I don't develop cures for diseases at all. Is this moral?
If I may go out on a limb and speculate, you don't develop cures for diseases at all either. Is this moral?
If someone is going to dedicate their careers to searching for cures to diseases, but only if they can earn a competitive salary doing so, are they more or less moral than us?
For the equivalent case for investment, start with "I don't pay people to search for cures to diseases at all. Is that moral?"
> This is one of the downsides of mobbing, shaming and regulating away outrageous prices. If pharma companies can't charge you in the ballpark of a lifetime's earnings for a one-shot, one-shots will be less compelling to them compared with treatments you have to take twice a day for the rest of your life.
Companies are run by human beings. Ignoring the stuff about "fidiciary duty" (mainly because I think it's highly contentious to infer that it overrides moral choices and partly because that is a highly complex topic in it's own right) - people can make choices that involve making less profit and saving lives. If you're not high enough up the food chain to make these decisions then you can choose to leave your job in protest.
Therefore companies can choose to take the "less compelling" but more moral option. And I can judge them on their choices and so can you. And they can choose to disagree with our judgement. That's how morality works. Shades of grey and difficult choices...
I think in addressing the GP comment I have hopefully addressed yours too. We all make our own moral decisions and we all make our own moral judgements. Just because these processes are complex and reasonable people can disagree doesn't mean that morality is meaningless. It's just means that it's hard.
Small but important side-note: it is not the researchers that dedicate their lives developing the treatments and earning the 'salary' that decide on priorities or businessmodels.
It's interesting that you bring up morality. Our socio-economic 'market' system is 'a-moral' (I'm specifically not saying 'immoral'), so any aspects in which there is a strong 'moral' component should not be left to the market.
If someone is going to dedicate their careers to searching for cures to diseases, but only if they can earn a competitive salary doing so, are they more or less moral than us?
For the equivalent case for investment, start with "I don't pay people to search for cures to diseases at all. Is that moral?"