Quote:
Quote by: Captain Cardio 
My question is this; is it possible to be moral and still buy comparatively trivial things for ourselves (ie iPods, nice cars, big houses, other luxuries)
when we could be giving our money to help innocent people end the cycle of struggling for necessities?
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This argument is nothing more than general utilitarianism.
The simple defense goes something like "there are millions of people dying right now because they can't get organ transplants, if we kill only a small number of people and give their organs to others, we can save many more people, for a net gain".
But obviously that is not a moral thing to do.
I think basically it comes down to this: it is not immoral for a person to decide not to decrease their own pleasure to increase the pleasure of someone else.
If you choose to do it, that's a nice thing for you to do.
But you're not immoral for choosing not to.