Why Morality Was Never Enough

I Owe Nothing To Anyone

Imagine you’re standing near a railroad track in the middle of nowhere. A train is barreling toward you.

Sitting on the track to your right is a five-year-old, bound little girl, and a few feet away on the track to your left is a satchel holding a million dollars in bearer bonds.

The locomotive is almost upon you. You only have enough time to remove one item from the track, either the little girl or the satchel of bearer bonds.

The answer seems obvious, right? You’re a human being with a moral code, so, of course, you save the little girl.

Or do you?

There are people who would desire to save the girl but might be scared that her parents would sue them for saving her or that the girl would press charges against them for touching her against her will.

There was a case reported in Dubai in which a lady was swimming and suddenly began to drown; some lifeguards rushed to the beach to save her, but her father forbade any man from touching her because it was against his culture for his unmarried daughter to be touched by a man. It was reported that her father was a "tall and strong man" who physically wrestled and fought off the lifeguards. He reportedly told rescuers he would rather his daughter die than be "dishonoured" by having strange men touch her. By the time lifeguards broke free, the woman had drowned.

There are many people who adhere to a completely different moral code.

In their minds, they have no moral duty to save the child or, in fact, to help anyone.

In their minds, their only ethical duty is to their own self-interest. Therefore, they claim it is moral for them to grab the bonds and leave the child to die.

How can they think that way?

Their moral code says that they have no obligation to prevent any harm that they themselves did not cause.

Yes, if they had put the child on the track, then they would have a moral duty to remove her before the train arrived.

But since they did not put the child on the track, they have no moral obligation to save her from the train, and they think that they are morally entitled to grab the money and leave her to die.

To me, anyone who lives by that code is an evil person.

Putting subjective moral judgments aside, I should say that people who practice this morality are damaging to a high-functioning, productive society; this moral code is toxic to a society that most people will want to live in.

Everyone Has The Moral Right To Take Everything They Have Enough Power To Get

Imagine you’re standing near that railroad track in the middle of nowhere and you see that five-year-old, bound, little girl on the track. Upon questioning, she tells you her name and her parents’ phone number.

You call her father and tell him that you’ll take her off the tracks if he wires $100,000 to your bank account. If he refuses, you will walk away, and in an hour or so a train will come down the track and kill her.

In your moral code, you’re exercising your superior bargaining power to charge all the market will bear for a service you’re offering to perform, namely saving the girl from the train in exchange for a payment of $100,000.

In your mind, her father is free to refuse to accept your offer, and you’re free to walk away.

In your mind, you’re acting morally because since you didn’t put the little girl on the tracks, you think that you have no moral duty to save her from whatever harm befalls her.

This is the same reasoning that the CEO of the town’s principal employer uses to justify paying starvation wages because the workers have no other option but to accept whatever pay he’s offering or go hungry.

This is no different from the reasoning of the board of directors of a pharmaceutical company that makes insulin at a cost of $.15 for a one-day dose but charges uninsured diabetics $15 for that same one-day dose.

Their ethical logic is that because they did not give the person diabetes, it is moral for them to charge as high a price as the market will bear.

The fact that people will die at $15/dose, who would not die at a still profitable price of $1/dose is not, in their minds, the pharma company’s problem.

Imagine those busy forging exotic drinks, Baby food and other edibles in Nigeria.

They want to make money, so they package poison in the bottles of very expensive drinks and sell them off as the original drinks to those who have the money to buy these products in order to make quick gains. They make people sick, kill many people, and they continue to do it in the name of making ends meet. Their moral code justifies it, and to them the end justifies the means.

If You’re Stupid Enough To Fall For A Scam, You Deserve To Be Fleeced

Imagine that a cosmetic manufacturer advertises a fantastic offer for their claimed excellent cosmetics.

The company hides in the fine print the statement that the low-price offer is only for the first shipment and that the buyer is, in fact, subscribing to a monthly order of cosmetics at ten times the price of the first shipment.

The company also buries in the fine print the rule that subscriptions can only be cancelled upon thirty days’ advance notice.

The company also only allows people to cancel their subscription over the phone, and it makes them wait on hold for at least fifteen minutes before their call is answered.

Suppose that none of those actions was specifically illegal.

The directors of the company claim that they have acted morally because all these terms were included someplace in the fine print and that none of the company’s actions was contrary to law.

Under their moral code, people have the obligation to protect themselves from a bad deal, and if their stupidity, foolishness, carelessness, or bad judgment results in their getting fleeced, that’s on them.

Put differently, if you’re stupid enough to fall for a scam that is not illegal, the scammer is doing nothing morally wrong by tricking you out of your money.

The Three Rules Justifying “Might Makes Right”

I believe that

(1) “It is moral for me to do nothing to save a person from a harm that I did not create” and

(2) “I have a moral right to acquire as much wealth as I have the bargaining power to take without physical violence” and

(3) “If people are careless enough to accept my sneaky bad deal, they deserve to lose their money or their lives

claimed moral principles are the foundation of the business philosophy of many, if not most, of the people who control our public corporations.

I believe that it’s the bedrock of the moral system of many people.

It’s the idea that I am morally entitled to take as much as my bargaining power and cleverness enable me to get from those who have less power or sophistication than I have.

Fundamentally, if the idea that the philosophy of “might makes right” is morally valid.

It’s the philosophy that the wolves are morally justified in eating any sheep who don’t have the teeth and claws to be able to defend themselves.

I think that those who live by these rules are mouthing a toxic philosophy in order to justify reprehensible conduct.

They know who they are. So do you.