But those are fundamentally intertwined. If nobody's allowed to buy something, then how is anyone expected to be allowed to sell something? A purchase and sale are not independent events.

I fully agree. But still it makes a difference from a moral analysis point of view, because my aim is to condemn the buyer, and don't judge the seller.

So now you have to convince me that buying the right to beat someone to death is a morally justifiable action. It is not sufficient for you to judge selling as justifiable to make your point. I actually agree that selling is morally justifiable, and would never vote to make this a punishable offense.

Like I mentioned in another branch of this thread, if selling is allowed, then it would be immoral to not allow buying; punishing someone for buying something that's legal to sell would be entrapment.

In fact, doing so might even pass that immorality down to the grandfather seeking compensation for his suicide; if he's aware of the illegality of buying his life, and yet exercises his right to sell it anyway, then at best it's a meaningless gesture and at worst he's complicit in entrapping prospective buyers.

That's what I mean when I say buying and selling are intertwined. Without one, you can't have the other. If one is moral, the other must be moral as well. If one is immoral, the other must be immoral as well. Attempting to carve out an exception is inevitably going to run into all sorts of moralistic and/or logical snags.

Let me try to repeat your argument: whenever something is morally allowed for an individual, the moral system must ensure that the individual actually can do it.

This does not stand on its own, you need to provide a good argument why a moral system should be designed such that everything which is allowed can also actually be done. In particular, because our current system is not designed that way.

And even if you find such an argument, we end up with a moral dilemma, as long as you can't argue that buying is morally good in itself.

"whenever something is morally allowed for an individual, the moral system must ensure that the individual actually can do it"

More like "whenever one of an inherently-coupled pair of actions is morally allowed, the other of those actions is morally allowed". A moral system which allows one and not the other is self-contradictory.

In this case, a moral system which permits the right to sell a life but denies the right to buy a life self-contradicts; unless you believe that it's moral to trick someone into committing an immoral act (I do not), any attempt to exercise the right to sell one's own life would be inherently immoral because of the impossibility of doing so without causing someone else to perform an immoral act. The only way for the sale of one's own life to be moral is for the corresponding purchase to also be moral.

"we end up with a moral dilemma"

Only if you insist that buying is wrong while also insisting that selling is not wrong. When both are right or both are wrong, then there is no such self-contradiction.

> "whenever one of an inherently-coupled pair of actions is morally allowed, the other of those actions is morally allowed".

Why does that follow? I could understand it for actions you are morally obliged to do, but I fail to see why it follows for actions which are merely allowed.

A 6-year old boy is allowed to fall in love with his teacher, but she is not allowed to fall in love with him, so his love - even though morally allowed - can never be fulfilled. That is a perfectly fine situation, from a moral point of view.

A 6-year-old is not capable of informed consent. A 60-year-old man is.

Now you are discussing another topic.

They are intertwined, but the morals of buying are a lot clearer.

So what's your answer?

My answer is that if it can be sold, then it must be able to be bought. My right to sell my existence is meaningless without the right for others to buy it.

Amy attempt to assert otherwise - i.e. to try to sell something which nobody is allowed to buy - would be entrapment and - IMO - immoral. Either ban both sides or allow both sides; in this case, I'd vote the latter.

Let me try putting the question a different way. Suppose there is a way that society as a whole can make some of these purchases, designed to be as fair and moral as humanly possible. Now it's possible to have individual personal sellers without needing individual personal buyers.

Now you can answer this question by itself:

Is it moral to let a multi-billionaire buy someone's life?

If it's not moral for one person to do it, then is it moral for all people to do it collectively? The outcome is the same either way (an old man voluntarily dies and his children/grandchildren are significantly richer as a result); why would it matter who made that outcome possible?

So, then:

> Is it moral to let a multi-billionaire buy someone's life?

In the scenario you've now posited - i.e. one in which society is allowed to buy someone's life - it is moral for a member of said society to buy someone's life. Why would it not be?

There are lots of things it's moral for society to do but not a single person. Like run their own police for their benefit.

Yeah, but those things have a different outcome depending on whether it's a single individual or a society of individuals doing them (in that example: police being accountable to one person instead of the public as a whole).

This is different, since no matter what, an old man voluntarily dies for the financial benefit of his descendants. If the outcome is the same no matter who makes that happen, then I fail to see why one approach to doing so would be more or less moral than the other.

If anything, a single individual purchasing that old man's life would be more moral, since the alternative would be to compel an entire society (and specifically the members thereof) to bear that cost (both monetarily - i.e. via taxes - and the emotional cost of having killed someone). Given that the billionaire is (presumably) a member of society, the net impact is identical, but it's compartmentalized to a single individual who volunteered for those costs versus an entire society of individuals who might not have.