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I think this is a fair argument but one I don't really subscribe to myself. A strong argument in favor of this behavior being morally justified is that Nancy P

by munk-a 5y ago

I think this is a fair argument but one I don't really subscribe to myself. A strong argument in favor of this behavior being morally justified is that Nancy Pelosi is doing it and hasn't been voted out - but I think a strong argument against it is that people are complaining about it vocally. At the end of the day if we allow it to happen it's going to happen and if we disallow it we stop it - whether that allowance or denial aligns with "societal morals" is a pretty murky question with a lot of people having different opinions. My personal opinion is that this is immoral - and we're having this discussion because someone thought it was so immoral that they were motivated to write an article about how much they dislike it - but people write all sorts of articles so that's not a proof at the end of the day... Really, there are some things we can mostly (not all) agree are immoral like murder and rape - but even that isn't universally held (or agreed on to the same limit) because, well, some people do it. So yes - societal morals are pretty vague to define and I'm sure there are some people that feel fervently that House reps trading individual stocks is highly beneficial to society - but I feel like the majority of folks are on the other side on this one.

kolbe 5y ago
But you're now relying on the notion that a majority of a subset of people's opinions define moral good and bad. This has never really been true, at least in terms of majorities making objectively good decisions (moral ones are a little harder to gauge). The US is filled with examples of where the majority was probably wrong, starting with the original War of Independence. I don't think you'll find many fully informed people who thinks that house reps trading on insider info is good (myself included), unless they're personally beneficiaries of that system. But this discussion isn't really about that. The original guy asked "why shouldn't she do this?" She can do it. She benefits from doing it. No one will stop her. Why is it immoral for her to do it? Which is a totally different thing from "the majority of informed people don't want her to do it." To that end, she is behaving exactly as should be expected of her given the amount of power she has. The only way as far as I know to get people to not make decisions that are bad for the world but good for them is to not let them have the power to make that decision. The US government has become an atrocity of corrupt and consolidated power. That's the problem, IMO. And so long as its leaders can spy freely on Americans, can take 40% of their income, can deny them rights, etc, then this is what happens.

by munk-a 5y ago

kolbe 5y ago

But you're now relying on the notion that a majority of a subset of people's opinions define moral good and bad. This has never really been true, at least in terms of majorities making objectively good decisions (moral ones are a little harder to gauge). The US is filled with examples of where the majority was probably wrong, starting with the original War of Independence. I don't think you'll find many fully informed people who thinks that house reps trading on insider info is good (myself included), unless they're personally beneficiaries of that system. But this discussion isn't really about that. The original guy asked "why shouldn't she do this?" She can do it. She benefits from doing it. No one will stop her. Why is it immoral for her to do it? Which is a totally different thing from "the majority of informed people don't want her to do it." To that end, she is behaving exactly as should be expected of her given the amount of power she has. The only way as far as I know to get people to not make decisions that are bad for the world but good for them is to not let them have the power to make that decision. The US government has become an atrocity of corrupt and consolidated power. That's the problem, IMO. And so long as its leaders can spy freely on Americans, can take 40% of their income, can deny them rights, etc, then this is what happens.