The couple arguments against this do not likely hold up against the vast utility discrepancies from resource allocations...
This kind of utilitarian reasoning seems not too different from the kind that would get one to commit fraud to begin within. I don’t think whether it’s legally required to return or not makes the difference – morality does not depend on laws. If someone else steals money from a bank and gives it to me, I won’t feel good about using that money even if I don’t have to give it back and will use it much better.
It is very different from the kind of reasoning that leads to fraud.
Fraud and many other kinds of other criminal behavior corrodes at the fabric of trust that enables our communities, large and small, to operate effectively. Thus, when you diminish the trust that members of society can place in each other, you do immense damage. Thus, in an EV calculation incorporating these kinds of activities, they are seldom justified because the harm risked is colossal.
A retention of a benefit in these circumstances where the grantee is not complicit and is not legally required to return it does not cause or risk the above harm in the least.
If a grant recipients’use of resources is extremely high EV, which it should be, the unnecessary defunding of it is obscenely immoral.
A individual who is in receipt of property that they know to have been stolen is complicit if they did not give reasonably equivalent value for it and do not return it. By knowingly retaining the stolen property, one becomes complicit in the continued deprivation of the victim’s property. This principle is widely accepted when it comes to someone who steals my car and then gives it to a friend for free.
The recipient is not culpable to the extent they already earned/spent the grant, or if the current owner of the car paid fair market value for it—in both cases assuming they had no reason to believe the money/car was stolen.
If that is the state of the law and they have a legal obligation to return it, they should. I just would not endorse returning if not legally obligated to.
More importantly though, we have a vast bias to have motivated reasoning in order to view ourselves as basically good and trustworthy, and we have no good reason to suspect anything else, so I really am not accepting that argument.
most human beings perceive themselves as good and decent people, such that they can understand many of their rule violations as entirely rational and ethically acceptable responses to problematic situations. They understand themselves to be doing nothing wrong, and will be outraged and often fiercely defend themselves when confronted with evidence to the contrary.
This kind of utilitarian reasoning seems not too different from the kind that would get one to commit fraud to begin within. I don’t think whether it’s legally required to return or not makes the difference – morality does not depend on laws. If someone else steals money from a bank and gives it to me, I won’t feel good about using that money even if I don’t have to give it back and will use it much better.
It is very different from the kind of reasoning that leads to fraud.
Fraud and many other kinds of other criminal behavior corrodes at the fabric of trust that enables our communities, large and small, to operate effectively. Thus, when you diminish the trust that members of society can place in each other, you do immense damage. Thus, in an EV calculation incorporating these kinds of activities, they are seldom justified because the harm risked is colossal.
A retention of a benefit in these circumstances where the grantee is not complicit and is not legally required to return it does not cause or risk the above harm in the least.
If a grant recipients’use of resources is extremely high EV, which it should be, the unnecessary defunding of it is obscenely immoral.
A individual who is in receipt of property that they know to have been stolen is complicit if they did not give reasonably equivalent value for it and do not return it. By knowingly retaining the stolen property, one becomes complicit in the continued deprivation of the victim’s property. This principle is widely accepted when it comes to someone who steals my car and then gives it to a friend for free.
The recipient is not culpable to the extent they already earned/spent the grant, or if the current owner of the car paid fair market value for it—in both cases assuming they had no reason to believe the money/car was stolen.
If that is the state of the law and they have a legal obligation to return it, they should. I just would not endorse returning if not legally obligated to.
More importantly though, we have a vast bias to have motivated reasoning in order to view ourselves as basically good and trustworthy, and we have no good reason to suspect anything else, so I really am not accepting that argument.
From Dann Luu here: https://danluu.com/wat/