Why poverty is moral evil?

Question

Why poverty is moral evil?

Answer 1

The existence of poverty implies that someone is suffering deprivation while another has plenty, and in practical terms one person's plenty can be said to depend on the suffering of someone else. Poverty doesn't guarantee that in every case, but in general it's a fair and reasonable assumption.

It's moral evil to enjoy luxury at the expense of someone else's suffering in deprivation, because it violates the basic social value of respecting one another enough to deliberately avoid causing each other needless suffering.

People get confused, though, since the reality is that a person may hoard his wealth without ever being aware that it comes to him by way of someone else's sacrifices. The fact remains that if poverty exists, it represents some systematic evil - a social arrangement that allows or encourages people to hurt other people deliberately  (even if not by any particular evil actions of individual people).  There is further evil in the systematic ignorance of the wealthy about the suffering of the poor. There's some question about how much evil any individual does by not acting to change the situation.

Answer 2

I wouldn't put it that way. Poverty comes when we spend money on harmful things. Wealth comes when we use money for the right things... and that is not always easy to judge.

I think it goes like this... increase the light and with more intelligence money goes to the right place and in time the money problems are gone. More on the light in my biography.

That's how I think it works.

Answer 3

technically it isn't the poverty that is immoral. it is wealth that is immoral, wealth without sharing. taking for one's self while allowing others to suffer. taking too much for yourself.

and this wealth is what allows for the condition poverty to exist. if we were all cavemen that wouldn't be immoral. if we were fighting for our lives to get food, for one to feed himself first and fight for his own food first without sharing, that wouldn't really be immoral. but given such a surplus, keeping such a huge extravagant surplus for yourself while others starve is the immoral part.

Answer 4

perhaps because people in it often criticize the government from there state expecting that the government will treat them like babies in which they don't do anything worthwhile in the economy. They expect that the government would move for them.

One more thing about voting - All they do is blame the politicians - but they are actually the cause of those politicians; they voted and politicians are a part from the people they lived w/ so its common sense (if you don't understand then go to youtube; George Carlin Voting)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u6lCBnRo...

Note: this is the bad side of it but half of it is the governments fault

Answer 5

Lack of money leads to greed.

Greed leads to selfishness.

Selfishness is evil.

Therefore, poverty is a cause of selfishness.

Additionally: people who see people in poverty and do nothing to actually help them further compound the issue by being selfish.

Therefore, poverty can be caused by selfishness, too.

When people give and cooperate, they prosper. This is selflessness, and is an earned trust. Selflessness can help any group get ahead, so long as they work together and adhere to correct principles.

The solution to poverty is therefore education and selflessness in good measure.

Answer 6

As it have been noticed there is not much morality within poverty, those people have no knowledge of sophisticated morality being struggle with their conditions...morality is a priority of those of higher echelons whom creates poverty within a social body. now you decide what is good and what is evil.

Answer 7

Poverty is not evil in any way.  It's a state of being.  Begging for handouts - that is moral evil.  A culture of leeches, cannibals, and self-immolation -  that is moral evil.  The public good - is moral evil

"To redeem both man and morality it is the concept of 'selfishness' that man has to redeem....

The egoist in the absolute sense is not the man who sacrifices others. He is the man who stands above the need of using others in any manner. He does not function through them. He is not concerned with them in any primary matter. Not in his aim, not in his motive, not in his thinking, not in his desires, not in the source of his energy. He does not exist for any other man—and he asks no other man to exist for him. This is the only form of brotherhood and mutual respect possible between men."

-Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness