Timeline for Should I put my dog down to help the homeless?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
23 events
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| Mar 12, 2023 at 23:55 | comment | added | NotThatGuy | @EJoshuaS Buying things for the sake of charity and buying things for the sake of yourself both contribute to the economy (but I've repeated this a few times already, so I have to assume you're intentionally ignoring that at this point). Also, you seem to be intentionally interpreting what I mean by "contributed to the economy" in a completely nonsensical way that's at odds with what I've said earlier. "Contributing to the economy" includes everything that comes with that, which includes everything you apparently think I ignored. | |
| Mar 12, 2023 at 22:39 | comment | added | EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine | @NotThatGuy contributed to the economy, and that's about it. No, that's not "about it." The economy isn't some abstract entity "out there" that has no impact on people. Improving the economy makes a real difference in the lives of real people. Thousands of people - in fact, tens of thousands of people - have jobs as a direct or indirect result of the iPhone. | |
| Mar 12, 2023 at 22:13 | comment | added | Scott Rowe | @NotThatGuy Maybe we should do something about that. McDonald's could probably wipe out malnourishment all by itself, but maybe some other corporations would like to say they helped. Government is too busy helping the needy to... help most of the needy. | |
| Mar 12, 2023 at 16:02 | comment | added | NotThatGuy | @ScottRowe There aren't nearly enough people donating to charity for your contribution to be useless or unhelpful (although with some charities, your money is certainly helping people more than with others). Also, if you spend $1000 on an iPhone you don't need, that's $1000 contributed to the economy, and that's about it. If you spend $1000 on buying food for the homeless, that's $1000 contributed to the economy, but also, now the homeless have food. "Hurricane Katrina doesn't happen every year" - and yet there are more deaths from children dying of malnourishment every 5 hours. | |
| Mar 12, 2023 at 13:53 | history | edited | EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Mar 12, 2023 at 13:16 | history | edited | EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Mar 12, 2023 at 13:08 | comment | added | Scott Rowe | If one person eats one chicken every other week, is that a problem? If 300,000,000 people eat 8 billion chickens every year, is that a problem? Maybe at some point we should find better solutions to our needs. Solutions in one context usually become problems in another. What if survival became self-defeating? | |
| Mar 12, 2023 at 12:48 | comment | added | Scott Rowe | @NotThatGuy It is also important to consider how many people are doing the same thing. If lots of people already donate coats, then one more might be useless or even unhelpful. If I buy a meal it is mainly intended to benefit me but, McDonald's, etc. People need jobs as well as coats. In fact, if everyone had a job, probably no one would be homeless. So contributing to the economy is what we should do first, and charity only in emergencies. Hurricane Katrina doesn't happen every year, so in the meantime, we could... do other stuff. | |
| Mar 9, 2023 at 15:59 | comment | added | EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine | @NotThatGuy I do think that you have to take intent into account. Purchasing an iPhone is primarily intended to benefit myself but also has the secondary effect of benefitting other people. A reasonable ethical theory should account for that, but the simplistic utilitarian argument that the OP's friend presented simply doesn't - it's a very naive analysis in lots of ways that's not even accurate based on its own assumptions. If you claim that "spending $50 on x is more moral because it has a better effect than spending it on y", you need to look at all of the foreseeable effects. | |
| Mar 9, 2023 at 15:48 | comment | added | EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine | @NotThatGuy My point was that the premise of the question (that spending doesn't benefit anyone other than the OP) really isn't true. Yeah, I suppose you could argue about which one is truly more effective, but you really can't argue that, for example, purchasing an iPhone has no benefits to anyone other than the OP - that's simply not true. I'm in no way trying to say that buying an iPhone is equally moral as donating to charity - I'm simply pointing out that the basic assumptions behind the argument really aren't true, so I don't even need to appeal to other ethical theories to refute it. | |
| Mar 9, 2023 at 0:15 | comment | added | NotThatGuy | @EJoshuaS Your particular abomination of utilitarianism indeed seems fairly useless. You could've used utilitarianism that takes intent into account, you could've used virtue ethics, you could've used deontology. But, by your own admission, you chose to tackle the question from an angle you consider to be "useless"... | |
