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What's moral or not isn't static. Plenty of people believe the suppression of speech is morally wrong. Your distinction between what is morally wrong and what is Socially unacceptable is unclear.

Of course companies don't have the ability to directly change laws in sovereign countries but they can definitely influence them, just like people in mass can.

Whether or not this will have any effect on China I lean towards absolutely not but at the very least some people at these companies don't want to help them.

I should have clarified then,I meant morally wrong according to the the moral views of the person claiming wrong was done. If I argue Google is wrong for moral reasons then I need to argue as to why my standard of morality is accurate and applies to Google.

For your second point,companies do influence policies but they have no right to force a policy. For example,Google can say "we're pulling out of country X because they don't have this policy" that's arm twisting and in disregard to the sovreignity of the country and its people.

Google isn't irreplacable in China,Alibaba+tencent compete with them heavily anyways.

> It certainly isn't a human right.

Freedom of expression is in Article 19 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

why downvote this comment?

i'm not saying you have to agree with it, but this seems like as universally accepted an answer to "what are basic human rights?" as any that might be given (i'm assuming there is actually no universally agreeable definition, but this seems like one of the more respectable and frequently cited sources).

I don't think the downvotes were warranted given that the comment introduced something worth discussing, but my thoughts might be in line with some of the downvoters.

Human rights are not objective truths. The entire concept is something we made up based on beliefs that we formed through the course of history and we formalized the ones that a bunch of us were able to agree upon. They are a figment of our imaginations that we buy into because they're useful tools for structuring a society that isn't absolute chaos. As a result, citing a list that the UN formalized as some sort of factual evidence is, to me, on par with citing religious texts to promote their corresponding belief systems as "correct". That's not to say the list doesn't have value, only that it's open to debate and represents beliefs rather than facts.

You can claim that morality is a fiction, but that doesn’t make it so. It’s not the most common or most plausible view.

You can claim that it’s not the most common or most plausible view, but that doesn’t make it so.

I would wager that most people have never bothered to ask the question because morality is useful either way. Even if your claim is true, most people also believed common myths like the earth being flat at one point, so that’s hardly a compelling argument.

I’m not saying morality has no place, only that it’s not a physical reality and you can’t point to a list as definitive proof of what is and is not moral.

> You can claim that it’s not the most common or most plausible view, but that doesn’t make it so.

You're right. But if it's a question of evidence, I can certainly provide it.

The fact that most people in the world adhere to one of the major religions [1] [2], which have moral duties, a fortiori implies that your view isn't the most common. Even this is vastly under-counting, of course, since it excludes humanists and non-humanists who adhere to secular ethics. I think the uncommonness of your view is quite clear and it would be disingenuous to deny that.

Second, your view isn't the most common even among professional philosophers whose raison d'etre is precisely to ask and analyze these questions. Specifically, your view is the most common neither among those who study meta-ethics nor among the general population [3].

> Even if your claim is true, most people also believed common myths like the earth being flat at one point, so that’s hardly a compelling argument.

I didn't say its uncommonness makes it untrue. I said it's neither the most common (which may or may not warrant a higher burden of proof) nor the most plausible.

[1] http://www.pewforum.org/2017/04/05/the-changing-global-relig...

[2] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...

[3] https://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl

Thank you for the survey results - these are genuinely fascinating. I acknowledge that you weren't arguing that my view is incorrect, only that it's not a given, and I was debating a point that you weren't making. I buy your argument and agree that most people, if asked, would probably give an answer more closely aligned with moral realism than not. What's the case for moral realism that makes it so compelling?

On a separate note, I take issue with the suggestion that an individual identifying with a major religion qualifies as adherence to its principles. This is nitpicking and doesn't impact the larger point you're making, but I think it's an important distinction in general.

> I take issue with the suggestion that an individual identifying with a major religion qualifies as adherence to its principles.

I agree that this an important distinction, but a person identifying with a major religion is a strong prima facie reason for thinking they're moral realists. Keep in mind that believing there are some moral facts is a much, much weaker position than believing all or even most moral claims of their religion are true.

