Imagine a 1st world economy where nobody ever spends any money on aid. If you live in that hypothetical world you (anybody) could take $200 that is floating around and prevent a death (which is not the same as killing somebody but that’s a different point). Our world is somewhat like that. I don’t think things are as convenient as you’re implying.
(which is not the same as killing somebody but that’s a different point)
Actually, this is exactly the point. My comment is directly addressing an explanation for this claim:
[E]very time you get your hair cut, or go to a movie, or drink a Starbucks latte, you’re killing someone.
This claim was backed up with this paragraph:
By spending that money on yourself, instead of sending it to buy bags of rice for a famine-stricken region, or mosquito nets for malaria-ridden countries, or tin wood stoves, or water pumps, or water filters, or transparent plastic bottles, or latrines, or condoms, or any of the various simple and inexpensive supplies or devices that aid agencies are distributing around the world.
Your point is still very valid, which is why I went out of my way to say this:
EDIT: I really don’t want to give the impression that you shouldn’t give money or help people less fortunate than yourself. I think these are great things. I just don’t understand the jump from “I bought a latte” to “I killed people.”
Because everyone is. I’m assuming you meant that comment as saying something like the burden is diluted since so many people touch the money, but I don’t think that is valid.
That phrase did not mean to imply anything about diluted burdens. It is there to ask the question, “Wait, if you’re killing all of these people, isn’t everyone killing all of these people?” Your response seems to be, “Yes, they are.”
The followup question is: If one of the people who receives aid is included in the swath of killers? Theoretically, the recipient could have given the aid to someone else and that person could have lived. Instead, the recipient was selfish and chose to live by killing another person. Actually, everyone who could have received the aid but didn’t and died was killed by the one who did receive.
Possibly that “killing people” is connotationally a horrible unforgivable thing, but you (correctly) perceive that it’s a bad idea to regard letting people die as always a horrible unforgivable thing. Certainly that you’re disputing mere definitions.
I don’t understand a morality system can look at someone who is dying receive aid and blame them for the deaths of the people next to them when the aid ran out. Why in the world should they be given any moral responsibility in the situation?
Agreed. This is part of what I meant by “it’s a bad idea to regard letting people die as always a horrible unforgivable thing”; I also meant that even comfortable First Worlders wouldn’t necessarily do the most good by regarding themselves, or other comfortable First Worlders, as horrible people for acting suboptimally.
(In contexts like this, I see “moral responsibility” as purely instrumental: A’s moral responsibilities are just those things it would be expected-utility-maximizing to hold A responsible for. Ditto praise/blameworthiness and which actions to label as “killing”.)
I have not convinced myself that “drinking lattes is killing people” necessarily leads to “accepting aid is killing people.” I followed a path there, but I am assuming that people who believe “drinking lattes is killing people” don’t believe “accepting aid is killing people.” Where did I step differently?
Others are probably just not willing to bite the bullet of blaming people (if only connotationally) for accepting aid. Or they may be thinking about it instrumentally, like me, in which case the different reasonableness of the demands actually is relevant.
When you make a decision that results in fewer people living than might have lived, Phil Goetz calls that “killing a person”. If you are an aid recipient, then giving up your aid and your life to save another person will not change the number of people who live, so it doesn’t count as “killing a person”.
If, however, you have the means to save two people with the aid you’re receiving, then you’re “killing a person” by not sacrificing your life—assuming your life counts as much as anyone else’s.
I suppose another point to add is that “aid” is worth “one life.” The actual specific life doesn’t matter as long as one life is being redeemed with the aid.
If you do this, than the value of aid could be forecasted to include scenarios where the cost of aid decreases or the amount available to spend on aid increases. It would be okay to spend $10 to get $20 and then turn it into 2 lives saved. So, the question becomes 1 life now, 2 lives later.
Okay, yeah, this makes it work. The trick is valuing $10 at one life. If you are getting less than one life for $10 than you are getting robbed. Or, more accurately, you are saying that whatever you did get for $10 is worth the same as a life.
$10 is just a number. We could put in $X.
So… does this mean anything? If 1 life is $X and a random material thing costs $X, than of course they cost the same. By definition, they have the same dollar value.
