Since you asked, I shall explain. Here is my working definition of something that immoral:
Violating the written or unwritten rules of the society one
lives in, in a way that is directly harmful to another person or
group of people, though ones actions.
So taking drugs is fine, since you are not harming another person. Downloading a film is also fine for the same reason. With selling drugs and jaywalking it depends.
Building a torrent site is different though, because under the rules of our society someone who made a movie can decide who sees that movie and who does not. You are taking that right away from them by distributing that movie. If the rules make sense or does not really matter (within reason), it is a rule that we as a society agreed upon.
EDIT: I don't think morality can ever be subject to loopholes and technicalities, it's governed by common sense.
However, the counter-argument that would let count is good intentions: if OP truly believes that the world might become a better place as the result of his action and he has no selfish motivations at all, I might consider it moral (at least from his point of view).
1. To be immoral, something both has to violate rules of society in addition to being "directly" harmful? So if it's directly harmful but violates no rules of society (e.g. beating and raping women in societies where that's socially acceptable), or it violates rules of society but is only indirectly harmful, it's perfectly moral?
2. What's your working definition of "directly harmful"? Littering directly harms wildlife, does it directly harm people? Buying some drugs directly supports people who actively harm other people. Last I heard, there was mounting evidence that second-hand smoke was worse than what used to be believed; is smoking indoors "directly harmful" to other occupants?
3. I'm not sure what you mean by "counter-argument" (what are you arguing against? Your definition?), but you seem to be saying you feel like there should be intentionality in there somewhere but you're not sure where. I hope you don't need me to tell you that muddies the issue further, e.g. religious fanatics that really believe they're saving souls or the world when they hurt people.
Are you seriously not understanding what I am saying or are you just looking for a discussion?
You asked (basically) why anyone would consider jaywalking, taking drugs, and downloading movies to be ethical, but not hosting a torrent site. So, I tried to give a rough stipulation of my own personal ethics. That definition was not meant to be universal, bulletproof, or exhaustive.
1. My point is that what is considered harmful or not is decided by the rules of society. Different societies agreed upon different rules about what the rights are of a person. If there was a society were there copyright is not commonly accepted then making a movie pirate site is (obviously) not a problem. If you don't agree with the rules, you should work to change them, but not take justice in your own hands.
2. Specifically, I was thinking about a situation where you buy drugs and that money gets used to finance a drug war. Even though, I think that is bad, I don't think it an deciding factor in this case if buying drugs was legal or not.
3. That's why I added "from his point of view". If I would consider it ethical in this case depends on whether I think it is reasonable or not, and whether the mean justifies the end in this case.
I'm sorry, I now realize I didn't express that I was looking for a discussion, you seemed open to that.
1. I feel like you're conflating societies' notion of what people are allowed to do, which is what I'd understand "rules of society" to mean, and societies' notion of what counts as harmful, which I wouldn't consider to be the same thing.
2. I see...so what's your working definition of "directly harmful", and how do, say, littering and second-hand smoke fall into it?
3. I assume you meant "whether the ends justifies the means". So how does the reasonability, and whether the ends justifies the means, fit into your working definition?
> Violating the written or unwritten rules of the society
Considering the amount of people out there that are torrenting, an argument can be made that it is an unwritten rule of society that this is perfectly fine.
> if OP truly believes that the world might become a better place as the result of his action and he has no selfish motivations at all, I might consider it moral (at least from his point of view).
You only have my word (and the lack of ads/monetization) for it, but I truly do.
I also wish the situation would change and we can all license stuff easily and legally. (See my other comments)
allow me han, i still have notes from my social justice class in hs:
basically, ethics:morals::superego:ego, in that morals are internalized but ethics are imposed by an outside authority.
ethics are an outgrowth of human society/interaction on a large scale and almost always imply a system of agreed upon rules and behavior. for example, legal ethics define how a lawyere is supposed to act and conduct himself while in the course of practicing law. medical ethics do the same for medical professionals. these have nothing to do an individuals personal feelings about right or wrong, but merely what is agreed upon but society in a specific context.
morals, otoh, are an internalized set of rules that may or may not be part of a larger overarching system. these tend to be much less black and white than ethics.
to make things confusing, morals can also mean a specific case of how an ethical system is applied, in which case a society can have morals.
practical examples:
doctors are ethically obliged to heal every patient he has to the best of his ability. a specific doctor might consider it immoral to let a murderer live when you have the chance to kill him/her. if a killer (to keep things less grey, assume that the killer is a killer with 100% certainty and no extraneous circumstances), comes before the aforementioned doctor with a wound, the doctor has a range of choices: kill the murderer/patient, heal him/her as best as possible, make a halfhearted attempt to heal the patient/murderer. anything less than healing the patient as best as possible would be unethical because the doctor is supposed to ignore personal biases when treating patients. according to the doctor's ethics, anything other than killing the patient/murderer is immoral.
almost all societies hold that killing another human is unethical. almost all societies have a standing army that is ethically obliged to kill enemies of the society. depending on how you want to look at this paradox, the exceptions to the broad ethical rule of not killing humans has many moral exceptions/loopholes on a societal scale, or you could say that soldiers live by a separate ethical code from the rest of society, under which killing is not forbidden.
there are at least two conflicting ethical codes when it comes to piracy/copyright infringement:
1) depriving someone of their possessions is wrong (aka stealing, ie if i am using it you can't use it), barring a few caveats
2) one should share one's knowledge freely (ie sharing is caring), barring a few caveats
deciding which ethical code takes precedence is a moral issues.
"'ethics' is either the organised philosophical study of the concepts and principles involved in systems of morality [i.e. a 2nd-order enquiry of morality], or it is the set of principles, attitudes, aims and standards adopted by individuals or organisations by which they live and act [i.e. a superset of morality]".
Building a torrent site is different though, because under the rules of our society someone who made a movie can decide who sees that movie and who does not. You are taking that right away from them by distributing that movie. If the rules make sense or does not really matter (within reason), it is a rule that we as a society agreed upon.
EDIT: I don't think morality can ever be subject to loopholes and technicalities, it's governed by common sense.
However, the counter-argument that would let count is good intentions: if OP truly believes that the world might become a better place as the result of his action and he has no selfish motivations at all, I might consider it moral (at least from his point of view).