Can poor people afford to be ethical?

Question

I heard a talk that explained that people must have power before they can be ethical. starving people running for their lives cannot afford ethics. only the rich and powerful can afford to be ethical.
Maybe this explains crime among the poor? But what explains crime among the wealthy?

Answer 1

Interesting questions.

It looks like in the context of your question, you are defining "ethical" only as it relates to crime, so I'll stick to that.

My thinking on crime and the poor is this: The amount of crime among a group of poor people depends on the level at which these factors also exist: 1) fear for one's physical safety; 2) lack of stability, as in not knowing from day to day if there's going to be violence nearby; 3) feelings of hopelessness, numbness, fatalism, lack of control over one's destiny; 4) a micro-economy that is driven by the drug trade or some other highly lucrative but illegal product; and 5) a micro-culture that relies on violence and , intimidation.

In effect, I believe that people who live in our highest-crime/highest-poverty areas are people who live in a war zone - and they respond psychologically exactly the same way as people do in a war zone.

Answer 2

No, not exactly correct.
If someone is fleeing for their life, then yes ethics can take a back seat to survival-but this is usually never the case for the poor. There is no difference in the situation between poor and rich except for the money. If what you propose is right then all poor people would be criminals-and that is just not the case. There are just too many good moral poor people-I know too many of them. Those who commit crimes are criminals before they do wrong. Bad people are just bad people. It all depends on how they were raised-nothing else.

Answer 3

The speaker you were listening to is an idiot. A person's social class has nothing to do with their ethics. If a person were poor but not ethical they could do all kinds of bad things to get money. Then they'd be rich and still not have ethics. It's in how you were raised and that little voice in your head called a conscience.

Answer 4

Who gave this talk and what was his/her basis for saying the poor can't afford to be ethical?

There would seem to be at least a partial truth here, in that lack of power tends to make people vulverable to exploitation. Thus they are given incentives to do unethical things -- though the real criminals are the ones with power.

Answer 5

Well, let's see. There's Maslow's hierarchy of needs. In increasing order, they are: Physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, self-actualization.

My thought is that the higher on the Maslow hierarchy one is, the more ethical he is able to be. Whether he is or not will vary.

A starving homeless man may in fact need (physiologically, due to circumstance) to steal food.

A rich socialite doesn't need (due to circumstance) to steal clothing from Rodeo Drive. That same socialite, although physiological and safety needs are thoroughly met, may have a life which fails to meet the last three factors in Maslow's hierarchy. Thus, they do insider trading and slap Capitol Police officers and get involved with drugs when to "regular people," their lives look perfect.

Life is still choices, and absent compelling necessity for a particular act I see no reason for the Woe Is Me My Life Sucks defense to get people off the hook.

Answer 6

Everything is relative. I work in an Oxfam shop and some poor(er) people come in and say they can't afford to pay a tiny amount for say a pair of second-hand trainers, but the poeple their money will beneift have even less than them. Its up to everybody's own conscience or consciousness how they act towards those less well off. Sometimes time is more valuable than money and can be given by those with less money.

Answer 7

so you mean to tell me that you are trying to classify ethics among how much money a person has...wow that's got to make you wonder something else....if a child grows up and is taught nothing but lives in a wealthy family, does that mean he automatically has ethics?

Answer 8

Greed and arrogance explain crime among the wealthy.

Answer 9

We all have our breaking point, but the beauty of humanity is that it is pretty darned low for most of us.
They weren't kidding when they said you sew what you reap, so in truth, we can't afford to be anything but ethical and moral.

Answer 10

some of the poor are the most ethical, in my experience... it has been my experience that the greater the wealth an individual has aquired the less ethical they are... that is why the rich are generaly, in my expeirience, the least trusting... the least trust worthy are the least trusting.