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Are you morally obligated to repay a loan that you take?[W:461]

Is there a moral obligation to repay money you borrow?


  • Total voters
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I have a twist on this that may or may not have been discussed already.

Suppose you have a loan with a co-signer - are you morally obligated to keep up with payments on that loan so as not to negatively impact the co-signer?

Of course. Unlike the mortgage lender, the cosigner of the loan didn't sign his or her name to maximize profits but as a personal favor to the borrower. So it would be immoral to take a "what's best only for me" approach to defaulting on that loan when the person guaranteeing YOUR loan takes an uncompensated personal financial risk on your behalf.

However, when our clients asked us about making personal loans or cosigning loans we always said, fine, but you should treat the loans and the amount guaranteed as a gift, and if you get repaid or don't have to make good on the guarantee, a financial windfall.

Now if the co-signor was one of the idiots who rented out their good credit to deadbeats, they ought to know the people on the other end of that transaction aren't going to behave "morally"..... Got Good Credit? Rent It Out For Cash!
 
I have a twist on this that may or may not have been discussed already.

Suppose you have a loan with a co-signer - are you morally obligated to keep up with payments on that loan so as not to negatively impact the co-signer?

dealt with this a lot when couples would divorce
the court's divorce decree would define who got what property and would identify what payments were to be made, if any, to whom, for what

and often the spouse living in the home, the court decree indicating its mortgage to be paid by the former spouse, would insist that (s)he was not liable for the debt they had signed. because the court had decreed it
not true. the spouse whose home is in default can either pay the indebtedness him/herself or take the ex back to court to find a way for that ex to pony up
otherwise, the default places the home in jeopardy of foreclosure due to unresolved default

and since we are discussing explicit financial contracts here, i will not enter into the morality/immorality of one's failure to pay their just financial obligation. it's immaterial
 
Of course. You borrow, you pay it back. Its simple for a moral person. For a low life, i guess its complicated. Ill pay it back if i have any means. If im choosing between eating and having a place to live, ill eat and stay sheltered, but too many take liberties with "able"

Ive been poor and ive never defaulted on an loan. You make sacrifices.

Im not shocked that lefties think its ok to not pay back loans. They are dispicable
 
Of course. You borrow, you pay it back. Its simple for a moral person. For a low life, i guess its complicated. Ill pay it back if i have any means. If im choosing between eating and having a place to live, ill eat and stay sheltered, but too many take liberties with "able"

Ive been poor and ive never defaulted on an loan. You make sacrifices.

Im not shocked that lefties think its ok to not pay back loans. They are dispicable

I'm just curious, in which other areas are we morally obligated to make harmful financial choices? And does this moral obligation to comply with the terms of a contract in a way that is financially harmful extend to corporations?

But in at least one way we do agree - Trump, who has defaulted on many loans through his business, is despicable. :peace
 
Of course. You borrow, you pay it back. Its simple for a moral person. For a low life, i guess its complicated. Ill pay it back if i have any means. If im choosing between eating and having a place to live, ill eat and stay sheltered, but too many take liberties with "able"

Ive been poor and ive never defaulted on an loan. You make sacrifices.


Im not shocked that lefties think its ok to not pay back loans. They are dispicable

THE donald trump, announced presidential candidate for the republican party and principal of many bankrupt organizations, is a lefty?
 
A pretty substantial body of research at this point outlines some pretty dramatic differences between how liberals and conservatives think. I think what we're seeing on this thread is really mostly just a difference in how liberal and conservative brains function. Fundamentally, all the studies of the question find that conservatives are rule followers. They prefer clear cut, simple, rules to live life by. Liberals tend to prefer more nuanced, complex, analysis. We don't much like simple rules and tend to try to figure out a path in life in a series of contingent analyses. Liberals don't care what "rule" somebody came up with, we want to know who is hurt and who benefits and how much so we can try to figure out whether a particular action is good or bad. That is true regardless of whether you're talking about a big moral question or if you're talking about some sort of logic puzzle researchers are using- conservatives are quick to accept very general rules and are very adept at applying them mechanically where liberals are much better at analyzing the specific facts of a particular situation and making an original assessment of what is to be done in that situation.

The conservatives on this thread are mostly just repeating over and over "the rule is that you pay back debts!" more and more emphatically as the thread goes on while the liberals are arguing about real world effects of different courses of action in specific situations. To the liberal, the difference between a moral person and an immoral person often lies in figuring out what the righteous course of action is in a given situation. We want to understand what path will make the world a better place. Conservatives generally believe that the righteous course of action is obvious without thinking about it- you follow the rule that you learned in Sunday school or intuited or whatever, and the important part is complying with the rule. Morality is largely an intellectual challenge to liberals where conservatives tend to view it as entirely a behavioral challenge. Conservatives tend to think liberals are just not moral enough to follow the rules and liberals tend to think conservatives are just not smart enough to think through specific situations.

It's pretty much dead on what the research suggests this discussion would go like.
 
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