It sounds to me that you are assuming there are three mutually exclusive regions which are labeled morally good, morally neutral, and morally wrong. If that’s true, then how do you draw the lines to distinguish such regions and who should be the judge? I feel like morality is a sliding scale; one end is really good, one end is really bad, and most of the activities that people do in the society concentrate somewhere in the middle. Before we question the morality of the law firm associates who contributed to the current financial crisis, I think it is important to note that we are judging them based on the outcome which has occurred. While a person is performing an act, such as an associate working in a law firm, his priority is to further his client’s best interest without violating the law. Is it immoral for the banks and law firms to be resourceful and to pursue their best interests for financial wealth? We call it immoral now because millions of people were scammed and lost them home, but five years ago, these “scams” were perfectly legal and it probably never even crossed the minds of most associates at those law firms that they are contributing to the financial crisis today. I feel that even after we start working at law firms, it is difficult to see whether our actions are immoral or not without a high probability of knowing the consequence of our actions. So, my question is that before asking whether we are morally complicit with our work, how are we even supposed to know whether our works are immoral or not?

-- RyanSong - 04 Feb 2010