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JobsAsComplicity 3 - 04 Feb 2010 - Main.EbenMoglen
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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? | | | -- ChristopherCrismanCox - 03 Feb 2010 | |
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> | Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. Perhaps you
misunderstood. Moral complicity is the smaller part of your worries,
because you have already learned how to dissociate from immoral
behavior undertaken for personal advantage, or you wouldn't be taking
the position you're now taking. Your larger difficulty is being
morally dissociative and without autonomy. | | | 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. | |
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> | Taking your law firm down from inside? Perhaps you
really don't know that's arrant nonsense. You think your obligations
to your clients are optional? You think your law firm doesn't know
how to destroy you completely if you decide, without any basis in the
actual law of lawyering, that your obligations to your client are
subject to your personal moral sentiments once you engage? Please
stop posturing and get real. | | | 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? | |
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> | Of course there are such times. So?
| | | -- AndrewCascini - 04 Feb 2010 | |
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