To answer your question:
1. A job/career that pays money.
2. Your morals are not my morals. Why try to fit your morals onto others?
Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)
71–80 of 91 posts
Re: Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
If something is morally wrong in a military context, there's a good chance that it's against international law. And the Nuremberg Principle IV states: > The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.
International law does not really apply and is an ideal. The fact is that the state of the world order is anarchy: there is no president of the world or a parliament voted by all inhabitants of the world. Meanwhile, each country has its own laws which really govern the public life of the people. But a very good point though and I don't know if I answered it sufficiently. However I am not sure after WW2 lower ranking…
While the world doesn't have a president, you could call the International Criminal Court in The Hague[1] the world's court. If you're a citizen of or on the territory of a member state the ICC has jurisdiction for war crimes (among others), and the majority of countries are member states.
Of course the bigger players all aren't members (US, Russia, China, India). But WWII Germany wasn't part of anything either and we still had the Nuremberg Trials, so it's very much "international law doesn't apply until suddenly it retroactively does".
It's noteworthy though that the ICC's stance on the Superior's Orders defense is not completely clear for the less severe cases.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court
Re: Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)
#73> 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. Isn't this commonly referred to as the 'Copenhagen interpretation of ethics' ?
It is, and I think that's where GP went a bit too general in his conclusions, which I otherwise share.
The problem with CIoE is "the other observer" - the other people, that judge you for not sacrificing 100% of your resources to deal with an issue that's far outside your area of responsibility, but that you noticed and dared to help with (or even comment on it). That's no way for a society to work. Completely untangling what's wrong with this view is nontrivial, and touches upon a similar question of why won't you, or me, sell all what we have, give it to the poor, and forever live in poverty (as Jesus would want us to).
In this case, I think GP meant a more complex relationship than the word "aware" in "if you are aware of potential ethical or moral liability" would make you think. I think they meant "aware" as "aware in detail and having power to meaningfully affect the outcome".
I'm aware of a lot of bad things that happen on the other side of the planet, that are not in any way caused by me, and which I have no good way of helping with. So I don't think bad about deprioritizing them in favor of things I can help with, as there are countless other people like me over there, who are both aware and able to help with the problem.
Also what matters is the scale and scope of the problem. A manager at a plant can, by their own action or inaction, cause people to get hurt, or prevent that from happening. In this case, not only ignoring the problem they know about is morally wrong, but also doing steps to avoid ever learning about a hazard is itself doing wrong. But that same manager won't single-handedly solve the housing crisis in their city, so I wouldn't blame them if they decided to stop reading news to preserve their sanity.
WRT. consulting businesses, I'd say the knowledge about how they're screwing up companies (and countries) is known, but not widely enough to blame a random new college hire (you have to contrast that with the marketing these companies do to attract employees - so I'd redirect some of the moral responsibility towards people who know and work to get others involved). Joining despite knowing about these things? That's another thing entirely.
Re: Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)
#74Many 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.
Those actions are all really illegal...
Re: Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)
#75> 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. I would argue the exact opposite. Let's stay at the factory analogy: If I'm shift manager and never think about the kinds of accidents that could occur under my supervision and something happens then that's criminal negligence. If I consider the risks, put appropriate safeguards in place, and something still happens them I'm innocent. Accidents happen an…
I believe you misread my argument in the same way that kd5bjo did above and you should see my response to them.
In a later response I specifically addressed the difference between knowing there’s a risk and doing nothing vs taking action that proves inadequate.
Re: Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
By putting a burden on people who know something is “morally questionable,” you are discouraging people from taking actions which might reveal such knowledge to them. In the hypothetical you posted, the manager is not in a position to avoid this knowledge. By your logic, an activist that knows about the conditions inside the plant is also responsible for the safety of the workers, and no action other than successfull…
This is a tortured misreading of what I’m saying - and regardless is addressed by my argument. > you are discouraging people from taking actions which might reveal such knowledge to them If you are deliberately and knowingly avoiding that knowledge to escape culpability then that’s morally equivalent to having the knowledge but failing to act. A police sergeant who says “get a confession, and if you rough him up don’…
I think the OP is concerned with the question "how do I create incentive-compatible moral codes", not "how do I behave given a moral code". In economics theres lots of cases when these two questions are very different questions in a pretty counterintuitive way (except with "laws" replacing "moral codes")
Re: Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a tortured misreading of what I’m saying - and regardless is addressed by my argument. > you are discouraging people from taking actions which might reveal such knowledge to them If you are deliberately and knowingly avoiding that knowledge to escape culpability then that’s morally equivalent to having the knowledge but failing to act. A police sergeant who says “get a confession, and if you rough him up don’…
I think the OP is concerned with the question "how do I create incentive-compatible moral codes", not "how do I behave given a moral code". In economics theres lots of cases when these two questions are very different questions in a pretty counterintuitive way (except with "laws" replacing "moral codes")
I interpreted it that way too.
Ultimately, you can try and build a perfect theoretical moral framework, but if it disagrees too much with how people feel about it in aggregate, it won't take (and you'll do more wrong than good by trying to force-feed it to people). It's e.g. one of the bigger failing of communism - it turned out that the concept of private ownership is close to fundamental to humans[0], so the then-new system failed as soon as people with guns stopped enforcing it.
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[0] - Don't know why, but my pet hypothesis is that it's fundamental to each of us to be able to think about some things as "it's mine, I control it, I'm responsible for what happens to it". Might have been necessary to survival - if there are things your life depends on, you want to have absolute say about what happens to them, so that they are always there when you need them the most.
Re: Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)
#78> 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…
Somewhat agree, but this gets tricky fast. Everyone only has so much time, so how can you tell how much time is appropriate to spend investigating problems that you're only generally aware of? And what about the opportunity cost of all of the things you didn't do instead? Does it matter if the factory produces things that save other people's lives? How much time should you spend trying to figure out how much time you should spend determining whether the safety problem at the factory is worth pursuing?
(I've faced this problem directly at work before.)
Re: Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 i…
> Maybe that is correct, but it does nothing to get more conscientious government and military leadership.
It does. Then public knows that their elected leaders may send themselves and/or their family/relatives/friends. Warmongering suddenly is much more touchy-feely when you got skin in the game.
> There are bad consequences as well - draft can increase duration of war
Longer war is better than loosing. Especially if you're defending.
> leading to more crimes and more deaths
Loosing defence war to some sort of not-exactly-human-rights-loving regime is much worse.
> Also, drafting strips many people of belief in personal responsibility.
How so? It becomes everyone's personal responsibility if the country gets in war.
> 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.
And government was democratically elected, wasn't it?
As a non-american, IMO fully professional US military is the reason for war-happy government. For better or worse.
Re: Deciding to do morally risky work (2019)
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
If something is morally wrong in a military context, there's a good chance that it's against international law. And the Nuremberg Principle IV states: > The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.
International law does not really apply and is an ideal. The fact is that the state of the world order is anarchy: there is no president of the world or a parliament voted by all inhabitants of the world. Meanwhile, each country has its own laws which really govern the public life of the people. But a very good point though and I don't know if I answered it sufficiently. However I am not sure after WW2 lower ranking…
Where I live recreational marijuana use is not legal in my country, but it is permitted in my city and any laws prohibiting it are not enforced.
You are drawing an arbitrary line in declaring "which laws matter." In reality the lives of the people are governed by which laws are most effectively enforced at a local level.