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JobsAsComplicity 2 - 04 Feb 2010 - Main.AndrewCascini
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| | One reason Eben gave for not working at a firm was that firms do morally undesirable work, and that in working for a firm, one's work would actively be contributing to that overall morally undesirable work product. For example, if one was a big-firm lawyer over the past five years or so, one most likely actively contributed to the financial crisis by providing the legal work for allowing grossly unchecked mortgage-backed securities to be created and flipped for fast profit.
My question: Is it true in every job, you are always morally complicit in the work of the company? Note than an answer of yes would mean that when you work for an organization that actively does good, you are also actively doing good. Is there ever any way to dissociate oneself morally from the work of the company in which one participates? | | | More interestingly, is there any line of work that could be considered morally neutral? (For example, serving as a public defender, in which one is merely performing a necessary societal role, such that when one works to actively get a murderer off the hook, it is not viewed as morally wrong in any way.)
-- ChristopherCrismanCox - 03 Feb 2010 | |
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Added a comment box. Hope you don't mind bud.
My first response is that you're not always morally complicit in the work of an organization of which you are a part, because there's always the option of acting contrary to the organization while you're in it. "Taking the man down from the inside," if you will. I know that's not really what you're asking, Chris, but it leads me to a tangential question of my own.
If we accept the notion that joining a firm is pawning one's license, might there ever be a time when you'd actually WANT to do so, for the supplementary benefits that would come along with it? Say you wanted to work in an industry and you wanted to provide justice and social benefit within that industry. Might it be beneficial in working for a firm that does a lot of work in that industry as a sandbox before bursting into the world after a few years to create moral good?
-- AndrewCascini - 04 Feb 2010
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JobsAsComplicity 1 - 03 Feb 2010 - Main.ChristopherCrismanCox
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> | One reason Eben gave for not working at a firm was that firms do morally undesirable work, and that in working for a firm, one's work would actively be contributing to that overall morally undesirable work product. For example, if one was a big-firm lawyer over the past five years or so, one most likely actively contributed to the financial crisis by providing the legal work for allowing grossly unchecked mortgage-backed securities to be created and flipped for fast profit.
My question: Is it true in every job, you are always morally complicit in the work of the company? Note than an answer of yes would mean that when you work for an organization that actively does good, you are also actively doing good. Is there ever any way to dissociate oneself morally from the work of the company in which one participates?
More interestingly, is there any line of work that could be considered morally neutral? (For example, serving as a public defender, in which one is merely performing a necessary societal role, such that when one works to actively get a murderer off the hook, it is not viewed as morally wrong in any way.)
-- ChristopherCrismanCox - 03 Feb 2010 |
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