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I don't see how any of that is relevant to the point: "You could have saved a dozen lives. Instead you bought a watch. I have a perfectly objective justificatio

I don't see how any of that is relevant to the point: "You could have saved a dozen lives. Instead you bought a watch. I have a perfectly objective justification for holding you in perfect contempt." Okay, granted that 'perfect contempt' is a bit strong, the reasoning seems good to me, I understand it and sympathize. How much money they have left over or what they do with the rest etc doesn't affect that in the slightest. Does it?

AnimalMuppet 8y ago
OK, here's someone with $1M. They keep it. If $25K could have saved a dozen lives, they could have saved 480 lives. Are you outraged? Here's someone with $1M. They give away $25K in a way that saves a dozen lives. They also spend another $25K on a watch. Are you outraged? Are you more outraged than the previous example because they wasted money on the watch? (Is that better or worse than keeping the money in the bank?) Here's someone with $1M. They give away $975K, saving 468 lives. They take the last $25K and spend it on a watch. Are you outraged because they didn't also give away the last $25K? Does the watch blind you to the good they did? Or did they have to give away all $1M to avoid your "perfect contempt"? See, you're judging their selfishness by the one purchase, not by the whole of their economic activity. I dispute whether that is a relevant metric.
flubert 8y ago
Isn't there some trickle down effect though? Is there a good way to quantify it? Someone pays $25k for a watch. They probably paid income tax or capital gains tax on the income they earned on that $25k. And then there could have been a sales tax and/or a luxury tax. But the watch manufacturer pays the watchmakers and for raw materials and marketing and its capital investment in buildings, etc.. And those watchmakers buy houses who were constructed by someone, and the raw materials were mined somewhere. Is there any systematic theory of moral economics which tries to rank these complicated things given some basic moral tenets/axioms? Like buying food for a starving village is better than setting fire to a stack of $100 bills which is better than hiring mercenaries to murder the villagers. It seems like the $25k watch transaction is between the buying food and burning cash. But what about investing that $25k in the index funds? Is that better than buying the watch because it cold potentially help companies which are creating vaccines in the future? Or is it worse than the watch case, because it is also proping up companies polluting the atmosphere with CO2 currently? Is it better to spend the $25k on a fancy watch, or a non-decorative chunk of gold? Is it better to buy one $25k watch, or twenty-five $1k watches?
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AnimalMuppet 8y ago

OK, here's someone with $1M. They keep it. If $25K could have saved a dozen lives, they could have saved 480 lives. Are you outraged? Here's someone with $1M. They give away $25K in a way that saves a dozen lives. They also spend another $25K on a watch. Are you outraged? Are you more outraged than the previous example because they wasted money on the watch? (Is that better or worse than keeping the money in the bank?) Here's someone with $1M. They give away $975K, saving 468 lives. They take the last $25K and spend it on a watch. Are you outraged because they didn't also give away the last $25K? Does the watch blind you to the good they did? Or did they have to give away all $1M to avoid your "perfect contempt"? See, you're judging their selfishness by the one purchase, not by the whole of their economic activity. I dispute whether that is a relevant metric.

flubert 8y ago

Isn't there some trickle down effect though? Is there a good way to quantify it? Someone pays $25k for a watch. They probably paid income tax or capital gains tax on the income they earned on that $25k. And then there could have been a sales tax and/or a luxury tax. But the watch manufacturer pays the watchmakers and for raw materials and marketing and its capital investment in buildings, etc.. And those watchmakers buy houses who were constructed by someone, and the raw materials were mined somewhere. Is there any systematic theory of moral economics which tries to rank these complicated things given some basic moral tenets/axioms? Like buying food for a starving village is better than setting fire to a stack of $100 bills which is better than hiring mercenaries to murder the villagers. It seems like the $25k watch transaction is between the buying food and burning cash. But what about investing that $25k in the index funds? Is that better than buying the watch because it cold potentially help companies which are creating vaccines in the future? Or is it worse than the watch case, because it is also proping up companies polluting the atmosphere with CO2 currently? Is it better to spend the $25k on a fancy watch, or a non-decorative chunk of gold? Is it better to buy one $25k watch, or twenty-five $1k watches?

deleted 8y ago
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