> What's the case for moral realism that makes it so compelling?

My personal favorite are Moorean arguments of the form:

(1) Torturing people for fun is morally wrong.

(2) If there's at least one moral fact, then moral realism is true.

(3) Therefore, moral realism is true.

You can replace (1) with your favorite moral fact, such as

(1) The Nanjing massacre [1] was morally wrong.

(1) The torture and murder of Kelly Anne Bates [2] was morally wrong.

(1) The torture and murder of Unit 731 victims [3] was morally wrong.

and have the argument go through. The key point is that, as far as I know, there's no argument against moral realism whose premises are all more plausible than (1).

Another class of arguments are so-called partners in crime arguments [4][5][6], which link moral reasoning with prudential and epistemic reasoning.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre#Massacre

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kelly_Anne_Bates#Mur...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731#Activities

[4] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/000484008026364...

[5] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00048402.2016.1...

[6] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00048402.2017.1...

The trouble I have with that line of reasoning is that while I believe torturing people for fun is morally wrong (along with all proposed substitutes for (1)), that only proves that I believe that, not that it is a physical reality in the absence of our perception of morals. To be fair, I think the burden of proof for arguing that objective morals exist is incredibly high and I can't think of anything that could reasonably prove it. I'm reading up on partners in crime arguments - looks like there's an incredible wealth of related debate to peruse.

Hope you find this material useful. The way I look at it is the other way around: The burden of proof lies squarely on the person who denies such an obvious proposition as (1). The same is true for similarly obvious propositions like "there is an external world which I can learn about through my senses" and "inductive reasoning is a valid way of attaining knowledge", which underpin the scientific enterprise and, moreover, any basis for critiquing (1) itself. One way to capture this is through the principle of phenomenal conservatism [1][2][3] as formulated by philosopher Michael Huemer. He has also written a book on the subject called Ethical Intuitionism.

[1] https://philpapers.org/rec/HUEPCA

[2] https://philpapers.org/rec/HUECPC

[3] https://www.iep.utm.edu/phen-con/

Not debating whether or not it is a right but the UN isn't the world's moral authority.

I view them as an un-elected advisory group.

In that case you can't say if someone is or isn't a moral right. Its up to opinion and its easy to see how many people consider it a moral right.

No, but China does recognize it as a human right since it has ratified the declaration and they enjoy permanent membership on the Security Council (after having gotten that position from Taiwan, and they did it under the condition that they would uphold their decisions).

I posit that breaking the very morals you believe in yourself, and lying about it, is immoral.

I wasn't refering to what the UN thinks but what is universally accepted as rights humans have. For example liberty isn't a human right,neither is equal treatment. But food,shelter,dignity are human rights. These are rights humans get just for being human this includes prisoners,soldiers and the like.

If you say freedom of expression is a human right,then how come no soldier or prisoner is afforded that right? Did they forfeit their humanity? If so,by what authority did they forfeit their own humanity?

You're saying your definition of human rights is more universally accepted than the UN's?

Not my definition but whatever is actually universally accepted. You'd find a large majority of people outside the west don't think free speech is a human right.

Human right as in rights you have for being a human,not a membet of a specific nation or group but rights you are born with. UN defines human rights based on what member states agree is a human right based on voting and electiond. Universally means by nearly every sane and rational human,not by a simple majority.

Good example: most people agree rape is wrong because it's a terrible thing to happen to person and it isn't acceptable. However,the right to not get raped is not a right you have simply for being a human but rather socieities agrees it shouldn't happen to anyone. You'd find marital rape is unprosecutable in some countries and perfectly legal in the west even in the last few centuries. I.E.: people decided it wad bad.

Otoh: a person can eat(if they find food),sleep,and be alive because they're human.

"corporations don't get to decide what's acceptable in a country."

True, but they do get to decide whether or not it's acceptable to do business in a country.

Yes,eithe they're in or out. They don't get to step in half way and twist arms.

I think you've taken the legal positivist philosophy (what's authorized by those who have authority is law, regardless of morality) and tried to indicate that the existence of said authorization overrides the moral and normative considerations of the actions in question (the law is good - a mere exercise of authority - and you don't get to complain).