Does the question become how much moral value can you get per dollar value? In that case, the best moral value per dollar is spending all of your dollars on lives saved. This throws us back into the field of value systems, but in a way that makes sense.
Okay, so does this actually answer my original question?
I never understood how this morality worked. The problem I see with this view is that you are double counting the value of money.
You work an hour and get $10, but the employer just killed $10 worth of people by hiring you instead of sending it for aid
You buy a latte and just killed $10 worth of people by hiring you instead of sending it for aid
LatteShop pays LatteBoy $10 for an hour of work and just killed $10 worth of people by hiring him instead of sending it for aid
The $10 doesn’t leave the system and everyone who touches it just killed a whole slew of people because they sent it somewhere other than aid. Why are you carrying the moral burden?
It answers the question by saying, since $10 can be spent to save 1 life but you are instead spending the money on a latte, you value a latte as much as you value 1 life. But this is a tautology. The next step is saying, “Therefore, you are killing someone by not saving them and buying a latte instead.”
The implication could be that if X equals Y in one value system than X equals Y in all value systems. But this is obviously false.
The implication could be that you should spend all dollars in a way that maximizes moral value. Or, more accurately, it is more moral to trade dollars for higher moral value. The inverse would be that it is less moral to trade dollars for lower moral value.
I can see the jump from this to the statement, “[E]very time you get your hair cut, or go to a movie, or drink a Starbucks latte, you’re killing someone.”
The reason my initial criticism actually fails is because a latte costs $10 and the time it takes to earn $10. By the time I get another $10, someone dies.
The next person who touches the $10 has the same moral weight because time is ticking away. This is why we have the question of asking if 1 life now is better than 2 lives later. If the particular 1 life now was included in the 2 lives later the answer would be trivial. The actual question is, 1 life now, or 2 lives and 1 death later.
So the specific answer to my question:
$10 can be translated into time.
I can earn $10 with one hour-value.
The moral value of a life will expire in one hour.
$10 can save a life or buy a latte.
So, with one hour-value I can save a life or buy a latte.
If I don’t save the life, it will expire.
The next person to touch the $10 doesn’t matter because the real value being spent behind the scenes is the hour-value.
Tada! There was an answer.
And it was so close to something Dustin said. If only he had said “one hour” instead of “nothing.”
Part of it is that person let someone else die (theoretically) to save his own life. You let someone die for the Latte.
Note: I drink the Latte (occasionally), but it’s because I think I can be more effective on the big stuff and that not saving is less bad than killing (as we both agree).
Part of it is that person let someone else die (theoretically) to save his own life. You let someone die for the Latte.
He didn’t let someone else die. He let a whole lot of someone elses die. I get the point of there being a difference between him and the latte, but I still think something weird is going on here.
Imagine a 1st world economy where nobody ever spends any money on aid. If you live in that hypothetical world you (anybody) could take $200 that is floating around and prevent a death (which is not the same as killing somebody but that’s a different point). Our world is somewhat like that. I don’t think things are as convenient as you’re implying.
Actually, this is exactly the point. My comment is directly addressing an explanation for this claim:
This claim was backed up with this paragraph:
Your point is still very valid, which is why I went out of my way to say this:
The point I’m responding to is:
Because everyone is. I’m assuming you meant that comment as saying something like the burden is diluted since so many people touch the money, but I don’t think that is valid.
Ah, okay. Thanks for clarifying.
That phrase did not mean to imply anything about diluted burdens. It is there to ask the question, “Wait, if you’re killing all of these people, isn’t everyone killing all of these people?” Your response seems to be, “Yes, they are.”
The followup question is: If one of the people who receives aid is included in the swath of killers? Theoretically, the recipient could have given the aid to someone else and that person could have lived. Instead, the recipient was selfish and chose to live by killing another person. Actually, everyone who could have received the aid but didn’t and died was killed by the one who did receive.
Something is going wrong here. What is it?
Possibly that “killing people” is connotationally a horrible unforgivable thing, but you (correctly) perceive that it’s a bad idea to regard letting people die as always a horrible unforgivable thing. Certainly that you’re disputing mere definitions.
I don’t understand a morality system can look at someone who is dying receive aid and blame them for the deaths of the people next to them when the aid ran out. Why in the world should they be given any moral responsibility in the situation?
