The original question: Is it moral to drive a fancy car on streets where people are starving?
Is this the same as asking: “is it moral to show your face in public if you are incredibly beautiful?”
“Is it moral to drive past jobless people at 7:45 in the morning when it is obvious you are going to work?”
“Is it moral to buy ice cream or any other non-essential foods when the person working the till does so for minimum wage?”
People are always going to find something to be jealous about. Is jealousy always a bad thing? It could be argued, and if memory serves I believe it has been argued, that person A being jealous of person B’s car or whatever could translate the jealousy into working harder so that he can also move up in the world, so to speak. Discontent can be a good motivator, I guess. :-\
Really? I hope not!
I always though that jealously itself was supposed to be the sin, not being the one others are jealous of.
Let me illustrate:
We can't get rid of the feelings of jealousy so why not try to avoid behaviour which causes it.
We can't get rid of the feelings of lust so why not try to avoid stimuli which causes it. We should cover our women! For they cause lust!
I’m not sure this type of motivation is necessarily a good thing. For example, one is not likely to be killed for one’s beautiful face, one’s job or one’s ice-cream.
Well, I think most of us quite like lust.
If society were to collapse entirely it might actually be a good idea to cover your women to protect them. Nothing is absolute. Were society to to evolve to a state of greater equality jealousy might become less harmful as well. Anyway that’s how I see it.
On second thought, in the unlikely event of complete societal collapse and being faced with desperate women seeking my protection, I would instead arm them and teach them to defend themselves. I find chicks with guns way more aesthetically pleasing. ;D
Simply driving a schwancy car through a desperate neighbourhood neither adds nor detracts from the well being of others. The act is amoral.
Mintaka
If one assumes that the way we assess our well being is entirely rational and one ignores the emotional aspects of that assessment process, sure.
I think morality must necessarily be more pragmatic than that. The only real issue here is starvation, and how it is influenced by someone showing off. No one can be held morally responsible for another human’s emotional wellbeing. IMHO, it simply becomes way too subjective. One can’t possibly hope to be sensitive to something as diverse as other people’s emotional preferences.
Flaunting wealth can at most be considered poor taste, a point you’ve made already, but it is morally neutral.
Mintaka
I don’t hold anyone morally responsible for their behaviour. That doesn’t prohibit me from judging their behaviour from a moral perspective.
Legally, it’s neutral. Morally, I think it’s wrong. Rationally, it seems a bad idea unless you have very large bodyguards.
Not sure that I see a difference between the two?
Mintaka
To help better explain what I’m getting at, here’s a youtube video of a very sexy, intelligent woman:
Well, just because I don’t like someone’s behaviour doesn’t necessarily mean I blame them for it, or want to punish them for it, I just want them to stop it.