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Selling heroin to people who aren't even adults is immoral. It's not a trade to sell death to someone that can't possibly be aware of what they're "buying".

Earning is inherently a profoundly moral action, because values are things that advance human interests (not to be confused with desires) long-term. People don't generally pursue lower values over higher ones (unless they are mistaken about what is actually valuable to them).

Values (such as food, clothing, or abstract ideas) are earned, honestly by free minds through great conscious effort. There is no other way.



Certainly, selling heroin to kids is immoral. But it is the process of earning, even by your new definition of the term (an honest, i.e. no cheating, trade of goods/services, both parties know what they are trading). That is my point. Money is readily earned through immoral activity. Which is exactly why money is not in any way an indicator of morality.

You appear to want to redefine "earning" once again so that the definition now means: a moral trade of goods/services. As such, your argument boils down to this: a moral trade of goods/services is moral. Yes, yes it is.

But that also roughly translates into meaninglessness. Good things are good and bad things are bad. Yes. Ipso facto. That's the way it works. There is indeed no other way. But that has absolutely nothing to do with whether money is itself moral (it isn't) or whether helping other people is moral (it is).

Here's a zen story I'm going to mangle that will surely blow your mind:

A father in a small village gave a boy a horse of his own for his fifteenth birthday. All the village were happy for the boy, "how lucky he is" they said. One villager asked the old monk, "isn't it good that the boy got a horse?", to which the old monk replied "maybe it is, maybe it is not". They ignored the old monk and congratulated the boy on having a horse. A few days passed and then one day the boy fell from his horse and broke his leg. All the village were worried for the boy. One villager said to the old monk "you were right, isn't it a shame the boy broke his leg", to which the old monk replied "maybe it is, maybe it is not". Again the villagers shook their heads and walked away from the old monk. Two weeks passed and soldiers from the nearby town rode into the village. All the villagers gathered around and the soldiers said "every abled bodied man must come with us to fight for the Emperor so that the Emperor can conquer more land". All the women cried and all the abled bodied men rode off with the soldiers to fight a war they had no stake in. One of the women turned to the old monk and said "isn't it fortunate the boy broke his leg so he does not need to go die to conquer more land for the Emperor" ... maybe it is, maybe it is not.




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