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One thought experiment I use for morality is "What if everyone did what this person did?" And in that thought experiment, I think things turn out really badly.

by gretch 3y ago

One thought experiment I use for morality is "What if everyone did what this person did?" And in that thought experiment, I think things turn out really badly. Not only is it materially bad, a lot of society's trust is burned. I think the only reason this person's actions are "okay" is because they are washed away by the sea of good people doing good things.

namdnay 3y ago
Sure, but that doesn’t help determine the punishment. If everyone in Manhattan were to shit on the sidewalk life would be horrible, but that doesn’t mean we should put someone who does it in prison
- gretch 3y ago
  Sure I agree. The thought experiment cannot give insight on the severity of the punishment. That wasn't the scope though. GP comment said "There's a lot of stupid laws painted in black and white.". I don't think Theft is one of those stupid laws. I think it's a good law.
coding123 3y ago
So is it immoral for a farmer to farm? If EVERYONE farmed, there would be waaaay to much food and no water left on the planet.
- qup 3y ago
  It would be catastrophic. All the music, not just country, would start having lyrics about tractors. The GMO debate would have Facebook mom experts in every phpbb corner of the net. Farmers Only would be the number one company on the planet.
- gretch 3y ago
  No it is not immoral for everyone to farm. In fact I would actually recommend, if feasible, to start a garden in their yard for staple veggies. Just think how much energy we would save instead of shipping potatoes from Idaho or soybeans from China. And everyone would be getting way better nutrition. If everyone farmed a little bit, that would be amazing for our society and our planet.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Volundr 3y ago
  > If EVERYONE farmed, there would be waaaay to much food and no water left on the planet. This is only true if everyone had industrial sized farms. If everyone farmed the scale of the farms would naturally decrease in size. I'm not sure how one "scales" stealing games from Amazon.
- n4r9 3y ago
  I think this is a domain issue. Moral imperatives like this tend to apply to the domain of "duty". Is it a duty to farm? No, of course not; but that doesn't make it immoral to farm. A hypothetical example of a "duty" might be "contribute to the economy". According to Kant, it is moral to do this as long as you'd like it if everyone did it.
throwaway290 3y ago
Everyone could not do it because the number of jobs at Amazon is finite. I wager if every single Amazon employee did it Nintendo wouldn't even notice a dent. Resale though is bad.
Wowfunhappy 3y ago
> And in that thought experiment, I think things turn out really badly. Not only is it materially bad, a lot of society's trust is burned. I also use this thought experiment (and it's what shapes my view that e.g. software piracy is in fact quite bad). The thing is, in this case clearly not everyone could put this much effort into getting a copy of Zelda. Even if they had the free time, if Zelda was this valuable to everyone we would live in a different world (the game would cost more, there would be more games like it, etc). This guy was just willing to go "above and beyond" for the game he likes... maybe not in the best way, but not in a harmful one.
gusgus01 3y ago
That's the simplified question that's the basis for Deontological ethics. Further, there are other philosophies concerning ethics that help to flesh out the impossibility that that creates in modern life.
n4r9 3y ago
This is known as Kant's Categorical Imperative :) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative
ipaddr 3y ago
Let's go down that path. If everyone fought for a job at amazon to get a copy. Amazon would finally have enough workers, they would be more reliable (can't skip days or show up late when you have a mission) and Amazon would make more money. On the nintendo side word of mouth spreads like hotfire. Remember Nintendo gives away games to writers to generate more word of mouth more press. Sounds like a win/win Change that to murder and your points become more valid.
- n4r9 3y ago
  This assumes that Amazon's limiting factor is the number of applicants. I don't think that's the case, especially right now with all the layoffs.
- fennecfoxy 3y ago
  Lmao, your argument is flimsy as hell. He didn't work for Amazon as a good employee, he would've done what was required until he got the game and then quit. In your scenario, Amazon would experience a boom of workers, then experience workers x unit cost theft, and then have 0 workers.
noizejoy 3y ago
> Not only is it materially bad, a lot of society's trust is burned. Too much rule adherence, resulting in too much trust can also have undesirable consequences, e.g. From "Traffic safety and norms of compliance with rules:An exploratory study"[0]: "We use a simple model of drivers’ vigilance effort choice to show that drivers’ propensity to follow traffic rules has two opposite effects on road safety. On the one hand, it lowers the frequency of dangerous situations. On the other hand, it also reduces drivers’ vigilance effort as each driver anticipates that dangerous situations will be less frequent. These two opposite effects may lead to a non-monotonic relationship between compliance with road rules and the incidence of road traffic accidents. We present cross-country estimates that support the existence of a bell-shaped relationship between norms of compliance with rules and traffic fatalities." [0] [0] https://defipp.unamur.be/wp/defipp_wp_2021_3.pdf https://defipp.unamur.be/wp/defipp_wp_2021_3.pdf
- gretch 3y ago
  I do not buy this paper's conclusion. First problem I see is that they use Road Fatalities as proxy metric for overall goodness. If someone's driving drunk, and they run their truck into your living room at 2am - yeah maybe no one died, but a lot of damage and stress was caused. Not to mention just destruction in the form of minor accidents. I simply cannot buy the conclusion - "Yeah it's a good thing we have a few drunk drivers". Call me anti science if you must

by gretch 3y ago

namdnay 3y ago

Sure, but that doesn’t help determine the punishment. If everyone in Manhattan were to shit on the sidewalk life would be horrible, but that doesn’t mean we should put someone who does it in prison

gretch 3y ago
Sure I agree. The thought experiment cannot give insight on the severity of the punishment. That wasn't the scope though. GP comment said "There's a lot of stupid laws painted in black and white.". I don't think Theft is one of those stupid laws. I think it's a good law.

