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Many people have strong morals, and might resist profit-maximising behaviours, but they will be outcompeted and replaced by less scrupulous people. There is act
by danlitt 1mo ago
Many people have strong morals, and might resist profit-maximising behaviours, but they will be outcompeted and replaced by less scrupulous people. There is actually no sharp difference between a person and a one-person-company, but: to the degree a company is really a company and not just a person, it is amoral. If you disagree, please point to a moral backstop that would prevent any company from taking immoral acts. A few exist, but they are invariably resisted by the most powerful companies. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
- RandomLensman 1mo agoThe people and procedures inside are the backstop.
- pferde 1mo agocan be the backstop. The word "can" is doing some extremely heavy lifting here, against corporate practices which dilute and spread guilt and responsibility for immoral decisions so thin, nobody in the decision chain even realizes something immoral has been decided.
- RandomLensman 1mo agoHave you ever been in committees approving new products or perhaps certain transactions? These chains aren't necessarily that long. But "can", sure, things could fail etc. and some places are better than others at it.
- ksbd-pls-finish 1mo agoIs this the same argument as "please point to a moral backstop that would prevent any person from taking immoral acts"? We usually hope that people will be moral, but can't enforce this.
- pferde 1mo agoMy point was that in big corporations, things are stacked against people wanting to act morally.
- danlitt 1mo agoHow many leadership meetings have you been in where some profitable approach was refused on an ethical basis? (rather than the basis that behaving ethically is actually more profitable, which is totally different) By contrast, how many conversations have you personally had with people working at a company believing a profitable action was firmly unethical, but felt forced to behave that way due to "business realities" or some other whitewashing?
- RandomLensman 1mo agoI think in the end, could always reframe any moral decision as risk management but not sure that is ultimately helpful. I have certainly seen decisions that were taken because it didn't "sit" right to do something (profitable). I'd also say that I feel older (as in existing longer) businesses tend to be on average better there. On the second point: my experience is rather that there is quite a variance in what is considered moral vs immortal and that often drives different decisions (in the same place, some do certain things, other don't and certain experise/people might not be available for X therefore). I cannot say that I have come across many situations where people did something they considered firmly immoral but felt they needed to go along with it (trying to recall some). Yes, finding justifications happens, too, but that isn't necessarily whitewashing as people do disagree to surprising levels. (Changed to moral vs immoral, because that was the starting point.)
- asadotzler 1mo agoNursing has been around for a long time and they have not yet had the ethics in their field crushed by some of the biggest forces in our corporate-friendly system. High school teachers too. I could probably come up with a dozen more given half an hour to think about it. Don't give up so easily. People fought hard to get us here.