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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;beef1020, post: 1777691, member: 24544&quot;]Ethics is not a gray area, it&#039;s the <i>process</i> of determining right and wrong, and it is a field of philosophy based on reason and logic. There are multiple different ethical systems containing different tests and values, i.e. utilitarianism, hedonism, consequentialism, etc.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Some basic tests I have discussed before are the golden rule, yes that one, and the Kantian imperative. To find out if a behavior is ethical you apply a set of rules to the behavior and use logic and reason. Examples:</p><p>&nbsp;</p><ul> <li>How much of a dealer profit is ethical? 10% 20% 100%.? If someone lists a coin on ebay knowing full well that they will get more money there then anywhere else is that ethical? Is not doing that dumb even if you start at 99 cents?</li> </ul><p>Any amount of dealer profit can be ethical based on the golden rule and the Kantian imperative. Golden rule states that we should treat people how we want to be treated and as a seller I want to make as much money as possible. The kantian imperative is a test which simply stated is, if the behavior became universal would it have good results or bad. Again, universally applied profit maximization is the foundation of modern capitalism.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Now, if a dealer misrepresents a product and overcharges based on that misrepresentation it&#039;s fraud. If a dealer takes advantage of a new collectors lack of basic knowledge it&#039;s unethical. Things like telling a new collector that their 1877 indian head is only worth $10, or charging a new collector $1,000 for a coin worth $10. Again the golden rule and the Kantian imperative rule out both sets of behaviors, but these behaviors in and of them self are unethical without bringing profit into the question.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Another useful tool is thought experiments. Suppose you dig up an 1913 liberty nickel in your back yard, are you bound by some rule to not sell it for what it&#039;s worth? Is it unethical to make more tham $100, $1,000, $10,000? Of course not, because the amount of money, or profit margin, does not in and of itself make the behavior unethical.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><ul> <li>Is selling at auction houses the only ethical option? What about sellers who negotiate part of the BP into their sale price is that ethical?</li> </ul><p>No it&#039;s not the only ethical option, and negotiating back part of the BP is ethical, same analysis as above.</p><ul> <li>It is generally said that there are more ignorant buyers and they get taken advantage of most of the time. so are we trying to say this is an unethical business as a majority of the transactions are people getting ripped off.</li> </ul><p>Frequency with which something occurs has nothing to do with the ethical analysis, it&#039;s pure rationalization. Well, everyone is ripping people off, therefore it&#039;s OK for me to rip people off. WRONG. Ripping off low-knowledge collectors is unethical. It breaks the golden rule and would put the entire coin collecting hobby into jeopardy if it became a universal principle.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>I would encourage you to do the rest of your analysis for yourself, but use the rules and apply logic not feeling. Ethics is not about how things make you feel, it&#039;s about applying a set of rules to determine if a certain behavior is right or wrong.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>As an aside, you have probably heard of an ethical dilemma, please note that true ethical dilemmas occur when the same behavior is tested with different ethical rules which come to opposite conclusions. So under system A the behavior is considered right and under system B the behavior is considered wrong. It&#039;s very rare to find actual ethical dilemmas and most of the time when people say something is an ethical dilemma what they really mean is &#039;I want to do something unethical and I am rationalizing my bad behavior&#039;.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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