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Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)

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Re: Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)

#41

Post by einpoklum »

ilammy wrote: post #12

Many countries still have military conscription, so sometimes enlisted soldiers do not really have a choice: you are either drafted with national pride, or drafted feeling moral guilt, or jailed for dodging and then maybe still drafted afterwards into a penal batallion. Or you break and bend the law.

Even when military service is compulsory, there is still _somewhat_ of a choice. In many of these countries you can effectively avoid enlistment - through "undisciplined behavior", playing up health issues, claiming psychological unfitness or even just going "off the grid" for several years.

Re: Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)

#42

Post by effie »

kzrdude wrote: post #35
RashadSaleh wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very important point. It should be considered a cornerstone of democracy to have only voluntary drafting -- just like a free press and general elections.

I would not take that as a fact. Drafting allows for a more representative selection of the population, giving more conscientious and better troops. Drafting is democratic because it is equal. Drafting should also be an anti-war effort. Would you vote for someone who wanted to go to war, if you knew it would send your children or friends into the war? With a draft, the choice to go to war becomes higher profile, and…

> Drafting allows for a more representative selection of the population, giving more conscientious and better troops.

Maybe that is correct, but it does nothing to get more conscientious government and military leadership. There are bad consequences as well - draft can increase duration of war, leading to more crimes and more deaths. Also, drafting strips many people of belief in personal responsibility.

> Drafting is democratic because it is equal. Drafting should also be an anti-war effort.

Do you know what democratic means? If you got drafted into Vietnam war, there was nothing democratic about it. Government lied to people from the start and was covering up evidence of how the war was going.

Re: Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)

#43

Post by einpoklum »

austincheney wrote: post #13
RashadSaleh wrote: post #10

From: 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 contradi…

This line of thinking does not apply to the US military. If you have reason to believe an order is illegal, or even should have known, you are just as guilty of the illegal act as the person giving an order. That being said don’t execute an illegal order hoping chain of command will qualify as a valid legal defense.

Also, you swear your oath to defend the _constitution_, against all enemies foreign and _domestic_:

https://www.army.mil/values/oath.html

this comes _before_ the obligation to obey orders. Meaning that, at least in principle, a soldier is obligated to disobey unconstitutional commands, and in fact, to act to countermand them.

Of course that's not what armies are like in practice, but still.

Re: Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)

#44

Post by ojnabieoot »

kd5bjo wrote: post #18
ojnabieoot wrote: post #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. For…

> Engaging with the question itself is assuming responsibility. This is a dangerous sentiment as it incentivizes people to not engage with such questions in order to avoid the accompanying duty, which cannot be known before considering the question.

To be clear the question is not “is this morally questionable?” but rather “I know this is morally questionable, is there a way for me to avoid responsibility?”

Otherwise I am having a bit of difficulty actually untangling your comment.

Re: Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)

#45

Post by [deleted] »

RashadSaleh wrote: post #17
ilammy wrote: post #12

Many countries still have military conscription, so sometimes enlisted soldiers do not really have a choice: you are either drafted with national pride, or drafted feeling moral guilt, or jailed for dodging and then maybe still drafted afterwards into a penal batallion. Or you break and bend the law.

Very important point. It should be considered a cornerstone of democracy to have only voluntary drafting -- just like a free press and general elections.

[deleted]

Re: Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)

#46

Post by fierarul »

ojnabieoot wrote: post #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. For…

> Engaging with the question itself is assuming responsibility.

This explains why at any major software company looking up for similar patents is actively discouraged.

Re: Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)

#47

Post by thenoblesunfish »

The really tricky issue also comes up in activism. When is inaction wrong? To one degree or another, we all participate as low-level players in evil systems. At what point should we change our own behavior? At which point are we justified in condemning others?

The line is never going to be well-defined, so the best we can do is approach things in good faith, trying to keep a balance and assuming (almost) everyone else is trying to do the same.

Re: Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)

#48

Post by ClumsyPilot »

einpoklum wrote: post #41
ilammy wrote: post #12

Many countries still have military conscription, so sometimes enlisted soldiers do not really have a choice: you are either drafted with national pride, or drafted feeling moral guilt, or jailed for dodging and then maybe still drafted afterwards into a penal batallion. Or you break and bend the law.

Even when military service is compulsory, there is still _somewhat_ of a choice. In many of these countries you can effectively avoid enlistment - through "undisciplined behavior", playing up health issues, claiming psychological unfitness or even just going "off the grid" for several years.

Thats a bit like arguing that poverty is a choice, as anyone able-bodied could teach themselves valuable skills and get a job. And for some people its true.

Maybe Napoleon would always become a leader and a great commander, even if he was born into a tribe of cavemen.

There is a lot of draft dodging in Russia, but the army still gets it's steady stream of conscripts. Most of them dont want to be there.

Re: Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)

#49

Post by roenxi »

ken wrote: post #39
roenxi wrote: post #26

> There are (plainly) bad consulting projects, and so it is true that there is a risk of doing bad work as a consultant. This bit of the argument contains the major flaw - it can be applied to literally any occupation. The most theoretically moral institution we have is the church. Ostensibly dedicated to doing nothing but espousing and propagating good in the world. Now look at what that means in practice for some o…

You're trying to exploit a slippery slope. There are many churches which have had no such scandals, and are not associated with any who have. Just because Monitor (dozens of offices, thousands of employees) worked for Gaddafi doesn't mean "John & Jane's IT Setup Helpers" around the corner must also be an inherently immoral institution.

A core part of the slippery slope argument is some sort of slippage along the slope, ie, change. I'm not arguing anything will change; I'm saying having an impact on the real world always runs an ethical risk. The slope slipped at the birth of commerce, thousands of years ago.

And what if Monitor contracts John & Jane's IT Startup Helpers to do some work? Are they ethically firewalled in some way that Monitor's IT staff are not? Ethics issues could be resolved by clever corporate structure and contracting out services instead of bringing them in-house.

Re: Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)

#50

Post by cycomanic »

RashadSaleh wrote: post #17
ilammy wrote: post #12

Many countries still have military conscription, so sometimes enlisted soldiers do not really have a choice: you are either drafted with national pride, or drafted feeling moral guilt, or jailed for dodging and then maybe still drafted afterwards into a penal batallion. Or you break and bend the law.

Very important point. It should be considered a cornerstone of democracy to have only voluntary drafting -- just like a free press and general elections.

I don't think it's so straight forward. Take Germany for example. During the Weimar Republic the professional army was strongly involved in the dismantling of democracy leading to the 3rd Reich. It's been largely been attributed to the fact that they were quite disconnected from the Republic with their loyalties to their leaders not the republic (typically it's called they were a state inside the state) . Germany deliberately decided on having mandatory military service because of these experiences. The argument being if the army is composed of the people, its very difficult to use them against the people.
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