But if "empty living space", space that's reserved but unused, is immoral would you extend it to any such reserved but unused living space?
Is an empty room in your house immoral? Or massively oversized rooms even if you live in them? In the end you're still blocking a lot of "empty space" that someone else could use if only there were smaller but more living units. Same applies when you live in a detached house and "blocking" any potential living space that could have existed on higher floors of a tall apartment building. Zoning laws can also be an issue but the question stands.
To put in in practical terms, one person having two 50sqm/550sqft apartments is immoral. One person having one 150sqm/1500sqft apartment is fine? Where is the line and how arbitrary do you want it to be?
It’s not clear exactly where to draw the line, but that’s true of all kinds of moral distinctions. So I don’t think that kind of slippery slope argument is very persuasive.
I didn't mean it as a slippery slope argument, rather an explanation of why calling "this in particular" immoral is probably just one person drawing the line in such a way that what they need/want is perfectly covered. It's more likely that their changing needs/wants move that bar, than that the moving bar changes their needs/wants.
So "buying a house and purposefully leaving it empty is immoral" is bound to change the moment they purchase a second, empty house.
Years ago I hosted some African refugees in my home for a short time while more appropriate accommodation was in the works. I cannot describe the feeling I had seeing one of the children understand how a modern toilet works: we do our business in a bunch of clean water, and then dump a bunch more clean water to take it away. Given their circumstances this was probably the most immoral thing we could have done in the modern world.
>It's more likely that their changing needs/wants move that bar, than that the moving bar changes their needs/wants.
This seems to be an unsupported speculation. And indeed it cuts both ways. Maybe you only think the second house is ok because that covers your needs and wants (either present or future anticipated). If you leave out the psychologizing, there's nothing to your argument beyond the slippery slope. Even if the exact location where individual people draw the line is psychologically explicable based on self-interest and their particular life circumstances, it still doesn't follow that a moral distinction cannot possibly be made.
More generally, it's fairly obvious that people who believe in strong property rights will tend to be people who have lots of property and people who don't will tend to be people who don't. That doesn't invalidate the arguments of either side; these have to be evaluated on their merits. You can say "I bet you'll believe in strong property rights once you own a house!", while a homeless person might equally say "I bet you'll have more sympathy for squatters once you've lived on the streets for a year!" Those sorts of examples tell us that people aren't perfectly disinterested when forming their moral outlook, but it doesn't tell us much about where moral distinctions can or can't be drawn.
What you do with it (or, don't do with it) is not morally neutral. I believe that hoarding it, preventing others from living in or purchasing it, is immoral.
No, because if there is not enough for other people they either are forced to get exploited by landlords or become homeless. Purchasing real estate is immoral, as is whole notion of rent-seeking through usurpation of unused land such that other persons cannot use it when you don't use it and occupy it.
A fair point. I thought what I was saying was too obvious to expound further, but here goes:
Buying a house in order to leave it vacant is morally neutral. To wit,
Mike Murderer buys up real estate along the river and leaves it empty so that the dead bodies he stores inside are not discovered. Mike has acted immorally!
Mayor Susan convinces the city council to buy up real estate along the river and leave it empty to facilitate moving the residents there to higher ground to avoid expensive and dangerous seasonal flooding. Susan has acted morally.
But they both took the same positive action: purchasing real estate. This action was morally neutral.
As other people in this thread have correctly noted, it’s the justification not the action that has moral implications.
It is correct. Moral neutrality is a mental defense mechanism to avoid bad feelings. The vast majority of folks find it easier to rewrite their interpretation of events than tell themselves no.
So if you buy a fixer upper, one that would be unfit for renting to people. You can't spend your weekends and holidays working on it for a few months to get it into better condition without being called immoral? Sorry that my lack of funds and desire to better myself offends you, but that's a crazy take.
I actually lived in a country where everyone had a right for free shelter. It was called the USSR.
The quality and quantity of said shelter was beyond abysmal. Several families sharing a single apartment, a family per room, was the norm.
If anyone attempted to squatter anywhere, they would very quickly find themselves free sheltered in Gulag. If they were to argue for their rights against oppression and exploitation, like you do, they would be very quickly free sheltered in a mad house and injected with generous doses of haloperidol.
What is ironic is that I’ve people living like that in the US too. I once lived in a building with a lot of immigrants from different parts of the world. I once got a glance in a living room walking down the hall: two bunks in the living room dozens of people inside. Another apartment was a studio apartment shared by two guys whose main source of income seemed to be charging lime scooters in the apartment. They’d be hauling scooters in and out all day.
