This got very dark very quickly.
It does make me wonder though, to what extent are we responsible for the repercussions of our actions? Where along that chain did it stop becoming the fault of the businessman, if ever?
It does make me wonder though, to what extent are we responsible for the repercussions of our actions? Where along that chain did it stop becoming the fault of the businessman, if ever?
Current ethics would probably say, it was never the fault of the businessman. The profits were ripe for the taking; under a capitalist worldview, someone would have taken them, whether or not it was this businessman.
As far as we can tell, the businessman did nothing expressly immoral- the consequences were externalities, and our moral systems are rarely developed to encompass anything beyond externalities of the first degree, because let's face it- externalities are damn hard to predict, understand, or even monitor.
If you deliberately avoid determining the results of your actions, though you have the capacity to learn, are you still responsible?
And I would argue the moral paucity in the story is more of a 'death by a thousand cuts' sort of thing.
Gimme a break - "someone else would have done that"? Is there really an ethics system that would score this above "shitty excuse"?
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone
i.e., it was not ethical because no one else would make the step either.
Enter stage left: Sustainability.
As someone posted above, the Triple Bottom Line presents a different concept of capitalism that takes into account the limited supply of resources that make profitable life possible. At our current rate of growth, if we do not refocus efforts on sustainable consumption, we will all end up like the fisherman.