I strongly agree with this sentiment. However, it is hard for an ethical person to participate in developing war technology when possession and usage of the weapons is purely a political question, and history also has seen our side of geopolitics commit atrocities.
My stance has previously been that I am unwilling to work on weapons technology, because history has shown that these weapons sometimes end up being used for an indefensible cause. Then all of a sudden you're an accomplice to murder, and getting away with it.
In the light of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which is just a continuation of its historical imperialism, working on weapons is something I would be perfectly okay with and probably even motivated to do. But stop for a moment and think what a history of aggressive military actions does to our society's ability to recruit for this important job.
I was a reviewer for a book on ethical machine learning that wasn’t published. I’ll never forget, the author stated “don’t work on anything that could cause harm.” Here I am reading this while working in defense being like “that’s a lazy and dumb position.” Nearly anything in the wrong hands could cause harm.
It’s not unethical to work in the auto industry because people can die in car accidents. It’s not unethical to work in the beer business because people can become alcoholics. It’s not unethical to work for a credit card company because people can bury themselves in debt. And it’s not unethical to work in defense because the weapons may fall into the wrong hands.
What’s unethical is encouraging these problems and not trying to prevent them. And yeah, it’s hard to navigate these ethical issues, but we’re professionals like doctors and lawyers and part of the reason we get paid like we do is because we may have to wrestle with these issues.
> It’s not unethical to work in the auto industry because people can die in car accidents.
Why not? Cars are pretty fucked in a lot of ways. I wouldn't consider someone working in the auto industry to be morally bankrupt but that doesn't mean that automobiles are not ethically ambiguous
> It’s not unethical to work in the beer business because people can become alcoholics
Why not? You are producing a dangerous drug that is constantly killing people. Would you say that people manufacturing illegal heroin are absolved from their externalities?
> It’s not unethical to work for a credit card company because people can bury themselves in debt.
Also why not? Credit cards, like automobiles, are pretty fucked in a lot of ways.
> it’s not unethical to work in defense because the weapons may fall into the wrong hands
Once again, why not? It seems as though weapons have consistently fallen into the wrong hands for all of history.
Im not saying that all people in these industries are bad people, but we can't pretend that our actions have no externalities just because those externalities are accepted by society as normal
* Ropes can be used for hanging, and even for racially motivated murders as they were in the south. Does that mean it's unethical to work for a rope-making company?
* Paint thinner can be huffed recreationally for a high. Does that mean it's unethical to work for a paint thinner company?
* Computer security course knowledge can be used to hack systems. Does that mean teaching or learning computer security is unethical?
The thing about "externalities" is that, while some of them can be blamed on the producers of the products themselves, the blame for others lies on the people using the products. While in the above three cases I listed, the answer is more obviously that the people using the products in a harmful or irresponsible way are to blame, the assignment isn't always as clear cut in other cases.
That being said:
* Saying that working in the auto industry is unethical in general because of car accidents is silly, especially when we are talking about accidents due to human carelessness. Driver education in the US is atrociously limited as-is. While I would agree that some accidents can be attributed to manufacturers designing cars badly, or some other problem on the end of the company, the fact is that, if you put a sufficiently stupid person behind the wheel of a huge metal apparatus capable of going faster than a cheetah, bad things can and do happen with that person behind the wheel.
* Saying that working with alcoholic beverage production is unethical is in my view rather silly. While one could argue, and I would agree, that marketing specifically to drunks is unethical, there are plenty of people (myself included) who have drunk beer and wine, but never gotten addicted. Comparing heroin (a far more addictive and dangerous drug) to a drug that many people have been able to use without getting addicted is poor argumentation.
* Credit card companies may often have predatory practices, but that does not mean that every person who goes into credit card debt isn't using those cards in an imprudent, irresponsible way. While some of them are victims, most would, in the absence of credit cards, be falling prey to some other vice.
* As for defense: while weapons can and do fall into the wrong hands, nothing would change even if we magically went back to the pre-firearm era: bullies would just use swords, clubs, and trebuchets instead of firearms and missiles.
There are many externalities where the blame lies squarely on the companies (pollution, global warming, overuse of plastic, environmental degradation). But to assume that all societal issues involving industries can be blamed solely on the companies and people working in those industries is naïve.
> But to assume that all societal issues involving industries can be blamed solely on the companies and people working in those industries is naïve.
I never suggested this at all. I am just saying that there are externalities that our work generates and we should be critical of that instead of pretending that it doesn't matter.
As for the examples you gave, I think it's pretty obvious that there is a major qualitative difference between manufacturing rope and designing weapons that are regularly used to kill people. One provides general utility and the other is specifically designed to mame and kill.
> Does that mean it's unethical to work for a paint thinner company?
