However, moral duty is relevant when it comes to how society should think about debt. Everyone has things they would like to do if they had more money. Society should not be arranged to give people a free pass just because they want to do something that requires money.
A debt is a contractual obligation and should be treated as such. One should not moralize contractual obligations.
E.g. During the housing crisis, there was a lot of moralizing about homeowners walking away from their underwater mortgages. Moralizing about debt in that way is bullshit. When lenders make a loan secured by collateral, they take the risk of the value of that collateral dropping. There is absolutely nothing immoral about forcing a lender to eat a risk it knowingly on.
Similarly, a corporation would not hesitate for a second, on moral grounds, to restructure its debts through bankruptcy, and neither should individuals. No moralizing needs to enter the equation. There is a penalty for declaring bankruptcy and failing to pay your debts, and that is future lenders being wary of lending you money. There is no need to add a moral dimension to the issue.
My point was that when society considers what it's goals are, it should never be a goal that a person should be able to do things that "give their life meaning" when they can't afford them, because ultimately it is a person's own responsibility how they manage their money.
So my post was aimed at people who thought "isn't it horrible that this woman can't do what she wants in life simply because she can't afford it"
I see what you're saying, but I really dislike that way of thinking, because it's justifying something bad by saying "That's what others are doing"
That's like saying that because BP are spilling oil into the oceans and getting away with it, you shouldn't stop doing it yourself.
The world would be a better place if morals were used in more decisions, not less.
It's not a matter of ignoring morality. It's a matter of not ascribing a moral dimension to something that doesn't inherently have one.
In that vein, Google "efficient breach."
Why not?
I mean, if it works for that society and it's democratically passed, why shouldn't a society do whatever it wants?
Use of the word 'should' makes it sound like there's a moral imperative for us to not help each other. I don't think that's the case, and I think there's a good argument that in future we'll need to consider different types of society that deal with abundance rather than scarcity; for example, with universal living wages.
So if I decide it would be really life assuming to quit my job and become an artist, society doesn't have more duty to help me do this than they do to help anyone else on a particular income.