Agreed. This is part of what I meant by “it’s a bad idea to regard letting people die as always a horrible unforgivable thing”; I also meant that even comfortable First Worlders wouldn’t necessarily do the most good by regarding themselves, or other comfortable First Worlders, as horrible people for acting suboptimally.
(In contexts like this, I see “moral responsibility” as purely instrumental: A’s moral responsibilities are just those things it would be expected-utility-maximizing to hold A responsible for. Ditto praise/blameworthiness and which actions to label as “killing”.)
Fair enough.
I have not convinced myself that “drinking lattes is killing people” necessarily leads to “accepting aid is killing people.” I followed a path there, but I am assuming that people who believe “drinking lattes is killing people” don’t believe “accepting aid is killing people.” Where did I step differently?
Others are probably just not willing to bite the bullet of blaming people (if only connotationally) for accepting aid. Or they may be thinking about it instrumentally, like me, in which case the different reasonableness of the demands actually is relevant.
Also, there’s what Nisan said.
When you make a decision that results in fewer people living than might have lived, Phil Goetz calls that “killing a person”. If you are an aid recipient, then giving up your aid and your life to save another person will not change the number of people who live, so it doesn’t count as “killing a person”.
If, however, you have the means to save two people with the aid you’re receiving, then you’re “killing a person” by not sacrificing your life—assuming your life counts as much as anyone else’s.
I suppose another point to add is that “aid” is worth “one life.” The actual specific life doesn’t matter as long as one life is being redeemed with the aid.
If you do this, than the value of aid could be forecasted to include scenarios where the cost of aid decreases or the amount available to spend on aid increases. It would be okay to spend $10 to get $20 and then turn it into 2 lives saved. So, the question becomes 1 life now, 2 lives later.
Okay, yeah, this makes it work. The trick is valuing $10 at one life. If you are getting less than one life for $10 than you are getting robbed. Or, more accurately, you are saying that whatever you did get for $10 is worth the same as a life.
$10 is just a number. We could put in $X.
So… does this mean anything? If 1 life is $X and a random material thing costs $X, than of course they cost the same. By definition, they have the same dollar value.
Does the question become how much moral value can you get per dollar value? In that case, the best moral value per dollar is spending all of your dollars on lives saved. This throws us back into the field of value systems, but in a way that makes sense.
Okay, so does this actually answer my original question?
It answers the question by saying, since $10 can be spent to save 1 life but you are instead spending the money on a latte, you value a latte as much as you value 1 life. But this is a tautology. The next step is saying, “Therefore, you are killing someone by not saving them and buying a latte instead.”
The implication could be that if X equals Y in one value system than X equals Y in all value systems. But this is obviously false.
The implication could be that you should spend all dollars in a way that maximizes moral value. Or, more accurately, it is more moral to trade dollars for higher moral value. The inverse would be that it is less moral to trade dollars for lower moral value.
I can see the jump from this to the statement, “[E]very time you get your hair cut, or go to a movie, or drink a Starbucks latte, you’re killing someone.”
The reason my initial criticism actually fails is because a latte costs $10 and the time it takes to earn $10. By the time I get another $10, someone dies.
The next person who touches the $10 has the same moral weight because time is ticking away. This is why we have the question of asking if 1 life now is better than 2 lives later. If the particular 1 life now was included in the 2 lives later the answer would be trivial. The actual question is, 1 life now, or 2 lives and 1 death later.
So the specific answer to my question:
$10 can be translated into time.
I can earn $10 with one hour-value.
The moral value of a life will expire in one hour.
$10 can save a life or buy a latte.
So, with one hour-value I can save a life or buy a latte.
If I don’t save the life, it will expire.
The next person to touch the $10 doesn’t matter because the real value being spent behind the scenes is the hour-value.
Tada! There was an answer.
And it was so close to something Dustin said. If only he had said “one hour” instead of “nothing.”
Part of it is that person let someone else die (theoretically) to save his own life. You let someone die for the Latte.
Note: I drink the Latte (occasionally), but it’s because I think I can be more effective on the big stuff and that not saving is less bad than killing (as we both agree).
He didn’t let someone else die. He let a whole lot of someone elses die. I get the point of there being a difference between him and the latte, but I still think something weird is going on here.