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Originally Posted by Laz116
Sure. And very easy to say when you're not strapped for cash.
Listen: I think it's an outlandish story. It really blows my mind that someone would do such a thing and not think that it was wrong. Especially when it is happening in the USA.
What I'm trying to say is just that ethics and morality are easy notions for the well endowed. Not so easy for the one who has nothing.
You can't just say that ethics, morality, caring are universal principles. Perspectives are probably quite different from, for example, the gutter.
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Originally Posted by kennyc
I disagree. I think it has much more to do with pride and knowing right from wrong (morals) and acting on those beliefs. And as DGM said lack of cash or position is nothing more than an excuse for not following them.
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"Knowing right from wrong" is a variable, dependent upon time and place.
Consider the "Nigerian 419" scams. A friend was involved in international education and had students from Africa who said "You can't trust anyone from Nigeria". The issue seemed to be tribalism. In most of Africa, the tribe is the most important social unit. You are part of a family, families aggregate into clans, and clans are parts of tribes.
In situations like that, you can get morality which divides people into "us" and "them", where "they" are "not
my family/clan/tribe", and a different set of rules apply. From the Nigerian 419 scammer's viewpoint, what they are doing
isn't wrong, because the folks they are scamming aren't
their people.
You can see it here, too, in detestable cases of "They aren't our kind, so normal rules don't apply". There was an uproar a while back when a major midwestern meat packing company owned and operated by Hasidic Jews was raided by the government, and shut down for violations of things like child labor laws. (Management was employing Hispanic illegal immigrants at less than minimum wage, including kids, because they were illegal and couldn't complain.)
A friend was a nurse with a Hasidic quadriplegic woman as a patient. Her patient was outraged when she heard the news. "How
dare they call themselves Jews! How
dare they call themselves Hasids!" I didn't blame her a bit, as such behavior is quite contrary to what I know of Judaism and the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov. But it can happen in cultures which assume that they are somehow special and apart from the rest of mankind. You get an implicit assumption that others aren't quite human, and you don't need to follow the same rules in dealing with them as you do with your own.
For an example of the effects on culture of harsh environments, look up the Ik people in what is currently Uganda in Africa. They are considered among the bottom 5% of the most impoverished people in the world, and the effects on their culture have been profound.
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Dennis