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Comment by efitz | Hacker News Reader

How do I reason ethically about this?

I am a security professional. My work directly affects the security of the systems I am responsible for. If I do my job well, people’s data is less likely to be stolen, leaked, intentionally corrupted, or held for ransom. I also influence privacy related decisions.

I work for a Mag7 company. The company has many divisions; the division I work for doesn’t seem to be doing anything that I would perceive as unethical, but other divisions of my company do behave in a way I consider unethical.

I’m not afraid to take an ethical stance; in a previous job at another company I have directly confronted my management chain about questionable behavior and threatened to quit (I ended up convincing them my position was correct).

So how do I reason about that? Really the sticking point is that large companies are not monoliths. Am I acting unethically for working for an ethical division of an imperfect company?

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There are many ways to reason ethically about your situation, and you could start by using historical philosophers as inspiration.

Bentham might apply if you consider the overall outcome: is the work your company does positive or ethical for the majority of people the majority of the time? It seems like the “greatest good for the greatest number” would allow for some small unethical aspects so long as the outcome is good for the majority. This could also be seen as a shortcoming in that philosophy because it justifies some pretty terrible actions for the greater good (some of which, like the Manhattan project and its outcome, are mentioned elsewhere in this thread).

Kant might make you look at your company and imagine that all companies acted that way as a way to reason ethically. If all companies acted the way your company acts would that be good or bad for humanity? Kind of like the golden rule, but more rational.

There are many more to consider but it’s my view that most of them will get you to the point where you probably shouldn’t work for an unethical company, even if your particular work or area of focus is perfectly ethical. Mainly because you working for the company allows or helps it to exist in some way, and we don’t want unethical companies to exist. So maybe you could reason your way into working there if your sole focus was finding a way to destroy the company somehow. Otherwise it’s probably better to work elsewhere.

Thank you!

As an aside, I consider anything that actively subverts the company, beyond whistleblowing, as unethical, and in fact, it’s a threat that people like me have to defend against, so I would never involve myself in such activities.

I actively criticize and state my contentment for Microsoft, and other companies. Those statements may harm the image and the bottom line. Am I subverting those companies? And yes, I do wish for Microsoft and other companies market share to demise and shift else where. Companies can get too big they turn into a market bully by request free labor to get and retain their business. Personally experienced this.

Kroger is a good example of a large market share. They hide behind multiple grocery store names as a dark pattern to fool consumers that there is actual market competition. This allows for them to price gouge the consumer with lack of seller competition. Producers loose their selling power with the lack of buying competition too. Making those statements, am I subverting Kroger?

If they're cool with whistleblowing they're cool with journalism.

They were referring to stuff like sabatoge, I'm sure

I don't have an answer to your question, but I can give a method that usually helps me think about these things.

I try to find theoretical situations that I find easier to think about, and hence easier to judge on a moral level. Usually I construct these situations by going to extremes with certain variables. What if your company had one employee? What if all of humanity was its workforce?

For example, let's say your employer just employs you, and your job is to press a button every month that kills a random person and generates 30k dollars. That's a situation where I personally find it very easy to make a moral judgement.

Then, in very small increments, try and change this theoretical situation to more closely resemble the real thing. Maybe there's some context missing, maybe one of the variables is too extreme. And with each increment, try to pass judgement.

For example, you can change the kill button so that maybe the button has some positive effect (maybe it kills someone, but also cures two terminal cancer patients). Or maybe you want to increase the number of employees and see how that makes you feel.

It's not a silver bullet, but there's a chance that pursuing this mode of thought ends up enabling you to confidently assess your personal situation in morality. It's also not necessarily easy. It can be difficult to find the right starting point (there's more than one!), or the right incremental change (there's more than one!). I hope it may be of help.

For an example of this way of thinking you could look up Peter Singer's argument for charity, or the pro stem cell research argument which asks you to choose between saving little girl or a box of embryos from a burning building (I forget the origin).

An ethical absolutist would say "yes." But you might guess such a person is not very popular, as there is almost no aspect of simply being alive that could be considered ethical.

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