Comments on: White-collar crime and moral freeloading

By: zzz

zzz — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 17:47:22 +0000

it’s the type of reasoning “when I do it, it’s effects are moral, so if everyone does it, it’s effects will be moral too”

That would seem to be a reasonable assumption if the morality of individual action is to be justified. After all, isn’t the Golden Rule based on the opposite inference – that one should not behave as one wouldn’t like everyone else to?

By: Stuart Armstrong

Stuart Armstrong — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 16:29:13 +0000

I can’t see how their actions could be economically harmful or immoral. As for the issue raised by Eliezer, it’s a matter of defining a standard for “informed consent”, not an inherent problem with libertariamism.

It’s not the actual specifics of how these people behave that’s relevant here – it’s the type of reasoning “when I do it, it’s effects are moral, so if everyone does it, it’s effects will be moral too” (this may be the case, but this reasoning doesn’t show it). If an environmentalist doesn’t impose his will on others, but still thinks that the world would be so much better it everyone followed his example, because it’s better when HE does it then there is a definite bias. Ditto for some libertarians and others with the same reasoning. Whether they act on the bias or not is seperate.

By: Dog of Justice

Dog of Justice — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 00:08:50 +0000

Hrm, I would like to delete my 7:10 comment after reading the linked Freakonomics piece.

By: Douglas Knight

Douglas Knight — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 23:29:58 +0000

perfectly willing to use a fake student ID

Why? Because price discrimination offends you? You justify the fraud as part of the price discrimination–they offer breaks to people willing to defraud them.

By: Dog of Justice

Dog of Justice — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 23:10:49 +0000

There’s also the not-biased rational judgment that it’s far easier to get away with some offenses than others, and the punishment is less if you do get caught.

I’m fairly confident that this is what it really comes down to. A white collar criminal doesn’t want their crime to attract attention, since that’s the thing most likely to get them caught. If you eat a single bagel for free, that is practically guaranteed to get lost in the noise. Whereas if you steal the money box, that attracts attention and people will be trying to figure out who did it. They may not succeed, but nevertheless the risk/reward ratio of the latter crime is FAR worse than that for stealing a single bagel.

Whether a crime is “victimless” or not matters in practice mostly because victims can potentially retaliate.

By: topher

topher — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 22:44:20 +0000

Sissela Bok’s book on lying might be worth a read.

By: Dagon

Dagon — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 21:44:23 +0000

What bias is this pointing out? It could be an offshoot of the entitlement effect: The offender, when empathizing with the victim, values his not-yet-paid amount differently from the already-collected amount from prior sales. And thus would be willing to steal a bagel but not steal the dollar value of that bagel.

There’s also the not-biased rational judgment that it’s far easier to get away with some offenses than others, and the punishment is less if you do get caught.

By: zzz

zzz — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 19:56:17 +0000

Stuart Armstrong, as long as the environmentalists you mention stick to advocacy and do not try to enforce their frugality and thrift by violent means (such as government action) I can’t see how their actions could be economically harmful or immoral. As for the issue raised by Eliezer, it’s a matter of defining a standard for “informed consent”, not an inherent problem with libertariamism.

By: Stuart Armstrong

Stuart Armstrong — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 16:04:33 +0000

The Guardian article shows paying cash to avoid taxes and not correcting cashiers who give too much change to be the biggest middle-class crimes. Count me as among those awful people who doesn’t see it as a problem

But would you, in the first case, fill out a fake disability rebate form, and in the second, steal some money from a checkout counter while no-one else is looking? In both cases assume you wouldn’t get caught. Practically they are different, but morally they are the same thing.

I find them different, though – which just goes to show how much my morality is biased by practicality. And I don’t think I’m the only one.

By: Stuart Armstrong

Stuart Armstrong — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 16:00:00 +0000

I feel there’s also political movements that show a kind of moral free-loading. Examples are the naive Libetarians as described by Eliezer who feel morally superior in a way of life they advocate for all, without accepting the costs this way of life could have on others. To a more extreme extent, those environmentalists who live very minimally and advocate that for everyone (which stands a big chance of ruining the economy) and anti-immigration advocates who want to turn away refugees on the grounds that they have always lived happily in their own country, and that’s the proper thing to do. Politics has many other examples of this.

You’re not a moral free-loader if you say “this system is good for me and my friends,” or admit “this system has a cost, but is still good in general”. You are if you say “this system is good for all, and imposes no moral cost when I do it, and hence no has no moral cost in general”, when it does.