Individualism

If I'm an employer employing someone who is not doing well financially, I could be doing well or less well financially. If I'm doing well, I might just be an asshole and want to milk as much money from this guy as I can while still getting him to work for me. If I'm doing poorly, I might need to pay this guy under crappy circumstances to feed my own family. Either way. Although, like you say, we both technically have decision making power in how this arrangement plays out and what ends up happening, I can use the threat of the alternative (that is, what happens to each party if the agreement doesn't work out) to make circumstances that would be ideally undesirable seem desirable in comparison. Whoever has a better/less bad alternative to the deal working out can probably leverage that power more. And I am incentivized to use the threat of the alternative because I need or want more money, usually. Whatever the employer's motivations are to use the employee and vice versa, it is not hard for situations to work out with someone getting used, or the agreement just falling apart altogether. I don't necessarily blame anyone for using anyone else in this situation given that it's so complicated, but it does ask* the question of whether this circumstance ought to have happened in the first place. 

Similarly, take the situation of employees leaving an employer who is doing poorly. Because he is doing poorly, they are incentivized to indirectly cause him to do even worse so that they can earn more. In this case and the above case, the employees might just be leaving this guy under a bus for a little more money or desperately be in need of it now that their source of income is all fucked up. I don't know if it would be accurate to say the employees are "using" him in this situation given that what they did was not a premeditated "use" but rather a reaction to circumstance, but either way these people have to fuck over this guy to get paid more. This also happens in the reverse, where companies have to lay people off to stay afloat. Once again, I don't necessarily blame anyone for harming anyone else in this situation given that it's so complicated, but it does ask* the question of whether this circumstance ought to have happened in the first place.

I am far from optimistic or idealistic about what the socialist/non-capitalist alternative would be (I've flirted with socialism but never really committed to it) because that may have a host of other problems. I haven't heard you talk about why you disagree with my ethical views, but hopefully you can see that capitalism at least has some conflict with my views opposing the instrumentalization (if that's a word) of people. Hopefully that makes some sense. 

Good question.

Perhaps all we can know about the individual is that we are. But certainly it is sacred.

It's a matter of principle. Principle is not subject to circumstance. Principle is fundamental.

While circumventing a direct statement, you're arguing that the employer assume responsibility for the unfortunate circumstances of a would-be employee

And if he has shirked this responsibility, he is somehow incentivized to take advantage of this would-be employee's circumstances and use it as leverage in order to compel the would-be employee to accept terms he would otherwise reject had they made an arrangement on an "equal playing field," correct?

No two parties ever enter an arrangement "on an equal playing field."

You're blaming Capitalism for something over which it couldn't possibly have control.

And I disagree with your ethical views because I do not believe that anyone's owed another's being "nice," or "accommodating," or "willingness to assume their burdens."

This is only true assuming that you only take into consideration one principle when deciding whether a situation is ethical or unethical. If I have multiple principles that conflict in a certain circumstance, that circumstance will inform me of how I choose which principle to favor more. You might "feel" right if you have a bunch of absolute principles/categorical imperatives that never conflict with each other, but they don't make your position right. 

Not necessarily. He might be in a situation where assuming responsibility for someone else may harm him, his family, some other thing of importance. The point is is that it is regrettable that the situation had to come into existence in the first place. 

I don't even know if this is true. Regardless, the bigger problem with your argument is that you're equating all unequal playing fields and implying to me that I have to believe that either they're all acceptable or they're all unacceptable. 

So you are suggesting that the same problems would arise in any other system?

I just believe that people are generally not tools. You can simultaneously not use someone as a tool and not be nice, accommodating, or willing to assume their burdens either. I guess, to clarify, that you could say that using someone as a tool and those three other things are inversely proportional, but I don't believe that everyone has to make everyone else's life amazing. 

Give me an example of conflicting principles? Individualist ones would be preferable given the subject.

then how is one "incentivized" to "leverage" his or her circumstances against the other? 

Give me an example of an unacceptable unequal playing field.

No, I'm saying that regardless, the principles will hold because they delineate the capacity of each individual as his/her own sovereign.

So this begs: what would be your description of a person being treated as a tool?

I don't think you understand (if you do there's no point in me giving an individualist principle in particular); I am not saying that you don't have a set of consistent principles (I actually think you do), but I am saying that not all people have multiple principles rather than a single set of totally categorical ones. So, from another argument I was having with Tarik: I believe both in not using people as means to ends and maintaining a functional society. But sometimes people will have to be used to maintain a functional society. So, in that case I will have to assess whether one principle outweighs the other or the other way around, and part of what I'll use to make that judgement will be the circumstances of the situation. 

