Quote:
Originally Posted by nekokami
In your mind, is it morally necessary to compensate someone for their labor when you take advantage of that labor, assuming they have not voluntarily donated that labor to you?
In other words, we're not discussing forcing someone to compensate the laborer for arbitrary labor, we're talking about whether someone who enjoys the fruits of someone else's labor has a moral obligation to compensate the laborer -- in some form. If you like, we can also debate who sets the value of the compensation: the laborer, the one who enjoys the labors, a negotiation between the two of them, or a third party, e.g. "the state." Supposedly, in a free market, the value is negotiated by the laborer and the consumer, whereas in communism the value is set by the state.
|
Well, if I have a moral principle I use it is some kind of utilitarism and then it is an empirical question if you always should compensate the labor for something you enjoyed but I am neraly totally sure that you do not have to do it always when maximizing the utility.
Quote:
|
(In any case, posting on a public forum definitely counts as donating labor. That's implied by the nature of a public forum. But you could set up a private forum in which you could post your words of wisdom and you could ask for compensation from those who would read your posts.)
|
What i am wondering then is why publishing a book then is not automatically a donating of labor morally speaking? Can you really make something publicly available (like in my garbage picking example) without donating the labor?