| Mar 8, 2023 at 22:42 | comment | added | NotThatGuy | @EJoshuaS Ignoring intent in utilitarianism means you're basically arguing for both decision paralysis and complete moral immunity, because no-one can ever really have any confidence that their actions, no matter how small, even with the best or worst of intentions, might not either cause or prevent a billion deaths a century from now. | |
| Mar 8, 2023 at 22:17 | comment | added | NotThatGuy | "it's hard to see why charity is superior to buying iPhones because the desired effect (lifting someone out of poverty) is achieved in both cases" - are you ... high? You can't in any way expect me to take you seriously if you're going to imply that buying an iPhone and charity are equally effective at helping people. In any case, maybe there's some child slavery somewhere in the pipeline of producing an iPhone, which would, by your reasoning, make you a moral monster. | |
| Mar 8, 2023 at 22:17 | comment | added | NotThatGuy | @EJoshuaS Intent matters, even with utilitarianism. Otherwise you're basically arguing that a river can be moral or immoral for flowing, or that someone burning down a building out of malice is moral if it eventually leads to good outcome, or someone would be immoral for saving a bunch of drowning children because one of them ends up being a serial killer - it undermines the entire idea of morality as a means to determine and judge our actions. And the intent behind buying an iPhone is ... to have an iPhone. If you wanted to help people, giving to charity is far more effective. | |
| Mar 8, 2023 at 21:15 | comment | added | EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine | @NotThatGuy We need to appeal to something other than the effect of the act to say that donating to charity is more noble and moral than buying lots of stuff. Suppose I asked you to prove that it's better. What's the first thing you think of? Probably either something about the agent performing the act or the nature of the act itself. My first reaction was to try to appeal to the intent behind the acts (I wasn't intending to benefit others by buying an iPhone, that was just an incidental effect), but that's more in keeping with virtue ethics or maybe deontology, not with utilitarianism. | |
| Mar 8, 2023 at 21:08 | comment | added | EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine | @NotThatGuy No, I'm not saying that buying an iPhone is a morally good and noble act, but the argument extended in the question absolutely implies that it is. If we take the view that "moral good" means "doing something to lift someone out of poverty" (which is what the OP's argument seems to be predicated on), then yes, me purchasing an iPhone is a moral good by definition because it does that. According to utilitarian ethics, it's hard to see why charity is superior to buying iPhones because the desired effect (lifting someone out of poverty) is achieved in both cases. | |
| Mar 8, 2023 at 19:04 | comment | added | NotThatGuy | While some charity goes to providing immediate help to a person in need, (a) that person can then go on to potentially become a productive member of society and (b) other charity actually focuses on e.g. structural improvements and education that can end up providing greater financial benefits in the long term. Not to mention that you can argue the exact same about e.g. buying a coat for a homeless person (or even giving them cash, which they then spend), as you argued for buying an iPhone. Giving to charity isn't just burning money to help someone right now, as you seem to imply. | |
| Mar 8, 2023 at 18:52 | comment | added | NotThatGuy | This is a wildly oversimplified, and mostly wrong, view of economics, charity and moral arguments, that seems to roughly be trying to absurdly imply that you buying a new iPhone is actually a morally good and noble act. If everyone gave up only their most extravagant luxuries to donate (never mind going down to the "minimal possible set"), everyone in the US, and probably everyone in the world, would not want for food, shelter, medical care or education. This would also provide a significant increase in the global workforce that can help make everyone else's lives better. | |
| Mar 7, 2023 at 15:43 | comment | added | EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine | @Jessica Either way, the point is both create jobs. The original argument is predicated on the assumption that spending money on things other than charity only benefits you, which simply isn't true. | |
| Mar 7, 2023 at 0:13 | comment | added | Jessica | That's an interesting take, but presumably the dog food industry and the coat making industry create a comparable number of jobs per dollar of revenue. I am skeptical that giving my money to one vs. the other would materially affect poverty in my area. | |
| Mar 6, 2023 at 19:23 | history | edited | EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Mar 6, 2023 at 18:49 | comment | added | Scott Rowe | Right, that is basically what began in Europe in the 1400s. Why so much prosperity there since? Because of "network effects". Same as in any ecosystem. | |
| Mar 6, 2023 at 18:11 | history | answered | EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine | CC BY-SA 4.0 |