Zombie69 said:
prof_geoff_tate said:
Of course economic utility/cost-benefit analyses take morality into account.
But not the other way around. Morality and legality have no regard for value. Since i'm talking about morality and legality here (not economics), value is irrelevent.
But legality does take value into account! Jurisprudence is all about (or at the very least can be explained via) the allocation of economic value, as discussed earlier -- despite whatever vague conceptions of "
justice" people might have. Some legal issues -- like minimum wage or anti-trust -- contain a more obvious connection to economic value than others. But make no mistake, every legal issue, from clean air standards to criminal sentencing guidelines, has "regard for value."
And morality, as all-encompassing as it is, certainly takes value into account. Even if you are a moral absolutist, anything -- including value propositions -- can be argued in moral terms. Take the question: "Is it morally right to charge (or pay)
$100 for a hamburger?" Regardless of how obvious one thinks the answer to this question is, it is a moral question about value that can legitimately be discussed.
Anything can be discussed in moral terms.
But even assuming for the moment that morality and legality do not take "value" into account, that wouldn't necessarily make a value/utility analysis irrelevant. Such an analysis would only become irrelevant if, additionally,
it did not encompass morality and legality. By way of analogy, the fact that Paris does not encompass France doesn't make France irrelevant in discussing Paris, because France encompasses Paris -- Paris is part of France. Similarly, the fact, if true, that morality and legality do not take economics into account would not make economics irrelevant in discussing morality and legality if, as I claim, "economic utility/cost-benefit analyses take morality [and legality] into account" -- i.e., morality and legality form part of the economic analysis.
And they do because of the definition of "utility." As it applies to decision-making, utility is designed to capture every good or bad potential effect (as perceived by the decision-maker) of a potential decision. Predicted bad effects -- predicted negative utility -- would include, for instance, incurring criminal sanctions or behaving in a way that does not comport with one's moral belief system. The rational actor will weigh her own expected positive utility against her own expected negative utility in making a decision. If expected positive utility outweighs expected negative utility, she will enter into the decision -- like the decision to by cIV Warlords. Some people here are not going to buy Warlords for that very reason. I'm not passing judgment on that decision. I'm simply pointing out that value/utility is indeed a relevant concept -- morality is a personal value system and legality is a societally sanctioned one -- and mentioning what I believe to be one of the implications of that fact (the self-creation of negative utility).
Perhaps the value you place on certain things -- like the value you place on defect-free software -- is infinite, leading you to look at those things in black-and-white terms. But it is a valuation nonetheless (and I suspect that it's not infinite if you are willing to buy $40 software without being 100% certain in advance that it is defect-free -- even if you expected only a 1% chance of the software being defect-free to your desired standards, that decision would indicate that, if you were consistent in your decision-making, you would be willing to pay $4,000 for defect-free software).
"Morality," "legality," and "value" all have different meanings, but that doesn't make them mutually exclusive concepts. It certainly doesn't mean that a question "about" one of them is not a question "about" another (Is it right to keep prisoners at Guantanamo? Is it legal? What is the societal cost?). Perhaps you find that phrasing your argument in moral terms brings your motivation across more clearly. But it doesn't make analyzing the situation in terms of value any less relevant.
Zombie69 said:
prof_geoff_tate said:
And selling defective products isn't illegal, at least in the U.S.
Never said it was.
Am I misconstruing what you meant when you said "Selling a defective product is wrong and it's actually illegal in any other field but video games"?
Zombie69 said:
But selling defective products and then refusing to fix them is illegal, and this is the case we're facing here. It's just that in the video game industry, they let it go because almost everyone does it. In any other industry, something like this wouldn't fly
It's not illegal to sell defective products and then to refuse to fix them. Rather, generally speaking, to the extent that defective products create real harm to a consumer and the consumer was not made aware of the defects (note this latter point, in particular, which is usually dealt with via run-of-the-mill disclaimers), companies might be held liable for the actual resulting harm. But even then the companies would still be very much within their rights to continue producing and selling those products -- they would just have to be willing to bear the resulting costs.
You'll find plenty of "defective" products in every industry (what is a used car, for instance, if not a "defective" product when held to a standard of perfection?). Most producers and sellers will try to refuse to fix those defects. They'll only fix them if doing so is in their own best interests -- for instance, because fixing them will generate repeat business, avoid negative PR, or avoid a potentially larger payout in a class action lawsuit. But frequently they'll just make it clear that it might be defective in the first place and that they aren't going to fix it if it does turn out to be defective. Such is life. The consumer's position in the marketplace has improved over the past couple hundred years, but it hasn't reached the point that producing or selling defective products is illegal. I seriously doubt that it ever will, since consumers would be shooting themselves in the foot if they were to (be able to) push that far.
*****
In any case, I commend you for sticking to your guns.
I calls 'em like I sees 'em. The reason I said that statement was the previous poster had said that we as the consumer are partly at fault for buying the product. Because we should have expected to be let down for our money from a company that as far as I am concerned had never done this before. I trusted Firaxis to be the worthy company....
