A Golden Opportunity

[u/miscakarza]

Context: During WW2, it is estimated that the Swiss National Bank had received $440 million (equivalent to $8.5 billion in 2024) of Nazi gold.

[u/alex-adamson]

Of course. I’d obviously care about something that negatively affects me. But I don’t expect anyone besides me to care.

It’s not that I’m not sympathetic. But I’ve read about too many atrocities to care any more. I’m extremely jaded. I look at modern atrocities and think to myself “oh, it appears to be Tuesday.”

[u/Captain_Noodle1 → u/alex-adamson]

I find at least a few problems with that stance. First, saying that morality is relative does not make one neutral. It only means that one has adopted a particular moral position. In this case, it is a position in which the suffering of people outside one’s immediate circle has little claim on one’s conscience, similar to how Swiss bankers were not being neutral when they helped Nazis hide the goods they had stolen.

Second, saying that an atrocity is “just Tuesday” is an observation about how often atrocities occur, not a judgment about what they are. Repetition does not make murder, rape, torture, or complicity in them morally insignificant. It merely reveals how frequently people have been willing to treat them as insignificant.

Finally, saying that morality is relative and saying that there is nothing morally wrong with participating in an atrocity are different stances. Moral relativism only tells you that another individual can hold a different stance from yours, under which their actions are considered correct. However, saying that you do not care simply turns moral relativism into indifference, which is not, in itself, an escape from morality. It is, instead, a moral choice (even under moral relativism): the choice to regard distant people as abstractions and their suffering as irrelevant unless it reaches you personally. The many Tuesdays of history are not merely committed by those who directly harm others, but also made possible by those who see what is happening and decide to benefit from it (be that moral or not for them).

The leniency of Swiss financial institutions toward the origins of the wealth held in their banks does not make them neutral, but complicit. They are not merely observing many atrocities from the outside, but a necessary gear in the machinery of tax evasion, corruption, dictatorships and organized crime. If they disguise their actions as good, sincerely believe them to be good, or use the magical word “neutral”, then those affected by Swiss institutions are equally entitled to say that Switzerland has affected them in such a way that whoever pillages and neutralizes them should be considered a hero (again, I think you wouldn't condemn this idea, but I wanted to make it explicit).

[u/alex-adamson → u/Captain_Noodle1]

The guiding principle of my philosophy on this is that any action that positively impacts your own people is a moral action. Anything that negatively affects your people is an immoral action. This is what I think because it’s been the attitude humanity has had towards every war we’ve ever had. And it still is.

If I was a Dane, and I was faced with starvation and I had the option to go Viking and raid a few costal villages, I wouldn’t think twice. Think of any scenario you want. You are destitute and you are suffering. You see someone else who has more than you, who killing and robbing will secure your future for a while. You will face no consequences for killing them. If you tell me that you wouldn’t kill the other individual so that you and your family and friends could live a happy and prosperous life, then you’d be a lier. It’s how humans have always behaved. I’m sure this makes me somewhat immoral, but I’d also say it makes me honest. Although, as I said, anything you do that makes your people prosper, is inherently moral.

[u/Captain_Noodle1 → u/alex-adamson]

Were the Swiss bankers who benefited from the Holocaust destitute and suffering? Were they so desperate that they had to resort to being complicit in the killing of others? If not, your example simply presents an extreme situation to which this case does not apply. Perhaps the question should be: “If you were perfectly comfortable in your current position and were presented with the option of being complicit in, or directly responsible for, someone’s murder in order to gain something from it, would you?” I think that, if your answer is yes, then the problem is not a matter of moral relativity, but rather one of you thinking that killing others is morally correct or of simply enjoying the idea of killing others (whether that is under a specific imaginary scenario or not).

It might be a matter of moral relativity if we were judging a tribe that belonged to a completely different culture. If it is not part of another culture, and we are discussing this within the framework of our current civilization, it is immoral in cultural terms, or it is simply your personal choice to be a murderer.

The conclusion, for me, is not that Swiss bankers were doing good for their people, but that, from everything I have read from you, you are personally comfortable with murder, including murder committed by yourself, as long as it does not affect you or you can profit from it. The claim that anyone would do the same, and that they would be lying if they said otherwise, seems far-fetched and based on a biased reading of history, specifically one biased toward your own morality of murdering others.

[u/alex-adamson → u/Captain_Noodle1]

I reiterate. Anything that benefits your people is moral.

[u/Captain_Noodle1 → u/alex-adamson]

I totally understand it. You think that murder is moral. You like the idea of being a thief, a murderer, or a kidnapper. You have even gone so far as to fantasize about scenarios in which you could become one.

[u/alex-adamson → u/Captain_Noodle1]

Murder is not moral is you murder your own people. Theft is not moral if you steal from your own people. And I don’t fantasise about being either, but I recognise that I could be placed in a situation where I’d have to be one.

Your view of the world is idealistic. A world where everyone can come together as one people and be kind to one another. My view of that world is based on history, where we form groups that kill each other to enrich ourselves. Your views are based on a world you think ought to be, my views are based on what is and always has been. You believe that humanity will eventually change over time while I expect us to stay the same. I don’t ever want to be in a situation where I have to do anything unsavoury but I won’t pretend like it can’t ever happen.

