Is there something inherently wrong with, say, driving a Ferrari , or with wearing $2000 shoes, or living in a mansion, i.e. while children in Africa are starving?


Fwiw I got to thinking about this when Frank Miller criticized occupy wallstreeters for owning iphones.

Arguably, yes, but where do you draw the line? If you want to argue yes, then anything over and above your basic needs become wants. Now you have to argue that all wants are luxuries. You still haven't set the line, which is somewhat arbitrary.

Not if you don't have any moral obligations (other than those stemming from contracts you entered voluntarily). If you think that people sometimes have strong moral obligations, it becomes difficult to maintain that it isn't wrong but there's a large pool of clever rationalizations to draw from!

No. You could also argue that the line is drawn not at basic needs, but at the least anybody has, such that having nice things is wrong only if there are people who do not have (or, in a slightly different phrasing, cannot afford) them.

You could also apply this only to nice things that, if you did not have them, could somehow improve someone else's life (including by something else having been produced instead). For example you could use the rule you stated in the post I quoted, or the one I stated in the paragraph above this one, but say that it would not be bad to buy a diamond if no one else would pay any thing for that diamond. Or you could similarly limit it to things the production of which made someone worse off (often by requiring the input of labor), so for example owning a mansion might be wrong while owning a vast swath of unimproved land would not be.

Lots of different ways to cut it.

a priori? No. For me, there is no reasoning here.

You have not considered a huge number of factors, each of which would cause it's own discussion.

In other words, can you be more specific and make your point clear?

I'm not sure how to be more specific, but I'll try.

I'm deliberately describing consumable goods. I think there is a difference in owning something that will exist after you are dead (like artwork, or something of other historical significance) and will not lose value, and something solely for your benefit. Also, this was before foxcon-gate, so workers rights wasn't on the forefront of Miller's argument. Basically its a question about selfishness.

What I'm getting at is if it makes any difference if you were to drive a Ferrari everyday to work or a Corolla. I suppose the Ferrari would require more manhours to produce, but I'm not sure if that's a bad thing--you are after all employing more people in that case.

The argument could be that by spending $100,000,000 on a house, you are taking a majority of that money out of the mouths of starving children (or whatever the cause de jour is,) because that is the opportunity cost of the house. However, its not as if that money disappears. You are employing people, providing jobs, paying taxes, contributing to a healthy economy etc.

Sometimes I think I could be doing more to help people. I could, for example, spend $1 a day on one of those late-night-help-kids-get-medicine infomercials; but on the other hand I really want an X-box, you know? Does the fact that I spend money on things that aren't really anywhere near vital to my well-being make me morally suspect? Also I watch top gear a lot so I often day dream about buying a nice car, which is where that line of thought comes from. You could argue that a car or a house or shoes, or some manner of entertainment is a necessity, (to Millers argument, a cell phone could be considered a necessity, an iphone, then, might be a luxury) but is there moral consequence of indulging in luxuries?

Here is a start and useful information:

The Principle of Beneficence in Applied Ethics:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pr...e-beneficence/


-Zeno

This is not a zero sum world. The US could donate all the extra money we have to Africa so that we all lived in tents off pinto beans and there would simply be more starving children born elsewhere. Read the book, Ishmael.

This isn't to say we shouldn't help, but it isn't as simple as giving money to feed them. They must learn to feed themselves. And as long as your Ferrari isn't taking food out of their mouths it is of no harm.

iirc Pinker made the argument that if a person was wearing 2k shoes he couldn't take off and saw a child drowning he would dive in to save her but the same person would likely decline when asked to give 2k to save a child from dieing ... or something along those lines.

Its hard to see anyway poor people gain by people buying luxuries.

I can see how they get hurt by it though, if ferrari have to innovate then we all stand to gain.

Sounds right to me.

I'm reluctant to conclude form your snippit that Pinker thinks they are making some mistake though that appears to be your inference.

I have a buddy who joined Oxfam out of college and has spent over 5 years in Tanzania. He has told me the biggest factors holding back Africa are education and political corruption, and to a certain extent reticence to change. How many of those dollars you donate do you think actually end up helping the starving kids? How much ends up in corrupt politicians' and warlords' pockets?

Have you asked yourself if the native tribes are even interested in doing what is necessary to sustain a prosperous society? It all starts to sound pretty cold, but reality is not always pretty. Nietzsche got a lot of things right, even if it's tough to stomach.

On the other hand, there are some who believe these tribes are actually living the good life and we are the ones who are making a huge mistake by "prospering."

