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Comment by aaron-santos | Hacker News Reader

What if they did. Would it change the argument?

Well, that depends on the argument, but presumably if at some point you state "the moral thing to do is to reduce surplus so that other people may have increased surplus" and no one is really doing that, you have to question the moral argumentation somewhere.

For instance, were I to make that argument, and were you to ask me "During the pandemic, did you Doordash any food? How much did you tip? How much money do you have in your bank account?" and it turns out I tipped a very small fraction of the money in my bank account despite "the delivery driver risking his life to deliver nutrition you require to survive" then you might be well within your rights to ask me to justify this behaviour of mine contradictory to my stated morals and see if the argument extends.

So... it doesn’t change the actual argument.

> So... it doesn’t change the actual argument.

It kind of does. I mean,it's not like they are practicing what they are preaching. If they really believe that sharing the wealth is the right thing to do then why are they reserving their argument exclusively to other companies and organizations?

It absolutely does. If you argue from a basis of moral consensus, it is precisely an argument against that to argue that the moral consensus is the opposite.

They are not arguing from moral consensus, but merely appearing to. It is useful for a company to appear to take the moral high ground in order to increase profits while also not actually doing so of course. See BLM, and others.

Strictly, I suppose they're making no argument at all since they are merely asserting a fact: Amazon isn't paying more. There is an implicit other statement: "this is notable". And I suspect an implicit third piece "it is notably bad".

None of these are arguments but one could imagine that the last one stems from "because we all think it's bad". Of course, absent justification one could just dismiss that last one out of hand instead.

Yes, it assumes companies are bad because they don't follow individual moral standards, but organizations are not individuals and cannot be judged the same way. I would even go so far as to say that because there are so many people in it that the entire organization is an amoral entity.

I actually disagree with you on this front (that corp behaviour cannot be judged on a moral/immoral scale) but the argument is too long to type out. And in any case it doesn't matter since we agree on the part that matters (there is no justification yet provided for Amazon's actions to be judged immoral).

I actually wrote a big thread on r/changemyview that you could probably find haha, about organizations being amoral entities.

Haha, same username?

Unfortunately not. You'll find it though, I don't want to share my username here publicly.

Why does making a moral statement require adherence to that statement? Sounds like a pretty basic tu quoque and it follows that no one really has to question the moral argumentation at all. Why do you think people make up these sorts of conditions?

Well, because there is no moral argument. There is merely a statement made (entirely implicitly here) without logical reasoning. And a statement, asserted without evidence or reasoning can easily be dismissed without it.

There can be no tu quoque fallacy when there is no argument made. For instance, if I were to say "I'm at the beach" and you were to say "But you are not. I see you downtown in front of me." that's not tu quoque just because it references the guy making the statement.

Make the argument and perhaps we can see.

They did. It is not in dispute. It would at least be hypocritical. It's up to each person what that means.

I'm trying to follow this argument.

> Couldn't they pay their people more?

> What if they did.

> They did.

Am I missing something?

Sorry, I misunderstood your question. I thought you asked did they really have that much, not did they pay their people more. I assume they did not because they still have a huge bankroll.

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