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Comment by designdesign | Hacker News Reader

Just because there's a legitimate role doesn't mean that it's currently being practiced ethically. If it's not being practiced ethically the argument is that you can't ethically profit from it. That's the entire issue.

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No one can sell anything to any police department ethically? If I'm a plumber and the local precinct calls me to fix their toilet, I am morally obligated to refuse?

Why do people always look for hard and fast rules? If it's your business you can do what you want. No one's obligating you to do anything. In this case Slack's employees felt as though it's unethical. That's totally within their rights to do.

Moral systems based on clear and universalized principles are more intrinsically compelling than arbitrary preferences that are merely labeled "moral".

If Slack employees said they felt is was unethical to serve chocolate over vanilla ice cream, none of us would pay attention.

Yes, but there is almost no way to fully follow through on clear and universal principles. Instead of worrying about that, consider the possibility that our moral feelings are generated by a natural receptivity most of us have to the suffering of others, and that even if these feelings to not appear consistent with a universal and logical philosophical schema, I think it's more appropriate to carefully listen to the compassionate concerns of others than to try and develop ways to ignore them.

Maybe there are situations where it's justifiable to sell goods or services to a PD (if there are situations where it's justifiable to buy a smartphone or laptop, this is probably the case in my opinion) but it's still unproductive to dismiss someone who disagrees out of hand. They are probably disagreeing because they have a strong moral feeling about the practice, and it's worth respectfully listening to the reasons they have for feeling so strongly, rather than dismissing it out of hand because you don't think it's feasible to implement universally.

> it's still unproductive to dismiss someone who disagrees out of hand.

My original comment was the opposite of an out-of-hand dismissal. I thought about what he was proposing, carried it to it's logical conclusion, and showed that it was flawed. I then invited him to propose a fix. No fix has been suggested.

> I think it's more appropriate to carefully listen to the compassionate concerns of others than to try and develop ways to ignore them.

Strong, unprincipled moral feelings come to every human since they are a small child. There is good evidence that these are very biased and lead to results that are immoral upon reflection. The world is awash in people announcing their unreflected moral feelings, and these point in contradictory directions. "Listen to this particular random person's feelings....but don't challenge their validity" is not useful advice.

It's true that many moral intuitions we have end up seeming immoral when we reflect on them further, but this says as much about our difficulty with reasoning morally as it does about the supposed immorality of our moral intuitions. I think it's naive to assume that philosophical or logical approaches have a monopoly on morality. That being said, I also think it's unproductive to outright dismiss any moral appeal on the grounds that you would not be happy with implementing its conclusion. Moral philosophers writ large willingly engage with Kantian ethics that be easily interpreted to preclude contracts[0] as well as Singer who advocates for the (disabled) infanticide.[1] Even if we might disagree with a given conclusion, the ultimate object of moral discussion is moral progress, and this does not need to come in the form of final agreement on a principle to be followed in the future. It can come in the form of mutual understanding, education of onlookers, or greater theoretical development even in opposing directions. Implying that someone's conclusion (which I might add is not more extreme or inoperable in its conclusion than many offered by Marx, Kant, Aristotle, Hume, Plato, etc... it is after all only refusing to provide services to the police) is unpalatable for you and denigrating it to an arbitrary opinion is probably detrimental to all of these goals and I urge you to desist with such a tactic.

[0]: On the grounds that when you give someone something in exchange for a promise of theirs that you are using them as a means to an end. [1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1999/09/11/a...

You're now resorting to name-calling, so I'm going to end my involvement with this discussion.

That was absolutely not my intent, do you mind clarifying what part of my post you are referring to?

The arguments I advance aren't just wrong, they're "naive". (There is a useful non-combative useage of the word "naive" regarding ideas, but that's not how you're using it here.) When I disagree with people, I am "dismissing" and "denigrating" them.

The whole point of my post was to point out an alleged flaw in your discursive approach, but I was genuinely trying to temper my language. It's clear I didn't do a good enough job of that. For the record, I don't think a priori morality is an unreasonable belief, I just think there are other compelling theories and that if we want to talk about other moral issues we have to be willing to find common ground in spite of metaethical disputes. There are many philosophers I greatly respect whose beliefs I would also call naive.

Belittling another person is the last thing I want to do, so I'll thank you for the opportunity to improve my manners and drop the issue here, sincerely wishing you the best.

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