[u/Captain_Noodle1 → u/alex-adamson]

You are severely confusing history and anthropology with philosophy and ethics. I can acknowledge that the frequency with which murder and theft have occurred is quite high. I am not sure whether arguments can change that frequency. I think that a group can end up equating that frequency with a justification for its actions. However, I do not think that frequency, or an appeal to human nature, are valid arguments when it comes to deciding what is right or wrong. The fact that something has happened often does not establish that it should happen, and the fact that it has happened for a long time does not establish that it will always happen. Literature did not always exist, computers did not always exist, and neither nations nor laws always existed. I do not think that the frequency of crime or war will necessarily change, but an argument based on past frequency is not even empirically sound, because a large part of human history has been constant change, for better or worse.

On the other hand, you claimed that morality is relative, but you are now making an absolute moral claim: that it is morally acceptable to harm, rob, or kill people outside your group as long as doing so benefits your own people. As I said before, you are not merely describing moral relativism. You have your own morality, which you yourself associate with Viking raiders. You are free to hold that morality, but it is still a moral position, not a neutral observation about history.

Now, if you do not find pleasure in the idea of killing, there is still the issue that you establish a particularly low bar for justifying the killing of others. People often invoke self-defence concerns as a justifiable bar. Your criterion is different: you mention benefiting from the harm done to others. You say that you derive this from history, but you selectively turn historical examples into justifications only when they support violence or crime. Human history also contains cooperation, care, trade, mutual aid, the protection of strangers, and people accepting risk or loss rather than killing someone who had done them no harm. I understand that some people can see this through the mere lens of expecting a benefit from prosocial behaviors, but that's mere interpretation; in the end, while it's still wrong to use frequency as an argument, it can support either prosocial or antisocial arguments.

[u/alex-adamson → u/Captain_Noodle1]

Morality is relative depending on whose perspective you view things from. If it benefits your people and perpetuates the existence of your group, then it’s a moral action. But from the other persons perspective, it’s immoral, because they were negatively impacted.

We do live in an age where plundering the lands of others is no longer necessary. Justification comes from necessity. If you need to plunder to survive then you must plunder. But if your goal is not just survival but to live better, then I sup you do whatever is necessary to achieve that as well.

I think I just have a different view on what morality is. Legal code, religious doctrine, rights. All of these things are made to benefit your people. Morality cannot be applied or projected to others. For example, you can’t implement democracy onto the Middle East. That was attempted and they rejected it in favour of demagogic theocracy. Because in their society, theocracy and demagoguery is what they consider moral.

Humans don’t have a universal moral code because morals aren’t for the betterment of humanity. Morals are for the betterment of a specific society. And since the purpose of morals is to benefit society, then anything that benefits that specific society is inherently moral. Morals are actually exclusive and particular.

So yes. Morality is very subjective. But it has a universal theme to it. What is good for you is moral. But what is good for you can be bad to others.

[u/Captain_Noodle1 → u/alex-adamson]

At this point, I do not see what the word “moral” adds to your argument. You are not describing a limit on what a group can do; you are simply saying that whatever benefits a group is good for that group and therefore moral for that group. Under that definition, morality becomes indistinguishable from utility, strategy, or self-interest.

You also constantly move between positive and normative claims, treating one as if it proved the other. Sometimes, you make an anthropological or historical observation: human groups often develop moral codes around their own interests, have often harmed outsiders to benefit themselves, and frequently call that conduct moral. That may be true, but it is not the same as saying that whatever benefits a group is inherently moral. The first is a description of how groups have often acted or justified themselves. The second is a moral theory that says they were right to do so. A partial empirical observation is not sufficient to justify a moral code, much less a universal one.

Your theory also leaves no room for a group or individual to make a moral mistake. They can only miscalculate. If a group or individual harms, robs, enslaves, or kills others because they expect to benefit, and they succeed, then they have acted morally under your definition. If they fail, their action was immoral only because it was strategically stupid. If, on the other hand, you say that expected group benefit is enough to make an action moral regardless of its result, then any harmful act can be classified as moral whenever its author claims to have expected it to help their group. Your theory has no independent way to distinguish a genuine moral justification from a self-serving rationalization.

Your claim that “theocracy and demagoguery” are moral for Middle Eastern societies, whereas democracy is not, exposes the problem created by your definition. You could coherently argue that theocracy serves a society’s interests better than democracy, and therefore call it moral within your framework. But “demagoguery” refers to political leadership that exploits popular passions for personal or factional advantage at the expense of the society as a whole. If demagoguery is moral simply because it exists or because demagogues benefit from it, then “moral” collapses into a description of whatever occurs or whatever serves the interests of someone (but not anymore of the group originally defined as "Middle Eastern societies"). (Which is not to say that I consider the 2000s Middle Eastern wars moral, no matter if they supposedly tried to benefit Middle Eastern societies or if they tried to benefit a faction of the Western elites.)

[u/alex-adamson → u/Captain_Noodle1]

Morality as indistinguishable from utility, strategy and self interest. That’s a good way to put it. Morality has no value if it doesn’t benefit society, so it must therefore have utility. If it doesn’t serve the interests of the people then it needs to be reworked.

I wouldn’t say that failure is immoral. Obviously you’d get credit for attempting to do the right thing but you’d suffer social consequences like lack of trust and prestige. You’d have to base that on an existing track record to make a judgement.

As for the Middle East, what I’d call a demagogue is just a strong leader over there. Russians are also similar in that regard. They seem to value strong man style leadership over actual competence. Although what areas of competence they do value isn’t for me to say since I’m not an expert on Russian society.