coding123 3y ago

So is it immoral for a farmer to farm? If EVERYONE farmed, there would be waaaay to much food and no water left on the planet.

qup 3y ago
It would be catastrophic. All the music, not just country, would start having lyrics about tractors. The GMO debate would have Facebook mom experts in every phpbb corner of the net. Farmers Only would be the number one company on the planet.
gretch 3y ago
No it is not immoral for everyone to farm. In fact I would actually recommend, if feasible, to start a garden in their yard for staple veggies. Just think how much energy we would save instead of shipping potatoes from Idaho or soybeans from China. And everyone would be getting way better nutrition. If everyone farmed a little bit, that would be amazing for our society and our planet.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Volundr 3y ago
> If EVERYONE farmed, there would be waaaay to much food and no water left on the planet. This is only true if everyone had industrial sized farms. If everyone farmed the scale of the farms would naturally decrease in size. I'm not sure how one "scales" stealing games from Amazon.
n4r9 3y ago
I think this is a domain issue. Moral imperatives like this tend to apply to the domain of "duty". Is it a duty to farm? No, of course not; but that doesn't make it immoral to farm. A hypothetical example of a "duty" might be "contribute to the economy". According to Kant, it is moral to do this as long as you'd like it if everyone did it.

throwaway290 3y ago

Everyone could not do it because the number of jobs at Amazon is finite. I wager if every single Amazon employee did it Nintendo wouldn't even notice a dent. Resale though is bad.

Wowfunhappy 3y ago

> And in that thought experiment, I think things turn out really badly. Not only is it materially bad, a lot of society's trust is burned. I also use this thought experiment (and it's what shapes my view that e.g. software piracy is in fact quite bad). The thing is, in this case clearly not everyone could put this much effort into getting a copy of Zelda. Even if they had the free time, if Zelda was this valuable to everyone we would live in a different world (the game would cost more, there would be more games like it, etc). This guy was just willing to go "above and beyond" for the game he likes... maybe not in the best way, but not in a harmful one.

gusgus01 3y ago

That's the simplified question that's the basis for Deontological ethics. Further, there are other philosophies concerning ethics that help to flesh out the impossibility that that creates in modern life.

n4r9 3y ago

This is known as Kant's Categorical Imperative :) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative

ipaddr 3y ago

Let's go down that path. If everyone fought for a job at amazon to get a copy. Amazon would finally have enough workers, they would be more reliable (can't skip days or show up late when you have a mission) and Amazon would make more money. On the nintendo side word of mouth spreads like hotfire. Remember Nintendo gives away games to writers to generate more word of mouth more press. Sounds like a win/win Change that to murder and your points become more valid.

n4r9 3y ago
This assumes that Amazon's limiting factor is the number of applicants. I don't think that's the case, especially right now with all the layoffs.
fennecfoxy 3y ago
Lmao, your argument is flimsy as hell. He didn't work for Amazon as a good employee, he would've done what was required until he got the game and then quit. In your scenario, Amazon would experience a boom of workers, then experience workers x unit cost theft, and then have 0 workers.

noizejoy 3y ago

> Not only is it materially bad, a lot of society's trust is burned. Too much rule adherence, resulting in too much trust can also have undesirable consequences, e.g. From "Traffic safety and norms of compliance with rules:An exploratory study"[0]: "We use a simple model of drivers’ vigilance effort choice to show that drivers’ propensity to follow traffic rules has two opposite effects on road safety. On the one hand, it lowers the frequency of dangerous situations. On the other hand, it also reduces drivers’ vigilance effort as each driver anticipates that dangerous situations will be less frequent. These two opposite effects may lead to a non-monotonic relationship between compliance with road rules and the incidence of road traffic accidents. We present cross-country estimates that support the existence of a bell-shaped relationship between norms of compliance with rules and traffic fatalities." [0] [0] https://defipp.unamur.be/wp/defipp_wp_2021_3.pdf https://defipp.unamur.be/wp/defipp_wp_2021_3.pdf

gretch 3y ago
I do not buy this paper's conclusion. First problem I see is that they use Road Fatalities as proxy metric for overall goodness. If someone's driving drunk, and they run their truck into your living room at 2am - yeah maybe no one died, but a lot of damage and stress was caused. Not to mention just destruction in the form of minor accidents. I simply cannot buy the conclusion - "Yeah it's a good thing we have a few drunk drivers". Call me anti science if you must