Everyone has their price?

[iamnotachicken]

Yes or no? Is there a point at which everyone can be bought?

[Knight]

For... what?

I'll only take ten dollars for me to slay a dragon terrorizing your villiage, but it'll cost you five hundred billion dollars for me to not kill you for spitting on me.

[iamnotachicken]

I mean "bought" as in bribery. You would be doing something you ostensibly didn't believe was right. That means we need to be honest, because most people don't like admitting that they compromise their morality, even though it happens constantly. I was inspired to ask the question when this comic popped into my head, and it might help clarify.

[pie]

If we're talking solely about money, then I think there are things that certain people would never do for money. If we loosely define price as anything offered in exchange for an action, then I'm sure there are some things (most likely other people) that people would do anything for. Are there any completely unbribe-able people out there? Maybe.

[Knight]

It's far too vague a question. I'd like to say no, but then a situation where a crime lord has my mother tied up with a gun pointing to her head and him telling me I have to kill twenty people, then I'm not entirely sure what I'd do.

[Agrajag]

I'm going to assume "price" refers to cash monies or other form of liquid currency and so I will so "No".

[Neuvost]

The concept that everyone has a price refers to the idea that at some point the benefit outweighs the immorality. Where does the line get crossed? It would be weird if someone offered fifty bucks to grab your butt, but that's still fifty bucks. But hey, if you're willing to do that, why not go further? What if more money was on the line?

It also differs depending on the moral context. How you value sexual principles might differ from your value of human life. So you might let someone grab your butt for fifty bucks but wouldn't kill someone no matter how much money is on the line.

It's a good moral exercise to try and come up with the absolute maximum you would stretch your principles. How much do you care about other people's feelings? Their money? Your own sexual principles? Someone else's sexual principles? Someone else's life? Weigh that against the reasons that people do amoral things: money, pleasure, revenge. Try not to get caught up in specifics ("Is the person who wants to grab my butt fat? I don't like fat people"). You might find something out about yourself.

[Meetch]

I don't think there is anything I wouldn't do for 100 million dollars tax free. That's the upper ceiling on my morality.

Then I start getting lower and lower for less and less things. I'd do many (if not most) things for only a couple million.

Hell, there's a lot I'd do for a couple thousand dollars.

What can I say? I'm pretty cheap.

[pie]

Money only gets you so far. Granted, so far is pretty far, but there are still limits.

[Agrajag]

I think I'd probably let someone grab my butt for fifty dollars, depending on length of said grab. Seems like easy money that doesn't actually affect me noticeably in any way. I'd never like, kill someone though.

[iamnotachicken]

But what if they were a bad person?

[Agrajag]

How bad on a scale from jaywalker to mass murderer? And even so, does that really affect the grabbing of my ass? I mean I don't think my butt cares whether the thing that's making its nerves react is a table or wall or hand or evil hand. Plus if they were a bad person I could then arrest them and get a reward perhaps!

[Leetmuffin]

My prices start low but have a steep climb.

Like grabbing my butt would be like 10$ but killing someone might run you the range of many hundred billions.

I could make a chart...

[Agrajag]

Yeah that's similar to me. I mean for stupid stuff that's fast and doesn't have any real repercussions for me my price is cheap (easy money!). For more serious stuff the price climbs, and for the really serious stuff I wouldn't do it no matter what.

[pie]

How bad on a scale from jaywalker to mass murderer? And even so, does that really affect the grabbing of my ass? I mean I don't think my butt cares whether the thing that's making its nerves react is a table or wall or hand or evil hand. Plus if they were a bad person I could then arrest them and get a reward perhaps!

I think he was talking about killing a bad person, not letting them touch you.