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Old 08-18-2008, 06:19 PM   #5 (permalink)
The Cloud
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I went through exactly the same moral crisis a while back, and it resulted in me doing some things that I would rather not talk about. I'll just say that if you take the philosophy as an ideal (that is, to its extreme), it can become very harmful. It did teach me something, though. The things you are talking about aren't really support, just convenience. It is highly unlikely that any effort on your part to not support their habit will have even the slightest positive effect. If somebody is willing to pay $7 for a pack of cigarettes, then you can bet they'll walk to the ends of the earth to get them, figuratively speaking. The best you can hope to accomplish by withdrawing your "support" is to get them to hide their habit from you. The likelihood of it leading to a personal revelation is virtually nil.

Of course, it's not about them, is it? It's about whether you are ethically obligated to withdraw your support of their destruction. But, if withdrawing your support won't change anything, then was your support really support in the first place? Not really. So while on the surface this seems like a good thing to do, ethically speaking, it can end with some messed-up situations without actually helping anybody.
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