Is it ethical to have hobbies?

If your other hobbie (career) is sourced in some kind of exploitation (ex. selling over priced diamonds or commemorative coins on QVC, sex trafficking, selling poison) and you feel guilty about this then you may want to attenuate this guilt by charity. Then you can give the charity back to those you are unfairly exploiting as a consolation for the inescapable violence of being.

Just remember, every vinyl disc requires a virginal sacrifice to the Sun to come into being. They call them blood vinyl in my culture. Willing sacrificial virgins are a dime a dozen though, so you've nothing to worry about.

What is it about loving music (which is itself a very worthy thing) that requires you to buy vinyl records? Is it the music or the vinyl that you like? Or is the music you want only available on vinyl?

You need a turntable (not terribly expensive) and an amplifier ("turntables" as such didn't or don't include amps), and either speakers or good headphones. One reaches diminishing returns after a certain point. Maintenance? What's to maintain? If you don't need high end equipment, the costs are not that great. And most people buy music over a lifetime, so one's budget isn't depleted on a monthly basis.

30% is a lot for charity. I'm not knocking it, but but it sounds like your income isn't that great and most people's budgets won't support 30% for charity or religious giving. Giving to charity is imminently worthy, but a third of one's income? Don't forget saving money. Having money in the bank is TREMENDOUSLY helpful in all circumstances, and you don't have to have hundreds of thousands of dollars (right now, anyway). But having say, $10,000 in savings prevents so many minor problems from suddenly becoming major problems. (It takes time to save up money, of course.)

You didn't ask for my advice, but I'm a font of advice, which I can't help giving. Try this:

How much do you spend on these? (The percentages are what is considered reasonable.)

housing.......................30% - 40$ (if you are living on your own. In some cities it is 50%.)
food............................20% (assuming few meals away from home)
transportation.............??? (car or public transportation or bike and foot)
health insurance.........maybe 15% (if you are on your own; less if your employer provides insurance)
savings.......................10%
charitable giving........10%
all miscellaneous expenses.....15%

It adds up to 100%, or more (or less) depending on your circumstances.

Reply to mrassassin777 Ok, now the ethical problem. Whether you should buy vinyl records or not is a "first world problem". Starving third world peasants have to make do with cell phones.

How you make money and what you do with it is always an ethical problem, no matter what.

Your first ethical responsibility is to yourself. If you don't take care of your own needs (within your ability to do so) then someone else will have to help you with your needs, or you will end up on the street. I don't know how old you are. If you are an adult, you are probably on your own.

Taking care of yourself is a lifelong project. It isn't just today's needs that you need to take care of; it's also your needs in 10 years, or 50 years. If you don't save any money while you can, then eventually you will need help just to exist. You probably don't want that.

Hence the budget. Don't spend all of your money each month. Save a substantial hunk of what you earn so that you can take care of future needs.

Many people believe they have some responsibility towards other people. Some of that responsibility is discharged through taxes (some of which is spent on good works). An important part is discharged through voluntary giving. 30% is not sustainable, unless your income is really high (in which case you wouldn't be worried about costs).

When you decide to give to charity, think about it carefully. Not all charities are "good". Some of them are more or less frauds, some of them are very inefficient (they waste a lot of the money they get on overhead), some of them are ineffective (they don't accomplish much), and some of them are self-perpetuating.

Despite the bad ones, there are a lot of good charities. How to find out which ones work well:

Start here - an article in the New York Times about how to pick charities

Guide Star ratings

BBB (Better Business Bureau) ratings

Charity Navigator

GIVE WELL

CHARITY WATCH includes information about sneaky, slippery reporting by charities

I worked in the non-profit sector for 40 years, at various agencies. There are a lot of hard-working, honest people doing excellent charitable work, but there are also a lot of ineffective charities run by hard-working honest people. Why is this so? A lot of projects run by charities are trying to solve difficult human problems, and it is just plain difficult work. Sometimes even honest hard-working people are just not able to accomplish very much. So... choose carefully.

No, it's extremely unethical and deserves severe punishment. No hobbies of any kind for anyone, ever. Ethel should be lined up and shot for her knitting, as should little Ben for collecting football stickers.

Of course it's okay, within reason.

Reply to mrassassin777 I suggest a bracing read of Peter Singer, who will be stringent about your ethics, while playing some favourite tracks through headphones.

[quote=BillytheBard]The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
‘T is mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.[/quote]

But when you try to be more merciful than you actually are, you strain, and then it is not mercy, but righteousness, which someone is going to have to pay for. Therefore give what you can give with good will and no more.

Reply to mrassassin777

One of the non-obvious aspects of consequentialist thinking is that we are not normally consequentialists in our everyday living (which of course raises the issue of why we should even consider consequentialism in the first place - but that's another issue). Consequentialists typically will argue that, although not having any hobbies might theoretically open up more charitable possibilities for a person to choose, in reality not having any hobbies will probably decrease your own welfare and your ability to contribute to the overall value of the state of affairs.

The same sort of reasoning is used to explain how we can still be consequentialist and yet not robots, precisely calculating the perfect outcome. For if we tried to be this way we would not be able to sustain it, and it would be detrimental to our own welfare.

It's similar to how hedonists approach the paradox of hedonism. Enjoyment is good but if you are constantly focused on maximizing your own enjoyment, you aren't going to enjoy anything very much.

Consequentialist thinking usually results in the continual maintenance of our common-sense, everyday notions of morality and only becomes more explicitly consequentialist in political discourse or in extreme occurrences.

So the consequentialist answer to this question, is it moral to have hobbies, is really context-dependent. It's basically what Parfit would have called "blameless wrongdoing".

Quoting darthbarracuda

So the consequentialist answer to this question, is it moral to have hobbies, is really context-dependent. It's basically what Parfit would have called "blameless wrongdoing".

The issue is that, given the way calculating consequentialists (such as utilitarians) evaluate the cost-benefit analysis, there appears to be a lot of context specific reasons to believe giving a lot more to charity. If you are literally saving people's lives, the loss of utility from losing the hobbies is negligible to the positives gained through the charity donations. If you are literally saving people's lives with your donations, then the pendulum swings clearly against hobbies. In fact, it can be argued that your morally obligated to give in much the same way a person is morally obligated to save a drowning child, even if the person gets their clothes ruined. When the choice is between the vinyl collection and people's lives and you pick the vinyl collection, then it becomes hard to say it was not the immoral choice.

Reply to mrassassin777 All I can say is that you'll have to find a balance between the needs of the self and the needs of others.

Reply to Chany Of course there are definite good reasons for contributing the majority of one's disposable income to charity. The consequentialist has to find the balance between not contributing enough and contributing so much that it fails to be sustainable in the long run.

This is why most consequentialists will argue that, although you'd be making the most money by pursuing a high-income job, you're better off pursuing what you want to do, because then you won't get burnt out, and will therefore make everyone else better off as well. Generally speaking. A high-income job won't deliver if the worker burns out after a few years.

Thank you to all of you who have given their responses so far! I will definitely ponder on each of yours' comments.