I think that's a bit of a naive stretch.

Quite the opposite actually. No law overrides moral convictions of a person. But companies operate under the law. Where the objection is not moral legal authority must be observed and disregard for a nation's laws and customs is disregard and disrespect towards all of it's people.

Where the objection is moral,if your moral worldview has an a moral authority suoerseding a nation state,that moral authority must be obeyed (for example,I have my God as an absolute moral authority with absolute authority over all things)

> However, free speech and oppression of democracy is not a moral wrong.

i and many others disagree with this statement.

> "Free speech" in the west means the Government shouldn't censor speech,this is a relativly new concept almost unheard of in history. It certainly isn't a human right. If a legitimate government of a country censors speech they're merely excercising their authority unless their laws restrict them from doing so as in the west. Whatever your view may be, a corporation does not get to decide social norms and what should be legal in any country.

why should the sovereignty of a national government supersede the inalienable rights of an individual? what makes a particular government "legitimate"?

if a totalitarian government decided that ethnic cleansing against a minority population was the correct course of action for itself, and if it carried that out entirely within its borders, would you consider that to not be a moral wrong, because the nation was exercising its own sovereign power? i'm just trying to figure out how much sovereign government power justifies in your moral framework.

A government is legitimate if it can excercise authority over its people and land.

Sovreignity means even if others disagree with what a country is doing or with the way things are in a country,they have no authority to do anything about it by force. An individual may have their most basic rights violated, however everyone outside of that country lacks authority to help them. That's why countries keep militaries,to protect their sovreignity,not just borders and people. Sovreignity means they have the right to self-determination,the right to decide what they think is legal and what rights people can have and the people get to fight for what form of government they should have and how these rights and laws will be written and executed.

Yes,ethnic cleasing is very wrong,however other countries lack the authority to interfere. They can however ooenly welcome and protect refugees and take diplomatic action that affect that government's relations with other governments.

Your post introduces an imaginary issue. The question is not whether a company "gets to decide social norms", the question is whether a company gets to decide whether it agrees with terms set by a government that conflict with the social norms of the company. The the answer to that question certainly is positive.

A comoany gets to decide whether or not they'll do business in a country after considering its laws and customs. If they decide to do business,they don't get to pick and choose which laws and customs they'll respect. Refusing to provide a particular good or service because of a local law or custom is just as bad as providing a good or service in violation of local laws and customs.

Either you're in or you're out.

Right is right. Socrates died for that. Not new.

We fight for the other people right to speak even if we disagree so one day we are all free. And when idea’s time has come ... let us start earlier

You can fight where you have a right to fight. You don't get to fight for what's allowed in someone else's house.

>>> I get what you're saying but a country is sovreign from othets and corporations don't get to decide what's acceptable in a country.

Who does? How were those people chosen?

People and forces within the country. By peace,agreement and customs or by force and warring they get to fight for and decide what their government should be like and what rights and responsibilities their people will have.

> I get what you're saying but a country is sovreign from othets and corporations don't get to decide what's acceptable in a country.

That is not the question at hand. If China or Iran want to implement censorship, Google can't stop them.

The question is whether Google should help them. And since Google is not a Chinese or an Iranian corporation, but rather an American one, USA as a sovereign country - and, since it's a democratic republic, its citizens - absolutely gets to decide what's acceptable on its soil, for its citizens, and for its corporations.

So, it's citizens get to decide what is legal not what's moral. American law does not define morality. Based on american law,no law is being broken by Google.

If you're saying it's citizens get to decide morality,then which citizens? Is morality a matter of popularity? For example some might consider Google' core business practices thar involve stalking users immoral. On a different note most adults consider adultery and greed immoral but neither is illegal and you don't see people quitting companies because the company is too greedy.

> So, it's citizens get to decide what is legal not what's moral.

The citizens get to decide both for themselves. Then they translate that to public policy in various ways - by voting for people who they expect to pass laws on what they consider illegal, and by e.g. boycotting companies that do what they consider immoral.