Are you morally obligated to sacrifice ALL of your money/food/clothing ect until you reach the point where on the entire planet, no one has less than you, and you can happily starve to death knowing you did "the right thing?" If not, why not? What about stopping just before starvation? Where is the line and why?

The problem is the world is a very large place, and our brains just aren't geared to grasp the numbers of people involved very well. We are naturally tribally-oriented. Family matters. Friends matter. People in our town matter, but less so. An individual saving the amount of money they could spend on an iPhone, and distributing that money equally among everyone in the world with less than them, will have accomplished no appreciable change in the lives of everyone-but-him. The only way this can "matter" to us is on an individual level - THAT person's life can be SAVED with your iPhone money.

I guess the real question is whether someone is morally obligated to help everyone in existence, or merely those within their much more limited frame of view.

As FoldnDark said, people don't go hungry in the 21st-century world (Africa or elsewhere) b/c of economic problems. Poverty and hunger are pretty much always political. Do you know that when people were starving to death in Ethopia, the country actually produced enough food to feed all its people, but most of that food was exported out of the country to people who could pay a higher price. You going without $2,000 shoes will have zero impact on poverty in Africa.

my inference was along the lines of "out of sight out of mind." personally i dont think its unethical: life is a bitch, not doing harm is required, but anything else is relish (imo). if it is unethical, the guy buying 2k shoes is less unethical than the mom who had a baby without good reason to believe she could provide for it ... thats just mean.

The fact that buying a Ferrari doesn't hurt anyone is not the point. Nor is the fact that the money you spend on it would have little consequence if you spread it through Africa. The point is that the difference between a Cadillac and a Ferrarti is a trivial subtraction in your lifestyle and if you took the amount saved and gave it to a dozen people who were in desperate need, (perhaps because they need a medical procedure) you could substantially change those lives for the better at almost no cost to you. If you don't do that you can not fall back on philosophical/political arguments to refute the assetion that you care about yourself to such an extent compared to needy strangers, that you would rather improve your life minutely rather than improve their lives greatly. I admit that about myself. Why do others find that so hard to do?

I doubt you (or anyone, except possibly some of the principled ACists) apply this standard consistently

I admit I care about myself and people close to me more than I care about people I dont know (as I assume does everyone) but you're argument is far too simplistic.

Convice me the world will be a better place overall in a world with ferraris etc replaced by charity. Dont jerk my heart stings by telling me of some specific people helped a great deal but convince me there will be less extreme suffering, less extreme poverty etc etc over the long term.

Although I think I can do that it wasn't the objective of my post. My objective was to call out those who try to use political or philosophical arguments regarding mankind in general, to justify the fact that they will buy a ten carat diamond ring rather than help a burn unit of a hospital nearby get built. They have every right to keep their money. But if they do it is because people outside their immediate sphere are of virtually no consequence to them. Its not that they care "more" about their inner circle. They care much much much more if they buy that diamond.

fair point about the justification frequently being false. not sure you can do it though.

but you conclude the real reason they buy the ring is:

many of people who buy the ring will also give time/money to charity which appears inconsistant with your conclusion.

I think yours is really a false argument, David. As another poster asked, where do we stop? Why buy the Cadillac in place of a Ferrari when an Escort will due just fine? Your point is based on a zero sum outlook at economics. Truth is we can have burn units and Ferraris. And as long as we "charitably" feed children in Africa, those kids will just have more babies to feed and we will never catch up until they make some major changes.

I suspect what actually is going on is that most people feel giving some amount of wealth/time back is the right thing to do and that determines what everybody does. The feeling can be influenced by argument, emotional proding, events etc

I also suspect some version of this is best for and the only interesting questions are how much and where.

David's argument could be false, but it's not because it's subject to the notorious "where do we draw the line" problem. Just about everything is.

That's a good point. The "where's the line" argument, i.e., how much we should donate in order to morally justify buying luxury items highlights only one problem with the argument. I think the idea that wealth is a static quantity (zero sum) is also important false concept needed to support that argument. In other words, buying a diamond ring doesn't stop me from also donating money to charity.

Also, while charity is a great idea in principle, we should realize when it is doing absolutely no good, even perhaps worsening the overall problem... e.g. funding warlords, contributing to further overpopulation (more misery/starving children).

You are focusing on the wrong part of the issue. Regardless of all the other issues raised, the fact is that when someone spends extremely large amounts on extremely trivial luxuries he obviously thinks that a very slight increase in his personal happiness is more important to him than a very large increase in the happiness of hundreds of individuals who could obtain that happiness if he chose to donate the difference between the cost of his extreme luxury as compared to moderate luxury. That is just a fact.