Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Sculptor1]

Eternal moral truths should be rooted in the same justice for all people. We allow about nine million people to die every year from starvation, when rich countries squander billions on slimming products. About 700 million people live on less than two dollars a day. About eight hundred million people go to bed hungry. Yet in the civilised world we waste about 750 million tons of food a year.

Do we have a duty or obligation to share our wealth with those less fortunate?

"Should be"? Why? Please justify your statement on grounds you see as "eternal"!

[EricPH]

Eternal moral truths should be rooted in the same justice for all people. We allow about nine million people to die every year from starvation, when rich countries squander billions on slimming products. About 700 million people live on less than two dollars a day. About eight hundred million people go to bed hungry. Yet in the civilised world we waste about 750 million tons of food a year.

Do we have a duty or obligation to share our wealth with those less fortunate?

"Should be"? Why? Please justify your statement on grounds you see as "eternal"!

My statement does not need justifying. Justice can only be justice, if the same justice is applied to everyone. Would you think it fair and just if you were one of the 700 million people on Earth living on a couple of dollars a day? There are children in these situations who have the ability to learn the same as us, but they don't have the chance of an education. They will go to bed hungry.

Like me, you are probably lucky enough to earn more than thirty dollars a day, that puts us in the top 15% of the richest people on Earth. We can't claim we are any better than those living on two dollars a day. We can only claim to be more lucky and fortunate because of our birth. Justice should not depend on luck.

[Good_Egg]

Where we live is like winning or losing the lottery. 800 million people on Earth go to bed hungry, they have lost the lottery, because of where they are born.

Funny thing about lotteries - they're pretty popular. Many people seem to like the idea of there being very rich people if there's a chance of themselves being one of them. (And some of the chances involved are rather tiny).

Would you ban lotteries ? Or would you agree that there is nothing morally wrong with lotteries as such.

Note also that in making your well-worn analogy you're implicitly putting forward the idea that there are pre-existing souls who get incarnated into bodies at random (?at the moment of conception?). If it's unfair that some get born into circumstances of desperate poverty, then there has to be an entity - a self or soul independent of those circumstances - to whom it is unfair.

If I hold that it is unfair that some animals get to be born as apex predators, whilst others are born into prey species, I implicitly assert the existence of some form of pre-existing animal soul to whom either fate is conceivable. On the principle of "should implies can".

Are you really arguing for such a metaphysics ?

[Sculptor1]

Eternal moral truths should be rooted in the same justice for all people. We allow about nine million people to die every year from starvation, when rich countries squander billions on slimming products. About 700 million people live on less than two dollars a day. About eight hundred million people go to bed hungry. Yet in the civilised world we waste about 750 million tons of food a year.

Do we have a duty or obligation to share our wealth with those less fortunate?

"Should be"? Why? Please justify your statement on grounds you see as "eternal"!

My statement does not need justifying.

Oh but it does.

Justice can only be justice, if the same justice is applied to everyone.

Maybe definitively. But so what? You have not justified why "everyone" ought to expect the same justice.
And you pretend that your words need no justification.

Would you think it fair and just if you were one of the 700 million people on Earth living on a couple of dollars a day? There are children in these situations who have the ability to learn the same as us, but they don't have the chance of an education. They will go to bed hungry.

True people are hungry and others are rich.
You are just stating facts. Where's the justification?

Like me, you are probably lucky enough to earn more than thirty dollars a day, that puts us in the top 15% of the richest people on Earth. We can't claim we are any better than those living on two dollars a day. We can only claim to be more lucky and fortunate because of our birth. Justice should not depend on luck.

What's your point?
You are still applying an unspoken assumption, which is not justified.
Defend your position!

[EricPH]

If I hold that it is unfair that some animals get to be born as apex predators, whilst others are born into prey species,

Both predators and prey die, so dying is not the problem, it is how we live.

Would you ban lotteries ?

Some people will always gamble, banning lotteries would not achieve anything. Some form of gambling would take its place.

Or would you agree that there is nothing morally wrong with lotteries as such.

It is the people who can least afford to gamble and lose money who need protecting.

If it's unfair that some get born into circumstances of desperate poverty, then there has to be an entity - a self or soul independent of those circumstances - to whom it is unfair.

There are enough resources to feed the world, we can't seem to share them. We like to call ourselves civilised, but do we deserve that label when e allow so many to live at starvation levels.

[EricPH]

"everyone" ought to expect the same justice.
And you pretend that your words need no justification.

If two people are doing the same job, one should get paid ten times more than the other. Is that your idea of justice?

Industrialists know if they have a plant in the US, they might have to pay their workers $20 per hour. If they go to a third world country, they can get the same job done for a dollar or so an hour. This is unjust to the US worker who is not employed, it is unjust to the workers in China on a dollar an hour. The only people who benefit are the shareholders who do not work to earn their money,

[Sculptor1]

"everyone" ought to expect the same justice.
And you pretend that your words need no justification.

If two people are doing the same job, one should get paid ten times more than the other. Is that your idea of justice?

