US investigates leak of records showing billionaires pay little tax | Hacker News Reader

US investigates leak of records showing billionaires pay little tax

ft.com

20 pointsbelter8 comments

So what? Billionaires have accountants. Any reasonable human should have one as well. Tax mitigation != corruption.

Does it follow that philanthropy does not equal ethical behavior? Ie:

1. Corruption cannot include legal behavior in which every ("reasonable") human partakes. [Implied: because it is legal]

Therefore, 2. Ethical standards are encoded in law.

Therefore, 3. Ethical behavior is governed by law.

Therefore, 4. Voluntary actions not specifically compelled or disallowed by law have no ethics.

My point is that it is possible for something to be legal, common, sensible from a perspective of pure self-interest, and still wrong and worthy of reproach.

Who determines these "behaviors" or "standards" if they are not encoded or governed by law? Whence law and whence ethics?

Hard questions that require philosophers or priests to answer competently, and every human to make an effort. I'm only asserting that law and ethics are not synonymous: lawful evil is a box in the meme.

Philosophers have had thousands of years of deliberation with no concrete and objective consensus on the subject and priests have manipulated people for thousands to believe that they only have the agency to submit, not the agency to act freely.

I understand your point that law and ethics are not same. My question is when, where, why, how and with whom do these supposedly distinct concepts originate in a world where conclusions are require incontrovertible proof and not mere belief or peddling thereof?

A very good set of questions.

There will never be an objective consensus. You may only add your answers to a cacophony.

You might like to start here, for philosophers: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics/

And here for priests: https://people.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/TalmudMap/Mishnah/MMaim....

https://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/06558/frontmatter/9780...

I do not understand why HN allows submissions that require a subscription in order to be read.

it doesn't, unless a workaround exists. put it through archive.is to read: https://archive.is/aoUvm

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