Is it wrong of me to be using these songs? (cancel culture)

I don’t think I know the artist you’re talking about as I don’t listen to many contemporary artists… However, I’ll just apply basic philosophy and morals to this situation as this is usually what I do.

In the Natural Law Theory, most actions that are usually morally permissible still have bad side effects. This is only allowed because of the Principle of Double Effect (PDE). The PDE states that a permissible act remains permissible with bad side effects if:

  1. You only intend the good, forseeing the bad.
  2. The good does not come about as by means of the bad.
  3. You have a serious enough reason for allowing the bad. (rules of thumb to decide whether your reason is serious enough: the good is proportionate to the bad, the more distant and unlikely an event is to happen the less serious your reason must be, the less control you have the less serious of a reason you need)

So applying this widely used and accepted theory by ethicists and philosophers all around the world, using their music is completely permissible and is also completely moral. You meet all three main criteria with flying colors. Especially with point 3 because you have very little control over whether everyone else stops using this artists music and whether or not someone will get offended. You have no moral obligation to stop using that artists music. A lot of people may feel differently, but morality is objective, and you’re in the clear.

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