I'm not making any claims about justice.
I am asking for clarification as to why ANY claim of justice might be an "eternal moral truth". As yet I have heard nothing in support of such an idea.

Industrialists know if they have a plant in the US, they might have to pay their workers $20 per hour. If they go to a third world country, they can get the same job done for a dollar or so an hour. This is unjust to the US worker who is not employed, it is unjust to the workers in China on a dollar an hour. The only people who benefit are the shareholders who do not work to earn their money,

And you point is?

[EricPH]

I am asking for clarification as to why ANY claim of justice might be an "eternal moral truth".

Fair enough. Eternal moral truths should NOT be based on any form of justice. Can you clarify how that would work?

[Belindi]

Eternal moral truths should be rooted in the same justice for all people. We allow about nine million people to die every year from starvation, when rich countries squander billions on slimming products. About 700 million people live on less than two dollars a day. About eight hundred million people go to bed hungry. Yet in the civilised world we waste about 750 million tons of food a year.

Do we have a duty or obligation to share our wealth with those less fortunate?

"Should be"? Why? Please justify your statement on grounds you see as "eternal"!

Sculptor is quite right to query the word 'eternal'. Neither Eric nor I have been discussing eternal truths.

[Sculptor1]

I am asking for clarification as to why ANY claim of justice might be an "eternal moral truth".

Fair enough. Eternal moral truths should NOT be based on any form of justice. Can you clarify how that would work?

Strawman.
Please refer to the points I have already made, and justify how your claims are "eternal moral truth".
Please note that since there are many other moral claims concerning the same area of justice which do not include your solutions, you might want to try harder.

[Sculptor1]

TO be clear...

Eric was saying something about wages in different parts of the world and shareholders exploiting that fact.

True enough.
However there are many justifications for this practice, and some would also argue those moral justifications are eternal.
Some would hold that in a Darwinian perspective, the only moral justification is the competition for wages and that shareholders have the right to benefit, whilst workers have the right to get what wages are available or look elsewhere.
Others might simply say that might is right and that the powerful have the right to act as they can and has they see fit to their own benefit.
Others still would argue for benefits of society to be bestowed on the basis of merit, either in mental capacity, academic achievement, or capacity to do a job of work.

Given the widespread absence of the sort of moral system desired by Eric, I think his suggestions that such moral reflections are worthy considerations in a thread which asks about "eternal moral truths", is wrong.
In the long history of life before the emergence of humans, I think a more likely candidate would be survival of the fittest.
But nothing I say here ought to be taken as in any way promoting any moral code.

[EricPH]

In the long history of life before the emergence of humans, I think a more likely candidate would be survival of the fittest.

If we were to come up with a moral truth, would it be fair to say it should benefit mankind as a whole? To my way of thinking, survival of the fittest leads to an immoral truth for mankind. Wealth and power aid the fittest for survival, so the ones with the biggest guns and greatest wealth benefit the most. They take what they want, at the expense of others. Hitler's Germany strived to be the fittest.

[Sculptor1]

In the long history of life before the emergence of humans, I think a more likely candidate would be survival of the fittest.

If we were to come up with a moral truth, would it be fair to say it should benefit mankind as a whole?

Why?
Even were I to give that to you, many would argue that survival of the fittest IS to the benefit of all mankind.

To my way of thinking, survival of the fittest leads to an immoral truth for mankind. Wealth and power aid the fittest for survival, so the ones with the biggest guns and greatest wealth benefit the most. They take what they want, at the expense of others. Hitler's Germany strived to be the fittest.

Hitler's Germany was proven to NOT be the fittest.

[Belindi]

In the long history of life before the emergence of humans, I think a more likely candidate would be survival of the fittest.

If we were to come up with a moral truth, would it be fair to say it should benefit mankind as a whole? To my way of thinking, survival of the fittest leads to an immoral truth for mankind. Wealth and power aid the fittest for survival, so the ones with the biggest guns and greatest wealth benefit the most. They take what they want, at the expense of others. Hitler's Germany strived to be the fittest.

It's hard to say which are the fittest. True to say those who amass the most power and/or wealth, often by means of violence, are the best at surviving and procreating in the short term. However , bearing in mind that men can't live without the rest of the biosphere, the universalising message of Jesus of Nazareth and others is the best long term principle. Benefits must be made available to all and approximately equally distributed among all including the natural environment which is (to say the least !)a resource needed by all.

[Pattern-chaser]

In the long history of life before the emergence of humans, I think a more likely candidate would be survival of the fittest.

If we were to come up with a moral truth, would it be fair to say it should benefit mankind as a whole? To my way of thinking, survival of the fittest leads to an immoral truth for mankind. Wealth and power aid the fittest for survival, so the ones with the biggest guns and greatest wealth benefit the most. They take what they want, at the expense of others. Hitler's Germany strived to be the fittest.

..and that is far from the only example. The British Empire also strove to be "the fittest", as did all the other Empires, back to the Romans and before. We have a long history of such things, it seems.