Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)
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Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)
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Re: Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)
#2It is interesting that he brings up the assistance of helping Saif Qaddafi getting a PHD as morally flawed.
The destruction of Libya led Africas richest country - with free education and healthcare - to become a failed state with black slave markets and human trafficking.
Is everyone that voted for Obama also complicit in the human misery/genocides in Libya ( or insert Somalia, Yemen, South Sudan, Chad etc.)?
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-libya-security-rights/exe...
https://www.amazon.com/Dissent-Channel-American-Diplomacy-Di...
Re: Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)
#3> So here is an important moral question: is knowledge of moral risk (in the sense of a risk that I will do something bad, unknowingly) a reason to hold me morally culpable?
I would say yes. Let’s make an analogy to physical risk: suppose you are a shift manager who is aware of general and persistent safety issues at a factory (by hearing about mutilations and deaths), even if you don’t know any of the specifics. Formally, inspecting equipment is not your job and you only have “standard” safety responsibilities. Still, if you take no effort to investigate potential safety issues in your own factory line, and one of your workers gets killed due to an undiagnosed machine fault, I would say you held significant culpability in their death.
This might not be legal culpability vis a vis manslaughter or OSHA trouble, but in an informal and societal sense, you could have done more to protect that person, and the only thing stopping you was your indifference and a shield of “it wasn’t my responsibility.”
In general: if you are aware of potential ethical or moral liability, you can’t lawyer or philosopher your way out of it. Engaging with the question itself is assuming responsibility.
Re: Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)
#4It is interesting that he brings up the assistance of helping Saif Qaddafi getting a PHD as morally flawed. The destruction of Libya led Africas richest country - with free education and healthcare - to become a failed state with black slave markets and human trafficking. Is everyone that voted for Obama also complicit in the human misery/genocides in Libya ( or insert Somalia, Yemen, South Sudan, Chad etc.)? https:/…
> Is everyone that voted for Obama also complicit in the human misery/genocides in Libya
On one hand, all American citizens are complicit in US foreign policy.
On the other hand, anti-war voters who voted for Obama didn’t do so because they sold out, it was because the idea that McCain or Romney would be more dovish is transparently ridiculous.
Some people may comfort themselves in a consumerist, selfish fantasy that their vote must express their principles. But voting is an exercise or limited power, not personal expression. Using this power responsibly means taking seriously its compromises and limitations.
Going back to the employment analogy: working for an ethically suspicious employer because you are facing homelessness is a lot more defensible than the Harvard grad who worked for McKinsey after writing a blog post pretending to be anguished about the moral choices.
Re: Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)
#5It is interesting that he brings up the assistance of helping Saif Qaddafi getting a PHD as morally flawed. The destruction of Libya led Africas richest country - with free education and healthcare - to become a failed state with black slave markets and human trafficking. Is everyone that voted for Obama also complicit in the human misery/genocides in Libya ( or insert Somalia, Yemen, South Sudan, Chad etc.)? https:/…
Nah. Voting isn't some divine representation of the will of the people; it's a feedback mechanism to push the governing apparatus toward goals that are beneficial to the voting population, however halting or misguided the approach is.
Some people voted for McCain over Obama; does that give them the moral, anti-war high ground, since Obama killed Libyans and McCain never had a chance to? Not at all. Nor does throwing away your vote by going third party, spoiling your ballot, or abstaining give you any particularly sympathetic reason to morally preen.
Voting isn't a moral activity.
Re: Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)
#6> So here is an important moral question: is knowledge of moral risk (in the sense of a risk that I will do something bad, unknowingly) a reason to hold me morally culpable? I would say yes. Let’s make an analogy to physical risk: suppose you are a shift manager who is aware of general and persistent safety issues at a factory (by hearing about mutilations and deaths), even if you don’t know any of the specifics. For…
What if you are not a shift manager but instead the owner of a factory, and you need more profit so you can invest in some environmentally friendly factory equipment, so you spend less on safety, leading to the the worker’s death? That, my friend, is the question.
Re: Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)
#7> So here is an important moral question: is knowledge of moral risk (in the sense of a risk that I will do something bad, unknowingly) a reason to hold me morally culpable? I would say yes. Let’s make an analogy to physical risk: suppose you are a shift manager who is aware of general and persistent safety issues at a factory (by hearing about mutilations and deaths), even if you don’t know any of the specifics. For…
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Re: Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)
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Re: Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)
#9It is interesting that he brings up the assistance of helping Saif Qaddafi getting a PHD as morally flawed. The destruction of Libya led Africas richest country - with free education and healthcare - to become a failed state with black slave markets and human trafficking. Is everyone that voted for Obama also complicit in the human misery/genocides in Libya ( or insert Somalia, Yemen, South Sudan, Chad etc.)? https:/…
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Re: Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)
#10From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_hierarchy
"strict accountability – those who issue orders are responsible for the consequences, not those who carry them out"
If you are a subordinate and you disagreed with a certain order, either because you think the order is stupid or morally wrong, you can (and should) still carry out the order to the best of your ability.
If the emotional distress caused by a contradiction (perceived or real) between carrying out your duty (which you have agreed to follow strictly) and your moral principles -- if this emotional distress becomes unmanageable to the degree that makes it impossible to carry out your duty (although you know perfectly well that you won't be responsible for the outcomes), you can simply submit your resignation or ask that someone else takes your place.
There is also the scenario where the orders you are given conflict with the law itself, in which case your superior(s) are violating the law in which case you have no duty to carry out the orders.
This is why not every civilian can be a military person.