So maybe things wouldn’t be that different at all for the poorest of this country but they’d not have the boot of monthly rent pinned on their neck.
Yeah, on the other hand you had Anarchist Catalonia or currently Zapatistas. In USA you had MK Ultra, where government experimented on people through for example drugging them and you have homelessness too. Moreover people who fought for liberation were diagnosed with schizophrenia.
We in the USA are the wealthiest nation in the history of the world. We could solve homelessness and hunger tomorrow.
I'm not saying that people should lose their property to squatters, that's not the solution. I'm saying that we could build ~300,000 new homes and give them to people for free and it would barely register on the national budget.
It's crucial to understand that if we let a person that build a shelter keep it for eternity then that person can build many shelters such that there will be no land left for other people to build their shelters on.
Everyone is entitled to free shelter, but nobody is required to build them? Where do you think the free shelter is going to come from? Because, looking around, I don't see very many free shelters, so they're going to have to come from somewhere.
And if your answer is to take all the existing houses and give them, one to each family that needs a place to stay, that's great in the short term. In the long term, though, who's going to build a new one when it will just be taken from them? And if nobody builds new ones, where are new ones going to come from, as the population continues to grow?
At worst everyone should have an access to piece of land where they can build a shelter for themselves, or live in a yurt or an RV if they don't want to build the typical housing.
All Spaniards are entitled to enjoy decent and adequate housing. The public authorities shall promote the necessary conditions and shall establish appropriate standards in order to make this right effective, regulating land use in accordance with the general interest in order to prevent speculation.
It does not mean you have the right to live in a flat en La Castellana for whatever you want pay. It means the State has to implement policies to help people access housing.
Also, article 33 give citizens the right to private property. You cannot come squat in my house because article 33 should prevent it, even when article 47 exists.
Let's avoid considering outliers to maintain a balanced discussion.
While I don't believe anyone has the right to live in Castellana or the Royal Palace, it also wouldn't be fair to require someone to move to the desert to find a home.
I don't think there is a clear "N amount of days away from the residence means you're not actively living there", the court would look at many factors.
For example, if it's evident the owner is intending to return, there is personal belongings, utility contracts in the owners name and such, courts would (probably) consider it your primary residence even if you take an extended leave from it.
On the other hand, if you're away for several months, there is no clear intent to return and you've removed all furniture/personal belongings, courts can think it looks like it isn't your primary residence anymore, especially if you own other properties that it seems you might be living in instead.
Like most issues in society, there isn't any clear dividing line and no guarantees. That's why we have the legal system we have after all, so nuances can be taking into consideration.
Is your car sitting in your driveway right now? Someone else could be driving it, it's immoral that you don't leave the keys sitting on the roof.
Is your bed or couch empty right now? Someone else could be sleeping there right now.
Do you have money in your checking account? Someone else could be buying the things they need with that money, you should put the cash outside for them to take.
A house sitting empty while the owners renovate, look for tenants, try to sell, etc is a normal and necessary part of a functioning society.
The solution to housing shortages is to build more housing. That's it, that's the whole solution.
To take this further, everyone here has a computer. Obviously you don't use 100% of the cycles all the time, so it is immoral if you do not install a program that allows anyone else to use your unused cycles.
Yes there are power costs with 100% usage vs idle time but there are also cost of upkeep on a house.
It's not absurd. Yes, it's immoral that I am as wealthy as I am (relatively, on a global scale), and it's immoral that I get to eat so much better than others in the same society as I am in. It doesn't mean I'm going to do anything about it, it just means on that axis, I am not a particularly moral person.
I mean, the massive infrastructure waste that exists to accomodate unproductive cars is a real point that degrades where we live.
So much space in towns dedicated to storing cars while they're not being used, taking space away from where housing can be built. As a non-american, I believe that parking lots are immoral as well :)
Buying a car and purposefully not using it 24 hours a day as an Uber is immoral. I'll take yours when you leave it parked, okay? You can have it back when I'm done with it, probably when it needs major repairs because I'm not putting any money into it. As the owner of record, that's your problem.
Is an empty room in your house immoral? Or massively oversized rooms even if you live in them? In the end you're still blocking a lot of "empty space" that someone else could use if only there were smaller but more living units. Same applies when you live in a detached house and "blocking" any potential living space that could have existed on higher floors of a tall apartment building. Zoning laws can also be an issue but the question stands.
To put in in practical terms, one person having two 50sqm/550sqft apartments is immoral. One person having one 150sqm/1500sqft apartment is fine? Where is the line and how arbitrary do you want it to be?