Yeah why not? Shouldn't we be trying to manufacture non-toxic chemicals that don't poison people and the planet. People working at those companies arent solely responsible by any means but that doesn't mean that their actions don't have serious negative affects on society and the planet.
Also cars are bad for many more reasons that just accident. Cars are loud, they pollute, they take up valuable space. Building roads and parking lots to support them destroyed entire neighborhoods, historic buildings and public space. They also isolate people, encourage wasteful sprawling urban design, and make it more difficult for disabled people to get around. The list goes on and on
> I never suggested this at all. I am just saying that there are externalities that our work generates and we should be critical of that instead of pretending that it doesn't matter.
I should have been more clear that this was a general statement rather than a paraphrase of you argument.
My apologies.
There is a qualitative difference between ropes and guns with respect to this argument. I agree with that. I would argue that there is less of one between that and the other things I listed.
> Yeah why not? Shouldn't we be trying to manufacture non-toxic chemicals that don't poison people and the planet.
To be clear: I was arguing whether people recreationally huffing paint thinner was a valid argument against working for a paint thinner company. There may very well be other, valid arguments for not working for a paint thinner company, but people huffing paint thinner contrary to all common sense and the instructions on the container isn't one of them. This also applies to the earlier point made in the thread about car companies: there are many potential ethical issues with working for them, some of which you have listed, but I don't think, say, human-stupidity-causer error by distracted drivers is one of them.
Also, while using non-toxic chemicals is desirable, sometimes it's not an option. This is why, in my example, I chose paint thinner (which AFAICT oesn't really have a non-toxic alternative) and not something like freon, which not only does have alternatives but is arguably much, much more environmentally damaging than, say, mineral spirits.
I'm not sure I've sufficiently communicated the background of my moral ambiguity here. I came of age during the War on Terror; the years where Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria were the primary fronts for Western military power. The brutal necessity of the Western world standing up to aggression against dictatorships was not so obvious during these years; from my vantage point of Western media the impression was that dirt-poor suicide bombers were the biggest risk to our civilization. And we were dealing with those with an aggression that at best left a dubious aftertaste.
One could be excused during these two decades for erroneously assuming that the world has for the foreseeable future moved on towards trade and economic competition, rather than wars of aggression. With nuclear weapons ensuring the balance. It was probably naïve, but not helplessly naïve. Against this backdrop, regularly seeing weddings and maybe-civilians bombed from drones on dubious intel, it doesn't seem like a childish or cowardly stance to just turn one's back on the weapons industry. I'd call that a reflected decision.
The same reasoning is almost palpable in European politics, which made a 180 degree shift away from this in the two weeks after Putin dispelled these notions. My point is, it wasn't obvious from where I stood that we would be back here today. Now that we are, the calculus seems clearer.
Maybe with a more measured US-led use of military force since 2000, Western defense politics wouldn't have required so much hand-wringing.
You can be happily manufacturing weapons for a good cause today only to see your government turn evil the next day. Unfortunately people don't cluster around ideas but geography and that's is out of control for most.
This does not mean we shouldn't do something but we have to realize nothing is permanent and the fruits of our labor can very well be misused the next day.
Like anything difficult there are real risks and trade-offs, but just refusing to engage in difficult pragmatic issues is not the ethical position imo, it's just the easy one that feels good. It puts the burden of actual complex ethical decisions onto other people.
The west needs the capability to defend the ideals of classical liberalism and individual liberty. In order to do that it needs a strong military capability.
>> It puts the burden of actual complex ethical decisions onto other people.
People who may not have even considered the ethical situation. It seems the people who are concerned about the ethics or morality of a necessary but questionable job are exactly the ones you want in that role (although not activists who would try to shut it down entirely).
By your logic, engaging in weapon manufacturing is the only accepted conclusion. In fact, people that refuse to do so are participating just fine, even though you don't agree with their contribution.
My logic is that refusing to engage is not an ethically superior position when the capability is necessary. Engaging in difficult, high-risk, but necessary issues as best you can is.
That doesn't mean everyone needs to work on weapons, just that the work on weapons is necessary and those that do it are not ethically compromised in some way. It's just a recognition of this without pretending not engaging is somehow more morally pure. Not engaging is just removing yourself from dealing with the actual hard ethical issues.
an interesting thought given the politics of the day. If you are not actively engaged in weapon manufacturing are you not complicit in the murder of the Ukrainian people? If you are not actively helping to supply the Ukraine army with weapons for their defense then, by your inaction, are you enabling their death?
My stance has previously been that I am unwilling to work on weapons technology, because history has shown that these weapons sometimes end up being used for an indefensible cause. Then all of a sudden you're an accomplice to murder, and getting away with it.
In the light of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which is just a continuation of its historical imperialism, working on weapons is something I would be perfectly okay with and probably even motivated to do. But stop for a moment and think what a history of aggressive military actions does to our society's ability to recruit for this important job.