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Moral dilemma
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Post by
Hyperspacerebel
You are waiting for some kind of legal obligation.
I'm waiting for some backing to the moral dictum being presented. You can't just pull morals out of thin air.
Taking property that does not belong to you is wrong by any standard of morals. The currency did not belong to him, he returned it. He did the right thing. He fulfilled his
moral
obligation.
It did belong to him. It was given to him by someone with the authority to do so.
You apparently cannot separate the two. legal obligation does not equal moral obligation.
You apparently can't get it though your head that I haven't mentioned legality once this entire thread.
Umm, I didn't do it to feel good about myself - it was just an instant reaction. You seem to have a slightly bitter & twisted view of people's characters and motives there my friend...
How is utilitarianism bitter and twisted? Every conscious action is done for pleasure or utility (which are both the same thing when it comes down to it). That's life.
Post by
Mitokok
I would have kept the gold. His error, not your.
Blizzard most likely would have taken it back anyway/penalize him for not returning it. Remember that shirt that accidentally got sent to a person? I have a feeling it'd be like that on a smaller scale.
I commend the OP's actions, that being said a person in my guild got hacked and lost everything in our Gbank, and then later received twice of all the items in it. He wasn't quite as noble. xD
Post by
Mitokok
You are waiting for some kind of legal obligation.
I'm waiting for some backing to the moral dictum being presented. You can't just pull morals out of thin air.
Taking property that does not belong to you is wrong by any standard of morals. The currency did not belong to him, he returned it. He did the right thing. He fulfilled his
moral
obligation.
It did belong to him. It was given to him by someone with the authority to do so.
You apparently cannot separate the two. legal obligation does not equal moral obligation.
You apparently can't get it though your head that I haven't mentioned legality once this entire thread.
Umm, I didn't do it to feel good about myself - it was just an instant reaction. You seem to have a slightly bitter & twisted view of people's characters and motives there my friend...
How is utilitarianism bitter and twisted? Every conscious action is done for pleasure or utility (which are both the same thing when it comes down to it). That's life.
You must remember that not everyone is a utilitarian. Saying that everything is done for pleasure and utility is a bit of an odd statement as well, a personal sacrifice usually doesn't entail either. However I have a feeling you'll just say something along the lines of "When a person sacrifices for another it gives them pleasure." but sometimes it is quite the opposite. Some people sacrifice for people they don't know or don't even like, doing it because they feel it is right instead of merely wanting pleasure or use.
Anyway, this is a fairly strange discussion for a Wowhead forum. xP
Post by
589666
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
You stated: "Show me exactly where it states that a player has to report any gold a GM gives them?"
That's asking for some kind of contract, a statement in the EULA or other document forcing one to follow a course of action. AKA a law.
You seem to have trouble reading, so lemme help you:
The Bible, the Koran, the f'king Kama Sutra.... Wherever you take your morals from. I waiting for you to show me your source of this "you must report all virtual currency gains to the proper authorities" obligation comes from.
You claim X is a moral. I'm asking you to give me a source for that moral. I can say petting cats in the morally right thing to do. That doesn't just make it so.
You're the one mentioning legal documents. All I did was mention documents of morality. And sex positions.
Your viewpoint shows cynicism and breeds feelings of distrust.
Who's being the cynic? You think people who take what's given to them and use it are morally wrong. I think that there is no "wrong" in this situation. If give it back, it's for utility's sake. If you keep it it's for utility's sake. Either way, it was given to you and is yours to do with as you will.
You must remember that not everyone is a utilitarian. Saying that everything is done for pleasure and utility is a bit of an odd statement as well, a personal sacrifice usually doesn't entail either. However I have a feeling you'll just say something along the lines of "When a person sacrifices for another it gives them pleasure." but sometimes it is quite the opposite. Some people sacrifice for people they don't know or don't even like, doing it because they feel it is right instead of merely wanting pleasure or use.
Anyway, this is a fairly strange discussion for a Wowhead forum. xP
Does helping others make you feel good? If you're doing it, then it must.
Post by
589666
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Malgayne
HSR, you're asking him to provide a basis for his morality. If that was an easy answer—one that you could put into an internet forum—then half the world's problems would be solved, and there would be no need for flame wars ever again.
The OP was unsure of his morality, so he asked the opinions of some people he knew. Most people came down on one side, you came down on the other. Fortunately, we agree that in this specific situation it didn't matter too much.
If you want to have a debate about what moral system is the most true and what the ultimate source of moral law is, I have no problem with that—but it probably belongs in a separate thread, and you're all going to have to show better behavior than this to keep it unlocked. :P
Post by
589666
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Malgayne
Sorry Malgayne. I'll stop debating morality. :)
As I said, nothing wrong with debating morality. I just mean that the scope of the question has expanded beyond the OP, and probably deserves its own thread—and it deserves a very careful, reasoned treatment, free of flaming.
Remember the
Principle of Charity
.
Post by
159454
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
HSR, you're asking him to provide a basis for his morality. If that was an easy answer—one that you could put into an internet forum—then half the world's problems would be solved, and there would be no need for flame wars ever again.
I don't understand what you're saying...
My moral code comes from the Bible and Catholic Canon Law. That doesn't solve the world's problems. But it shows that I'm not making up morals out of thin air.
The OP was unsure of his morality, so he asked the opinions of some people he knew. Most people came down on one side, you came down on the other. Fortunately, we agree that in this specific situation it didn't matter too much.
