I’m just going off the descriptions. I would be gifted with magical cooking skills and my food would be the highlight of their day. Enabling their acts would be building or designing weapons to help kill people or, after crimes have been committed, helping them escape punishment. They will be fed, regardless if they have a magic chef or not, but cooking food that is the highlight of their day that is made from recipes from the culture of the group in the camp would be a form of subversion. Bonus points if every day they happily request dishes that are not from their native language. Having them speaking the language of their prisoners and be excited about their culture strikes me as highly ironic.
But it is the chef’s choice to enable their existence in order to continue their unspeakable acts of torture; it is clearly compliance in the crime.
But seeing as how the chef is not a judge and jury, he’s not passing judgment on the guards; he is simply providing chow. They are going to eat anyway with or without chef. The chef is only concerned with cooking the food provided to the best of his ability.
Were the Jews who were put in service of the Nazis who ran the concentration camps complicit in the holocaust? I don’t think so.
Lawyer, for the reasons so well articulated above by Oakminster. Based on a strict reading of the OP, I don’t see a requirement to break the law during my skilled defenses. If the state can’t prove its case using its own laws, then an acquittal is appropriate.
On a pragmatic level as well, even if all 24 clients end up going on to murder again, it’s still a lot smaller of an impact than the other examples.
I chose lobbyist. Why? Well, head chef, drugmaker and weapons designer won’t make as much money as lobbyist or lawyer, but I wasn’t sure I could stomach the lawyer part. Oh, and being charismatic for once in my life would be awesome. Plus it’s easier to fool yourself if you aren’t right in the middle of it like drugmaker, chef or weapons designer.
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Yes, you <i>should</i> refuse to serve the death camp guard pizza (in the hypothetical situation where you have a choice). I mean, we don’t all live up to that, and “I’m too scared” is normally a good reason not to, but that’s the <i>least</i> you can do. It’s not like this is a minor indescrection you can brush off “well, he/she did one bad thing”. You could argue that doing this doesn’t kill any more people, but I think I’d still rather kill people in a way where they have a chance.
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There are very good reasons to defend guilty people at trial. But while some “loopholes” are there for a good reason (improperly obtained evidence is impermissable – to stop people obtaining evidence improperly, about the only way to stop innocent people being similarly convinced) others aren’t (even if I just lie about statistics because it sounds more plausible to a jury forbidden to educate themselves on the subject, even though I know what I’m saying is false) and are wrong (even if common). It may still be a good choice (especially if the murderers convinced are no more likely than other people to commit more murders) but I don’t think that makes it ok.
I’m not sure which is the best choice (though I’m amused to read the poll before the question, when “chef” looks very different :)).
Okay, follow-up question. Do you only have this moral duty if you are made aware of your customer’s profession or do you have a moral duty to seek out the information? There’s a local pizza place I eat at regularly. They’ve never run a background check on me. For all they know, I’m a concentration camp guard (admittedly unlikely in New York in 2011 but I could have some other immoral profession).
The guards aren’t leaving the camp to travel to another destination to eat. That would be the only circumstance in which your comparison would be apt. If that pizza was being served inside the camp, then yes, the person serving it is complicit. The pizza server (or chef in general) is a necessary component of the concentration camp.
Probably weapons designer; in the OP, there’s no description of the rifles being sold to third-world brushfire wars or anything like that; and I’m assuming that since I live in the US, I’d be working for a domestic manufacturer, so it’s unlikely that they’d actually be used, or if they were, it would be against enemies of my people (Americans) so I’d be fine with that.
Follow up question to the OP. If you don’t take this job, will it be filled with someone else as magically gifted as you would be? I mean, if you don’t take the job designing better weapons, will someone else definitely do it, just as well as you do?
Well, there is no guarantee either way. But ask yourself, which type of war would the rifle be most suited for.
It will be filled, but they’ll be less talented than you.
The gun would be less marketable.
The food won’t give the guards as much pleasure.
Some murders wouldn’t get off
The lobbyist wouldn’t be able to talk away some bothersome leglislation
The heroin wouldn’t be quite as addictive.
Well, a cheap, accurate, deadly and reliable rifle would be most suited for all wars; you’ve pretty much described the Holy Grail of assault rifles. After all, the AK-47 was developed by the Soviet Union with the Cold War in mind, based on WWII experience and German concepts.
Most Western countries aren’t as apt to sell rifles to all and sundry in the 3rd world, so I’d have some comfort that the vast majority of any rifles produced to my design would be used for target practice and/or sit in armories.
Well, that might work to an extent, but who is to say less reputable companies in China might not create and sell clones or knockoffs.
Lobbyist. Even with magic protecting me, I’d be afraid that I’d get in trouble with the druggist and death camper, not to mention being exposed to horrible situations and/or people. Ditto for the defense of known murderers.
Tobacco lobbyist. You’re not letting monsters loose upon the world or effectively aiding and abetting them and you’re not harming anyone as the smokers make that choice knowingly.
With this additional information, the job that makes the world worse the least is the chef. I don’t really see any other choice if I had to make one. Unless keeping the guards happier would prevent suicides or otherwise being unable to function. If that would be the case, then I would have to say lobbyist or weapons designer, solely because people could choose not to buy tobacco or not to smoke it and the arms technology could produce a sort of MAD condition if sold to all sides in a conflict.
Without reading the thread (which I hope is not full of moderator warnings that I’m now about to inadvertently violate):
Weapon designer is the only option that wouldn’t torment my psyche.
I’m not a gun guy, and think gun people are as weird as Barbie people, but hey guns are already plentiful and easy to use. Who knows, the weapons could end up being used to over throw the bad guys.
I agree that this makes it pretty easy… no one is actually suffering more if you’re the chef. (Taking it as a given that these weapons being designed will lead to more suffering, which is certainly what the OP seems to be implying.) Each of the other four choices increases the misery of (quasi) innocents, chef just makes some evil people doing evil things somewhat happier temporarily.