I’m someone who believes landlording (and investing in property outside of just the one you live in) is immoral, because it makes it harder for other people to afford a home, and takes what should be a human right, and turns it into an investment.
At the same time, It’s highly unlikely that I’ll ever be able to own a home without investing my money.
And just investing in stocks means I won’t have a diversified portfolio that could resist a financial crash as much as real estate can.
If I were to invest fractionally in real estate, say, through REITs, would it not be as immoral as landlording if I were to later sell all my shares of the REIT in order to buy my own home?
I personally think investing in general is usually immoral to some degree, since it relies on the exploitation of other’s labour, but at the same time, it feels more like I’m buying back my own lost labour value, rather than solely exploiting others.
I’m curious how any of you might see this as it applies to real estate, so feel free to discuss :)
OP didn’t say they preached their morals though. Holding morals and preaching them are different things. I’d put this more in the category of people who pray secretly to a different god than the state-enforced religion, since OP is living in a capitalist society whilst not holding capitalist values.
I think there’s got to be room for some grey areas in morality. I abhor late-stage capitalism, but I would not rather die than shop at a chain supermarket.
I fundamentally disagree that this distinction exists, and even if it did this is not a situation where it would apply.
Morals regulate your own actions, there is no point in holding a moral value that you don’t abide by. That makes you a hypocrite whether you preach that value or not.
Preaching it also makes you a public hypocrite if you get caught, but you’re still hypocritical even if you are only betraying a private value, you’re just not accountable to others.
And if that’s all that matters to you then you don’t actually hold that value.
There is room when you can draw a clear line as to why a principle ought to apply in one situation but not in another, an argument that “it feels different when I do it” is no such standard.
For instance, killing is permissible in self defense, but murder is not acceptable. Easy line to draw that makes the same practical action morally distinct depending on context (aggressor/victim).
And if that’s your only option that is a pretty straightforward line you can draw that has nothing to do with your personal gain by ignoring an otherwise inconvenient principle.
“I won’t patronise large corporations whenever I have an alternative” is a fair line to draw, as long as you don’t immediately walk back on it as soon as it becomes inconvenient by being slightly out of your way or a bit more expensive.
OP said no such thing, however. They straight up went “when I break my own moral principles it doesn’t feel as bad as when others break them against me” which is utter horseshit.
You mean to tell me that when you try to kill someone it somehow feels less bad than when someone else tries to kill you? No fucking way, what a discovery!
So yeah, unless OP can actually provide a generalized standard by which anyone can do what they’re doing and still maintain an ethical position, they’re just finding excuses to placate their own conscience, while pretending to maintain a coherent moral standard, when really they never held anything of the sort, they just don’t like to be on the receiving end of the stick.
But it does exist; preaching is persuading or guiding others to follow your own beliefs. If no distinction existed then we would be mechanically bound to preach what we believe, and we’re not, so it’s a choice.
Everyone is a hypocrite to some degree. There are levels of hypocrisy that are breathtaking, and levels that are just meh.
‘Thou shalt not kill’ is a biblical commandment, not a principle. It comes from the fundamental principle of harm minimisation, and the two examples you gave are different (extreme) applications of that principle, see: the trolley problem etc. It’s morality for babies; looking at extreme black and white cases to be able to get a clear, consensus issue. Life is rarely that simple. Morality is never that simple.
I’m not sure, that seems like another extreme interpretation of something more nuanced.