So this became a moral challenge . . .

I'm not going to bore the readers with a long and detailed drawing of the scene we found. I just need people to understand why I say this farm project has become a moral challenge. So if you are interested in right and wrong, good and bad, read on. Otherwise read the next post.

These were the moral issues involved:

• What we had found was land that was abused. 
• We had found that the owner was in distress.
• There was at least something in it for us if we went forward. 
• We had the means to do something about it.

So we had to do it because this important moral principle was at stake: If someone can do some good thing without sacrificing something of equal moral consideration, then they ought to do it.

Dr. Singer's principle can be extended to land and biome stewardship as well, but you would have to take the course in environmental philosophy and I don't recommend it. It is safe to say that if people find themselves in the position to protect their environment, any bit of it, then they ought to do it for the sake of everyone else providing they don't sacrifice something of greater moral consideration..

Not only this, but there are other important moral principles at play: In the Kantian sense I was not using the homeless woman as a means only to my own ends, so it was okay, and if everyone did stuff like this then I think the world would be a better place, so I was probably doing the right thing. While Hume would say that the greatest good for the greatest number would be the homeless woman no longer being homeless, our family gaining the farm, and the world getting this great place to go and be. And if we were thinking of Locke we would have to say that wasting of the land is morally reprehensible, so we are at least trying to do the right thing by Locke's standards.

All of this combined: It would have been impossible for me, a Senior student of moral philosophy, to have walked away from the homeless and helpless woman, the hopelessly distressed land, and the good financial deal we found. Even if I could have done so, I would have needed to hand the problem off to someone who was more able to help or find myself in a moral hazard. And since there was an eventual pay-off for us, the land and our dream of Creekside Farm, I was not sacrificing sufficiently to say that this was anything other than a neutral moral object. Even an avowed cynic would not be able to say I was doing this solely for my own gain, but one could ask the question.

Twenty years from now I want people to know that the entirety of my personal fortune was achieved doing rightful action according to substantial moral principles.