Great, but if a thread is going down the road of saying that I'm dishonest and not a man of character because I believe morality works differently, I'm going to defend myself. Am I not entitled to that?
If you want to have a debate about what moral system is the most true and what the ultimate source of moral law is, I have no problem with that—but it probably belongs in a separate thread, and you're all going to have to show better behavior than this to keep it unlocked. :P
No one's debating about that. How do you get that from what I'm saying? I don't care what moral system he or anyone uses. I just want to know what system he's deriving this far-fetched principle from.
As the majority of people here have accepted that turning the gold over to the GM was the morally right thing to you, you are showing contempt of those standards, which is the dictionary definition of cynical.
Oh, so Wowhead is the ultimate source on what it means to be honest now? Utilitarianism is more accepted than Wowheadism, so if anything, you're the one being cynical. Until you provide a source which I've asked you to do over and over, your view has no basis other than whim.
Post by
Malgayne
It sounded like you were asking him for the source of his morals so that you could evaluate it and determine whether you thought it was valid. This is not an unreasonable request or an inappropriate way for the discussion to proceed, but it IS subject to the issues I mentioned earlier. Determining which basis for moral thinking is valid is a nearly impossible question, a difficult discussion to have in a civil manner, and it's far beyond the bounds of this little thread.
It's possible that you may have only been asking to determine whether or not his moral thinking HAD a source, vs. whether it had been "pulled out of thin air". That may be, but I don't think determining the answer to that question would move the discussion forward without inevitably leading into the issues I mentioned above. A lot of people don't have an acknowledged "source" for their moral beliefs. That doesn't necessarily invalidate them, especially if you are (as I am) a moral intuitionist.
Obviously, when answering a hypothetical "what-if" question about a moral choice, if you choose a response you run the risk of being judged. If you do so on an internet forum, you run an above-average chance of being judged, because all internet forums do is judge people. =/
As I said, I do disagree with your hypothetical moral decision. But we all seemed to agree, here, that the level of moral culpability involved in this decision was very low, and it doesn't affect my view of you as a human being. I think the others in this thread would agree, if they could get out of "internet argument mode" for a while. :P
Post by
Arkaen
I disagree Malgayne.
HyperSpaceRebel is just trying to be...
*sunglasses*
Rebellious.
inb4 me getting mugged by people who are more skilled at *sunglasses* than me ;-;
Rebel, you cannot win this battle. For if you strike me down on this day, I will become more powerful than you could possible imagine.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
It's possible that you may have only been asking to determine whether or not his moral thinking HAD a source, vs. whether it had been "pulled out of thin air". That may be, but I don't think determining the answer to that question would move the discussion forward without inevitably leading into the issues I mentioned above. A lot of people don't have an acknowledged "source" for their moral beliefs. That doesn't necessarily invalidate them, especially if you are (as I am) a moral intuitionist.
Well, I know that he couldn't give a valid source so he would have had to fall back on relativism. To which I would have replied that he has no business arguing his position. I would deny your moral intuitionism
regarding this issue
by pointing to the disagreement present.
When it comes down to it, I'm all for people having their own opinion on what should be done. But I don't think anyone has enough moral evidence or backing to "condemn" either action. Sure, say that giving the gold back is good, but don't say that keeping the money is not honest or is wrong and then not provided reasonable moral grounds.
Obviously, when answering a hypothetical "what-if" question about a moral choice, if you choose a response you run the risk of being judged. If you do so on an internet forum, you run an above-average chance of being judged, because all internet forums do is judge people. =/
I never said they wouldn't. I still retain my prerogative of defending my moral choices.
Post by
589666
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
I am not intending to imply you are a dishonest person. I believe that keeping the gold would've been dishonest.
Way to contradict yourself.
I've profited twice from Blizzard's mistakes. Once, they gave me a heroic weapon back in place of the reg version, and the previous time they gave me 500 extra gold.
Post by
589666
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
That doesn't change the fact that you believe that I am dishonest based on said action. And you said as much in an indirect manner by never stating my names. Thus
implying
.
Post by
sutasafaia
Morality is relative and has many varieties. There are social moralities that are generally accepted by your society as the right thing to do, there are personal moralities that are 100% controlled by you and you alone as to what YOU feel is right and wrong, there are global moralities that generally fall into the category of why it's wrong to exterminate an entire culture of people you don't like, etc etc.
No two human beings on Earth will have the
exact
same moral beliefs, so why fight over them? Frankly I think the Bible and every other "holy" book is full of it, doesn't mean I think the relative morals and lessons they try to teach are bad.
Does that end the argument now?
To the OP: Good for you. I wouldn't have given it back, but good for you.
Post by
Malgayne
Your issue is not with the morality of stealing. Your problem is defining the OP's right to the property. You believe that because the gold was given to him from someone who owned and has the right to give it out, that the transfer of property is legitimate. Others have stated that they agree with you. Myself and others in the thread disagree with that standpoint, and that keeping the gold would be paramount to stealing. Stealing violates the moral code we have already established. A violation of a moral code is something that is "wrong."
This is true, I think. We're not disagreeing over whether stealing is wrong. It's just a question of "would keeping that gold have been stealing."
My feeling was that it wouldn't have been stealing, and that keeping it wouldn't have been a bad thing—but it would have been practicing an activity that, while innocent in this context, is very similar to an
actual
bad thing—and that it would be healthier for him (from a moral standpoint) not to practice that behavior, even in a context where it was harmless.
I don't think it's much of a moral issue either way.
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