I could give you the option of accepting terrible conditions because I know that you're extremely poor and you will take what you can get. However, if you have a decent amount of money, I can't use your wealth (or lack thereof) against you because if I give you the conditions I gave the poor version of you you'd just say no to the job.

I'm incentivized to do this for a variety of reasons, some of which are honorable (feeding my family), some of which are for the sake of maximizing my profits, but the only thing standing in my way of doing that is concern for my fellow man (which I don't think you believe in outside of not violating the rights of others). I'm not necessarily an evil person for doing it and it might be that I didn't even consider that what I was doing may have been wrong, but the act is not good. 

Well a playing field can always end up okay if people act ethically within an unequal playing field, but when a rich business owner and a poor worker are in negotiations one of those people typically has a lot more power than the other (usually the rich business owner) and can engage in practices what are favorable to them at the expense of the other (the worker).

Really any situation where someone has to accept harmful or horrible circumstances in general is not good. The question is whether it'd be practical or ethical for the state to interfere with that playing field. 

What principles?

the individual is sovereign in his or her own governance, being able to choose his or her own associations, being able to act in his or her own interests, and bear the fruits of his/her skills, talents, and labor.

And so you believe that capitalism is the system in which people get used the most? Er....

Someone's existence or some other property that is substantially significant that is theirs being used as a means to an end when they ideally would not consent to that.

I don't see how. Why must this idea be a presumption?

To Truth!

-logicae

I mean, what do you want me to elaborate on? Do you want me to give examples?

Because it's an idea. It's a qualification supposed based on conditions one believes ought to be, not conditions that necessarily are.

For example, one guy captures another guy and makes him work on a coal mine for the rest of his life just so the guy can get coal.

Someone manipulating someone else into being their friend for social status and then cutting off the friendship when the person has the social status they desire. 

A small landlord telling their large tenant that they must give the landlord a piggy-back ride to every place they want to go every day for the rest of their lives or else the tenant gets evicted. 

(Unless you cited random examples that weren't directly pertinent to the subject matter.)

I still don't see how this is a presupposition. Is your statement a presupposition? And if so, is your statement then false?

Yes, and an idea is something we think. There are bad ideas, good ideas, right ideas, and wrong ideas. To say an idea does not reflect "conditions that necessarily are" is an idea itself.

If I accept this idea of yours, I must also accept that this idea is "based on conditions one believes ought to be, not conditions that necessarily are" and so your idea does not reflect reality.

It is contradictory to start with. 

Ideas, however, are based on reality.

What we observe informs our ideas

we can come to an understanding of the truth by these observations. All our knowledge is based on this and all statements (including yours) uses this as foundation.

So our existence must be true based on observation of our existence, otherwise we could not be observing our existence in the first place.

Yeah. I was trying to focus on explaining my ethical theory.

I just gave you examples to try to articulate what my ethical theory is since it seemed like you did not understand and wanted me to elaborate. 

I wanted to reduce the debate to understanding each other's ethical views first because that's where the disagreement stems from in the first place. Then we can move on to capitalism. 

So you do or do not understand what I'm saying about using people as means to ends?

Where did I "disagree"? Do you think I disagree that capturing people and forcing them to work is unethical/immoral? But you're qualifying action using such a broad descriptive, that I attempting to grasp your meaning. 

2. Explicitly state the reasons "using as means to ends" is unethical/immoral (i.e. the moral/ethical principles it violates/infracts.)

3. Explicitly state the reasons Capitalism undermines/subverts this moral/ethical framework.

Not necessarily. I'm not creating a distinction between idea and reality.

It's a qualification supposed based on conditions one believes ought to be, not conditions that necessarily are

verb

1. (of an action, process, or argument) require as a precondition of possibility or coherence. (oxford languages)
   

"I think, therefore I am" -René Descartes

Why do you think the question of existence is a presupposition?

I don't think you understand the weight of what you agreed to.  When you said that ideas do not reflect reality,

you undermine the very statement you make whether you meant to or not.

If the premises are true, then the conclusion necessarily follows. In this case your idea, which you agreed earlier, does not reflect reality.

Your idea is also a qualification supposed based on a condition you believe ought to be, not a condition that necessarily is.

The conclusion is then reached that your idea itself need not be true. You set up an oxymoron for yourself.

In order to presuppose, you must have a precondition. Does knowing our existence require a precondition? No, because basic observation validates existence.

"I think, therefore I am" -René Descartes

Notice there is no former condition required. All that is needed is current validation that a thing that does not need to exist exudes properties of an existing thing.

I need to reciprocate the question back to you, because I don't think you have explained it yourself.

Why do you think the question of existence is a presupposition?