ETHICALLY, when don't I have the right to ask a high price to sell what I own?

Question

ETHICALLY SPEAKING, when (if ever) don't I have the right to ask whatever price I like for something which I rightfully own (e.g., made out of things I own or bought rather than stealing)?

Please give a reason for your reply. I am not interested in what the law says my rights are, or what gets me into Heaven. The question is about what obligations could trump property rights.

Answer 1

Excluding serious cases when free hospitality would be appropraite (a sick/dying/injured person asks for emergency assistance), you always have that right. For example: there is a drought and you have a large supply of bottled water. You could keep selling it at what was the normal price before the water supply plummeted, or you can raise your prices to reflect the new supply and demand. If you try to help people by selling at the old price, you have no gaurantee that that will do anything to help people. For all you know, people are buying your water and reselling it for a profit. If you are concerned for someone and feel the need, you can give to them specifically out of your own money. Just keep business separate from charity. To say you have much more of a social responsibility than what I listed is to use marxist ideas.

Answer 2

I can think of many examples. If you live in a village and the wells of everybody else have gone dry, but you are certain that yours has enough water to supply the entire village, but instead of giving water out, or charging a minimal price, you extort the others, forcing them to pay large sums or else go without water and die. That's obviously ethically wrong.

"what obligations could trump property rights?" many ethical obligations trump property rights. Say there is a fire on your property and you see that a small child has snuck on to your property and is now in danger. You can either save that child or save your big screen tv. (assume you have no insurance) Your obligation to save that child trumps your right to property. Anybody who seriously claims that they did nothing wrong by letting the child burn to death because they did not put them there and they have an absolute right to their property would be rightly seen by society as a monster.

The right to property is not a very strong right. Ethically speaking, it can be trumped by many other ethical claims. Rights, especially property rights, have acquired a sacred status in our society. But we shouldn't confuse a cultural idiosyncrasy with whats really right or wrong. If you really want to argue that nothing trumps property rights, your position can quickly be reduced to the absurd. I used the example of a big screen TV vs. a child's life, but it could just as easily be an article of clothing, a chair, or a penny.

Central to our idea of rights is that our rights are absolute. As long as we don't actively infringe on the rights of others, we are doing nothing wrong. That this is an absurd position can be shown by the fact that it would claim that a person who choose to save a shirt they owned instead of a child's life would have done nothing wrong. In case you can't tell, I reject the whole notion of rights. Virtue ethics and utilitarianism are far more defensible ethical systems.

Answer 3

This sounds like a "lifeboat" question. It would unethical for you to ask a unmeetable price for something that sustains life for your companions.

The ethics get more blurry if you own the only dock in a fishing community . For the betterment of the community , you could allow free docking or you could charge a fee. If that fee prohibits a fisherman's family from earning a minimal earning, that too could be unethical.

Answer 4

Well you can charge what ever you want for your own property, but I say it is unethical to charge unreasonably high amoutns of money for something. Unreasonable is defined by the supply of an object compared to the demand for it on the market today (for example it would be unethical to sell a pencil for $20 when someone could buy one at the store for 75 cents).

Answer 5

Okay, no dancing then. Ethically speaking you should not sell what you own for a high price when the person who requires your goods will kill you for them if they can not afford them. You are ethically responsible to preserve your own life. I hope this helps out with whatever Your trying to figure out.

Answer 6

Ethically specking, only when you price the object or thing so that people who need it to survive cannot purchase it. A good example of this would Pharmaceuticals. Many drugs that the elderly or sick need to survive are either out their ability to pay for or they must choice between eating or dying.

Answer 7

You can ask a high price to sell what you own anytime. The outcome relies on the expectations. If your ownership is high in quality and demand, and low in supply, price relates to whatever the market will bring, ETHICALLY SPEAKING, that is.

Answer 8

There is no ethical point of veiw at all..if you have something someone wants and they are willing to pay the price....so be it.
It's only "considered" immoral if you have something that would save someones life or is needed in an emergency.
As for property rights......you can ask what ever you want...the problem is....the gov't can take it and only give you what they think is justifiable.....not what you think you could get.

Answer 9

You live on the east coast, you know a hurricane is coming in. You wait until every one has sold out of plywood, then you sell your supply at an outrageous price, knowing that people will pay any price to protect their homes and family.

You are endangering people and property to line your own pockets.

This is unethical.

Answer 10

When the price you are selling if for highly exceeds the actual value of the product. You have the right to make profit, but not by marking up above the resonable amount (unfortunately I can't help you by giving exact amounts since different items should be marked up different amounts).