44
votes
How can one argue against income inequality while defending achievement and expertise inequality - beyond invoking Rawls' difference principle?
I feel like this question is conflicted on the issue of 'disproportionate' inequalities. To be clear, most academic and scientific experts are paid well, proportionately more than many other workers ...
- 22k
33
votes
Was Robin Hood's point of view ethically sound?
Leaving aside the accuracy of Robin Hood, I'll address your points directly.
The first being that if we assume a free market exists...
There was no free market in England in Robin Hood's time. The ...
- 783
32
votes
How can one argue against income inequality while defending achievement and expertise inequality - beyond invoking Rawls' difference principle?
I disagree with the premise that these two views are in some way contradictory or conflicting to hold at the same time.
The alleged discrepancy you're pointing out, when you boil it down to its core, ...
- 1,330
29
votes
Was Robin Hood's point of view ethically sound?
Disclaimer: I just skimmed a bunch of Wikipedia articles and old stories. I think I got the gist of the history about right, but can't claim this to be authoritative.
tl;dr- Robin Hood was never ...
- 1,995
24
votes
Was Robin Hood's point of view ethically sound?
Wanted to register a small framing challenge here with a few tiny notes (please do try to understand this as a good faith attempt to clarify the concern!)
It seems somewhat ill-fitting to import any ...
- 9,671
20
votes
Is it possible that evolution brought human kind morality?
The root of this concept lies in a theory, most closely associated recently with theorist David Sloan Wilson, that moral behaviors --specifically altruism --convey a group-level survival advantage. ...
- 30.4k
20
votes
When is it ethical to be ethical towards the unethical?
Am I allowed to quote from an old classic play? (emphasis mine):
William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!”
Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the ...
- 2,065
13
votes
Was Robin Hood's point of view ethically sound?
While this is not a philosophy question, it raises a few points.
First, I don't personally know of any version of Robin Hood where he takes from riches who got rich because of their cunning and ...
- 7,264
12
votes
Accepted
Is there something "morally weird" about social media sites with downvote functions?
Sharing trust judgements
Downvotes and upvotes are based on the idea of sharing information, and more specifically, on sharing whether some person or statement should be trusted or distrusted.
I'm no ...
- 11.8k
11
votes
How can one argue against income inequality while defending achievement and expertise inequality - beyond invoking Rawls' difference principle?
Let me set Rawls to one side and bring Marx on stage. It may be a mistake to translate the complex, abstract idea of "equality" into the monetized value measurements of a modern economy. ...
- 13.7k
10
votes
When is it ethical to be ethical towards the unethical?
Public judicature is a great achievement and serves to defend oneself against criminals. To
cheat/steal/kill
is a case for the law court. There is no necessity to counter illegal behaviour by one’s ...
- 37.1k
10
votes
When is it ethical to be ethical towards the unethical?
This is one of the great perennial questions of philosophy, and--Machiavelli aside--the answer is almost always the same. Here's a relevant quote from Confucius:
Chi K'ang Tzu asked Confucius about ...
- 30.4k
10
votes
When is it ethical to be ethical towards the unethical?
Your question contains a false assumption, namely that there is no ethical way to stop the criminals.
And yet every moral codex, every culture, every law book ever written has such ways.
The ethical ...
- 2,180
9
votes
Accepted
What are reasonable basic obligations of citizens in democratic societies?
The question is how much well-informed citizens need to be to exercise their democratic rights. The answer depends on theories of democracy. The duty of citizens to be well-informed can be very ...
- 3,657
8
votes
Accepted
Can being Violent in speech be considered as violence?
John Stuart Mill in On liberty will say that what makes a violent speech violent (construed as 'legally violent', that is, a legally impermissible act to do onto others) depends on the context. What ...
- 3,657
8
votes
Was Robin Hood's point of view ethically sound?
He was definitely force of good from historical perspective
Robin Hood lived in feudal society. According to some versions of the legend, he was disgraced feudal lord (Robin of Locksley). In feudal ...
- 1,204
8
votes
How can one argue against income inequality while defending achievement and expertise inequality - beyond invoking Rawls' difference principle?
1. It was never "your" income to begin with
There is a key idea one should realize before going any further: there is no such thing as "your" income (unless you have earned it on ...
- 1,733
8
votes
Accepted
Why do we prohibit consensual incestuous relationships?
Jonathan Haidt uses exactly this example in his research on what he calls 'moral dumbfounding', discussed here: What’s the Matter With a Little Brother/Sister Action? in Psychology Today.
Here are a ...
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7
votes
Was Robin Hood's point of view ethically sound?
You have missed the fact that this is happening during a feudal period. A lord’s job was to protect and provide for the needs of his people. If he didn’t do that, someone else would. In this case, ...
- 697
7
votes
Was Robin Hood's point of view ethically sound?
Your summary doesn't really match your longer-form thoughts. You seem to have at least two questions here:
Supposing Robin Hood had some historical existence, what would have been his goal in taking ...
- 169
7
votes
How can one argue against income inequality while defending achievement and expertise inequality - beyond invoking Rawls' difference principle?
(From a utilitarian perspective.)
There's a tradeoff here that arguably Rawls perspective doesn't fully recognize. It all comes down to the diminishing marginal utility of wealth.
On the one hand, the ...
- 1,097
7
votes
What did Dostoyevski mean with his character saying "Without God and the afterlife, all things are allowed"?
No Dostoevsky's character said that. Nor did they say "If there is no God, then everything is permitted", which is Sartre's surmise of Karamazov Brothers that became a meme, see Zizek and ...
- 43.8k
7
votes
What does it mean to say "homosexuality is normal"?
Normality or normativity has two senses when applied to homosexuality. One is a biological sense, and the other is a cultural sense. In socially liberal societies, to say that homosexuality is normal ...
- 31.8k
7
votes
When is it ethical to be ethical towards the unethical?
Your question implies that treating a criminal ethically effectively means to ignore their crimes, but this is not so. The ethical way to treat a criminal is to first stop them (As ethically as ...
- 171
6
votes
Should I vote for what is best for me or what is best for others?
Contrary to Jobermark, I believe Kant provides a very straightforward answer to your dilemma. Kant's based his categorical imperative on one question "Is it universalizable?", and in your case the ...
- 27.7k
6
votes
Was Robin Hood's point of view ethically sound?
Considering Robin Hood primarily as a literature character, we can ask into which genre he falls, what type or even archetype he represents.
To me it is clear that he is not the hero of a morality ...
- 2,180
6
votes
Claims of "badness" without a moral framework?
I think this misses their point. It sounds a lot like what they are trying to argue for is that harm and suffering are human experiences that are near universally and negatively received by the ...
- 7,343
6
votes
Claims of "badness" without a moral framework?
My suspicion is that this is some form of materialism which might not have anything to say about ethics.
Let me propose this parallel analogous system to you:
Putting diesel fuel into a motorcycle ...
- 361
5
votes
Accepted
Do Non Vegetarians not have rights to mourn morally if their beloved ones are killed?
moral rights
"Rights" aren't a moral or ethical category. They are a juridical category.
to mourn
To "mourn", on the other hand, is psychological, not moral or juridical, phenomenon.
So, the "...
- 1,444
5
votes
Accepted
Was Robin Hood's point of view ethically sound?
One of the most fascinating and unexpected questions I have come across on PSE. But I have in an entirely friendly spirit some criticisms to offer:
Free markets and cunning
if we assume a free market ...
- 35.9k
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