So everyone should just blindly follow whatever they think will make the most profit because making a profit increases utility in every single human interaction ever. Got it.

So you're basically saying that all the billions spent over the years on marketing cigarettes are largely wasted, since people want cigarettes anyway. You're saying you know better than the CEOs who decide to spend all that money on advertising. What dumbasses, people would want their products anyway!

So you're cool with the boy who talked your daughter into doing heroin then? Got it. Heroin being legal or illegal is completely beside the point, what the boy did was completely voluntary and non-violent, so you shouldn't be pissed at him at all by your reasoning.

By your reasoning you should also have no problem with the example I gave above about arms companies selling weapons to mass murdering dictators, as has happened throughout the 20th century. We all rightly condemn the mass murdering dictators, but is there no kind of questionable behaviour here by the arms companies?

No it's not. Your presuming that tobacco is indeed a bad thing. I'm not so sure. My life, as with most people I know, is considerably better with alcohol, than without. Lots of people die from having a poor diet too, but I'm not sure people would be better off in a world without burgers, chocolate, sweets etc.


Does not compute.

there is a very strong correlation between IQ/education and smoking/eating healthy/exercising so i think its fairly safe to say that all those habits are bad for you. There is probably a correlation between alcohol consumption/IQ as well but not as strong and therefor i conclude that alcohol is probably more +EV.

One more analogy is comparing tobacco to a downright scam like pyramide schemes:
both are -EV and both rely heavily on deceiving the customer/society to various degree.

you claim the reason why they fund cancer research is to make it easier recruiting new customer and i say its more due to the fact that its cheaper to prolong the life of existing customers. ofcourse that is a good thing and it will also prolong the life of non-customers but thats not the main reason they fund cancer research.

Within the legal constraints of a free market, then following ones profit motive is a good rule. If you 'blindly' follow the profit motive, you'll more likely lose money.

How much marketing is there devoted to cocaine in upmarket areas of London? Because for some reason cocaine use is very high. The only marketing these folks are subjected to is anti-drug marketing.

You'd have to elaborate. As I said earlier, given the parameter of your hypothetical, then yes, I could be cool with this. For example, if it was demonstrable that heroin could help her medical affliction. It is likely our grandfathers got our grandmothers heroin back in the day from the pharmacy and the problems with addiction were not great.

As alluded to in my previous posts... tobacco is not an inherent evil. Arms companies selling weapons to governments is a completely different story. OTOH, I have no problem with companies selling firearms to citizens.

greywolf's point about WWII is a very good analogy to use to show how flawed this line of reasoning is.

"You're presuming that WII was indeed a bad thing. I'm not so sure. I use technology that was developed during WWII every day. I've used medicine which was furthered in development during the war. Hell, I wouldn't even be alive right now if it weren't for WWII since my grandparents would never have met."