Alien spacebats force you to do a unethical job, you have to do it for 1 year and you are magically prevented from slacking off, sabotage or suicide. You are magically very good at it. Which job will you pick?
Weapons designer.= your work will lead to a easier to manufacture, more reliable, easier for a child to use, more horrifically disabling version of the AK-47, your employers calculate that they’ll be able to sell/distribute 30 million of them out within the next 15 years.
Head chef at a deathcamp = you have to cook for thousands of guards at an Auschwitcz-style deathcamp. Your excellent food will be the highlight of the guards day.
Legal defence wiz = you are head of a legal team that can unfailibly find exceptions and loopholes to get ANYONE off the hook, your higher-ups assign only those they know are guilty to you, and you have 24 cases a year, all of them murder.
Tobacco Lobbyist = “I front an organization that kills 1,200 people a day”
Drugs cooker = You develop an even more addictive variant of heroin, which is as cheap to produce as regular heroin, your gangster bosses will be able to get a lot on the streets.
Maybe tobacco lobbyist. Don’t get me wrong, I hate cigarettes. But I feel like most people do know what they’re getting into these days with smoking. Or anyway, I suppose that’s what I could say to rationalize it to myself if I’m having a dark night of the soul.
I’d have to say weapons designer. The only way a child, theoretically, could access such a weapon would be due to parental or some other authority figure’s failure. Ideally, the weapon would be used for non-criminal purposes, so I would design such a weapon with only those uses in mind (of course realistically such ideals may not be met but all the other job options don’t even allow for an ideal role which does not involve (directly or indirectly) immoral behavior.
By feeding the deathcamp guards, you are knowingly aiding and abetting them in the carrying out of the unspeakable acts they commit against their prisoners.
The lawyer job is least unethical. It doesn’t matter if you know your client is guilty. Your job is to represent them as best you can within the confines of the law.
I think the point is that all of these choices include aiding and abetting unspeakable acts. At least the chef isn’t helping to cause the unspeakable acts to occur.
I see absolutely nothing unethical about practicing law…as I have done for 16 years now. Also have no problems with weapon design. A weapon is merely a tool, which may be used for good or ill.
Of the remaining choices, tobacco lobbyist is the least unpleasant. Nobody really believes the product is anything but harmful, but it is lawful, and adults are free to choose to use it or not.
Death Camp Cook and Drug Maker are distasteful, but since the OP’s hypothetical negates free will via magic, none of the choices listed are actually morally culpable.
Ah, but OP’s hypothesis is that you’re being forced to do this against your will. I think I’d like being the lawyer – perhaps that would give me the best knowledge, skill, and opportunities to shamelessly embezzle, cheat, and otherwise screw over those very spacebats who are forcibly employing me (eta: even while I continue to do the job that they have assigned to me)! Hey, if I’m forced to be unethical, OP’s hypothesis doesn’t preclude me from being unethical even to the disadvantage of those evil spacebats!
(Does this contradict the OP’s prohibition of sabotage? Even if I’m forcibly employed, is the pay good? Will I get a good lawyer’s income?)
I remain firm on my original assertation; if I am being tasked with designing a new, deadlier version of the AK-47, I would be doing so with the understanding that it would only be used for legal, non-criminal use. Once the gun is manufactured and distributed, I can only depend on the ethics of others to ensure that the guns be used properly.
The chef job is wrong because you are playing an active role in an unethical activity. Their is nothing inherently unethical about manufacturing a weapon. There is something inherently wrong with voluntarily feeding soldiers who torture their captors. (I say voluntarily because you choose whichever job you think is least unethical).
Well I’d have to go with tobacco lobbyist then. Most of those people are dying of old age a little sooner than if they didn’t smoke. It wouldn’t bother me much. Nobody really to take revenge on, which is a downside, but I don’t get to do that anyway.
But see, this is where I think the OP slipped up a bit; he never said you had to act unethically, he simply said you would be forced to take what he considered to be an unethical job. Not all the jobs are inherently unethical.
Chef. It’s not like the guards would go without food if I didn’t take the job. If I were magically good at it, I’d just suddenly have cooking skills! Not saving-the-guilty skills, weapon-making skills, drug-making skills or tale-spinning skills. Cooking’s the only thing I’d feel comfortable still doing after my year was up!
Originally Posted by Ambivalid
The chef job is wrong because you are playing an active role in an unethical activity. Their is nothing inherently unethical about manufacturing a weapon. There is something inherently wrong with voluntarily feeding soldiers who torture their captors. (I say voluntarily because you choose whichever job you think is least unethical).
Um, did you happen to read my post which you quoted?
There is absolutely nothing unethical about that scenario, and only a layman would think otherwise. A criminal defense lawyer is obligated to vigorously defend his client, which means raising any “exceptions and loopholes” that may exist. If the state fails to do their job properly, the defendant should walk.
