Topic: What do you believe is moral? - page 26. (Read 17785 times)

This will admittedly be an argument of symantics but i dont think this is correct. Tax collection is one of the defining characteristics of government. Any organization that is funded voluntarily is necessarily not a government by virtue of the fact that it is funded voluntarily.

I think the right term for an organization that behaves like a government in other ways but doesnt force people to fund it would be mutual aid society.

Most people won't fund. That's a fact. There aren't many people who like to share especially with the government. The more money people get, the less they want to give away.

This is incorrect.  Government could be funded voluntarily.  It's not binary between taxes and anarchy.

democracy is the idea that getting a bunch of people to gather to vote on a question can be expected to lead to the correct answer. this is a logical fallacy. no decisions should be made on the basis of a logical fallacy, not moral ones, not amoral ones.

more importantly to you understand how the comic i posed describes the mistake that you are making in the text that i quoted?

Some day kids might think otherwise. Morality as a concept is changing: some things become moral, some - immoral.

Morality is just a matter of what is right and what is wrong.  Even children know that stealing is wrong.

I'll agree that democracy by itself is not good enough. You need to follow a good moral code along with it. Does not have to be a religion per se, but at least a Bill of Rights type agreement.

this quiz inspired me to write this so ill post it here.

suppose there are only two humans left on earth. Allice finds some seeds and plants a garden. Is it morally acceptable for bob to consume the produce of this garden without allices permission?

now suppose that allice and bob, inorder to solve the problem of the double coincidence of wants, settle on a medium of exchange. bob exchanges one silver coin, that he dug out of the ground and minted himself, for a portion of the produce in allices garden. After the exchange is complete is it morally acceptable for bob to take this silver coin away from allice without her permission?

now suppose that bob finds a very fine costume and a very tall hat and puts them on. does this make it morally acceptable for bob to take the silver coin away from allice without her permission?

now suppose that bob, wearing his very fine costume, claims that in his custody the silver coin will better serve the interests of the community as a whole than if it were to remain in allices custody. does this make it morally acceptable for bob to take the silver coin away from allice with her permission?

now suppose that there are three humans left on planet earth instead of two. bob, wearing his very fine costume, claims that in his custody the silver coin will better serve the interests of the community as a whole than if it were to remain in allices custody. allice bob and charlie all take a vote on whether or not bob should be allowed to take the silver coin away from allice without her permission. bob and charlie vote yes and allice votes no. now is it morally acceptable for bob to take the silver coin away from allice with her permission?

suppose there are 1000 humans left on planet earth. bob, wearing his very fine costume, claims that in his custody the silver coin will better serve the interests of the community as a whole than if it were to remain in allices custody. allice, bob, charlie and all of the 997 humans take a vote on whether or not bob should be allowed to take the silver coin away from allice without her permission. bob charlie and the other 998 vote yes and allice votes no. now is it morally acceptable for bob to take the silver coin away from allice with her permission?

one last question. suppose there are 1000 humans left on planet earth. bob, wearing his very fine costume, claims that it is in the interest of the community as a whole that allice be sacrificed to the volcano god. allice, bob, charlie and all of the 997 humans take a vote on whether or not bob should be allowed to throw allice into the volcano without her permission. bob charlie and the other 998 vote yes and allice votes no. does this democratic process make it morally acceptable for bob to throw allice in the volcano?

The purpose of this thought exercise is to demonstrate how democracy is at its core the institutionalization of the argumentum ad populum fallacy. When everyone on earth believed that the earth was flat this didnt make it so. It is my intention to suggest that structuring an entire society on the foundation of a logical fallacy may not be the wisest thing to do.

Please don't edit my posts. Also slavery disappeared from the scale in Moral while taxes didn't.

This survey is flawed; You can't answer such questions simply with yes or no without a proper definition of the term "stealing" and without knowing the circumstances that lead to the act of stealing or taxing people.

E.g. I find it absolutely immoral to tax the average wage slave who struggles everyday only to barely survive. I do find it essential however to redistribute a great share of the income of the economic elite.

Stealing from the poor average Joe = immoral
Stealing from a bank = let me watch, please!

FTFY

Taxes have existed for a long long time. It shows that it's actually working. How else are you going to build bridges, roads, control companies from doing whatever they wish to do.

Years down the road people will look back at taxes and say the same thing.

I'm not saying I think it's moral. Just people then thought it was.

At least you stand by your religion of the majority committing attrocities.

It explains much of what is wrong with the world.

In certain times yes.

So slavery was perfectly moral?

Morality is defined by the majority or the most powerful people. Many people thought that questioning the Catholic Church was immoral in the Middle ages.

Legal does not equal moral.