If my daughter was hungry there's absolutely no moral depth I wouldn't sink to to feed her. In such a situation, you choosing to starve to death only makes my life easier. I appreciate your sacrifice.

I'm of a grayer constitution... I'll take the best option I can, that still ensures I'm helping support myself/spouse/household. Any chance I get to make a less-ethically-compromised choice, I'll take... but if I have to scrape and fight and do nasty things to hold a basic core of existence together, I'll do it.

No, you would become a slave in your hypothetical.

People who say they would just starve to death instead of do something immoral don't know what it's like to actually starve.

Before you can make such statements you should first be in that situation. A lot of people change their minds once they have to confront something.

I was in that position, several times, and no I did not change my mind.

But I agree with the statement most people would do unethical things if their jobs required it. And I think that's sad to say.

> I would choose to starve then.

I fervently hope that I would as well. Unfortunately I think most of us, including me, have a breaking point at which hunger and desperation would win over principles.

You know, the sad thing is is that I think you're right.

I've met normally good-natured people that, once they became a lawyer/salesmen/financial "advisor", they started doing utterly despicable, wicked behavior and justifying it as "I'm only doing my job". And then they would go on to church, or whatever, all the while thinking of themselves as "good people". Even more interesting, they would rally against "evil corporate behavior" as if they had no role in it.

Yeah, I marvel at the seeming dichotomy in the human mind.

We're capable of such amazing reasoning and creativity, and moral courage. But the very same minds can sustain sets of beliefs that are clearly (to others) internally contradictory or irrational, or that rationalize behavior that's clearly violates one's own ideals.

I have a theory that we use most of our intelligence to rationalize behaviors that did not come about by reason. Over half of nazis were christians, for instance.

See the story of the Donner Party for an example of how warm-bed proclamations of moral superiority (“I would starve to death first”) are rather trite. It’s easy to pretend how great we would be in the face of adversity when in the comfort of not being in such adversity. Look at how prostitutes often end up where they end up: at 11 years old I bet they would have declared that they’d never have sex with random, disgusting people for money while getting addicted to drugs and getting beaten for their efforts.

Maslow’s hierarchy holds true. Morality is a luxury for many.

I agree.

There's nothing worse to me, than the "Champagne Socialist" who hand-waves about the righteousness of socialism, but fails to tip the uber driver. I hate that.

I'm with Taleb in that it's best to judge people when they have "skin in the game". No, I've turned down real-world jobs or gigs or deals where deception was involved and was not in the client's best interests. Sadly, "tactics" and dirty tricks are extremely common in the real world, particularly in sales and law area (sometimes tech). You would be amazed at the number of people that would use dirty tricks if:

  - "money can be made"  
  - "I can get away with it"  
  - "my co-workers are doing it"  
  - (or) "my boss told me to"

And the guys I knew who did this were hardly starving. hell, some of them LIKED doing it. And then they would go on to church or rally or whatever, feeling all self-righteous about themselves. It's god damn bizarre.

Theft is still a much lesser evil than engaging in slave trading though.

However, yeah, I have to agree that it is difficult to judge people for decisions they make while staring death in the face when I'm sitting comfortably at a desk.