My opinion is threefold:
-
It is always ethical to not starve to death. (Caveat: assuming you are not directly harming someone else) If the only job available to you is making supplies for the military, don’t beat yourself up. We live in a capitalist hellscape, you need to pay rent, you need to buy food, you need health insurance, you need to be able to have vacations and save for retirement and do fun things from time to time. If you can do anything to mitigate that harm–participate in demonstrations, donate to aid organizations, etc–do that; but if you’re not in a situation to be able to do those things, you’re not being unethical. You’re just doing what you can.
-
It is always ethical to do less harm. If your company makes support equipment for military applications–desk chairs, for example, or toilet paper–your job is more ethical than the job making, you know, bombs or bullets or napalm or whatever. A job making things that are not inherently harmful but can be used in the course of causing harm– well, let’s be honest, that’s every job.
-
A job in military supply is as ethical as the company you work for and the military they sell to. If your company is selling smart bombs to Russia’s military, try to get out. But if your company is selling to a military that uses the products of your labor to mount a defense against an invading force, what you’re doing might even be helping to reduce death.
But overall, “ethicalness” is not a binary, and it’s not the same in every situation.
you need to be able to have vacations and save for retirement and do fun things from time to time
ahem actually people only need to exist and survive until they work themselves to death getting tangled in the gears of my spinning jennys
Very good criterias! I think OP posted a great question, and your philosophy seems to be a very interesting merge of a virtue-based approach (that A/B is always good/bad) and an utilitarian one. I like it at a lot :)
Pretty sure its just moral relativism.
-
If the choice is starve or work for this company, then yes its ethical.
If your skills and experience can transfer to other companies and jobs, then no its not ethical IMO.
If the choice is to starve or work for this company, then it’s pragmatic to work there. No, it’s not ethical. That being said, not everyone is in the fortunate position where they can let their ethics decide where they work, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that.
How far do you take it?
Work in food supply that feeds the people who make end weapons?
Working in that industry you’re creating food. It’s purpose is to nourish people. Working in an industry that makes weapons to harm, and kill is intrinsically different.
Yeah most engineers in defense work aren’t starved for jobs, but in fact are paid the most by military contractors. It’s like Snowden working for Booz Allen Hamilton, government contractors pay talented people a ton to advance their goals and keep their mouth shut. But they could make less working somewhere else
Sure. Every country has a right to defend itself. Most of the time it isn’t the tool that isn’t moral but how it is put to use.
Is it ethical to give tools to a country you don’t trust to use them responsibly?
I don’t think it is inherently unethical to work for a defense supplier, but it obviously depends on the country it is supplying. We in the West certainly need a strong defense industry. China and Russia both have publicly declared their intention to conquer other countries. Just ask Ukraine or Taiwan. Or Europe. Europe can’t properly support Ukraine because its defense industry is so fragmented, politicized and atrophied.
We in the West certainly need a strong defense industry. China and Russia both have publicly declared their intention to conquer other countries. Just ask Ukraine or Taiwan.
But just don’t ask Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Iraq, Lybia, Panama, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen… am I right?
No, do ask them. Go ahead. Some will try to outright murder you for unrelated reasons. Some do not regard the US as a threat any more and the rest will turn out to be goddam assholes you’d wish to be bombed again.
Ah yes, America killing literally tens of million: righteous! China killing literally no one, absolute scum of the earth!
Never takes much for the shoe to drop with you people.
Huh? China has been killing tons of people in their concentration camps.
When did America kill tens of millions? China certainly did kill tens of millions under Mao. Did you make a mistake and reverse the order?
You can’t possibly be serious. You’ve got to be a troll.
Vietnam: 3~4,000,000 (not account for the the devastatinf effects of agent orange) Cambodia: 500,000 (not counting US involvement in continuing Khmer Rouge’s massacres) Laos: 50,000 (not accounting for the still ongoing issue of unexploded ordinances) Korea: 2~4,000,000 Iraq desert storm: 1,000,000+ Iraq/Afghanistan/Syria: 400,00 direct violent deaths and 3~4,000,000 indirect deaths.
Shall I continue?
Not going to retract your comment about China then?
He has never claimed that China hasn’t murdered anyone? Neither has he opposed your claim that China killed millions (which they sure did).
It’s really sad to see this type of reactions when people try to say anything against the US. Questioning the US is not the same thing as supporting china, whatever US politicians want you to believe.
You’re conflating policy failures (for which he absolutely took responsibility) to wars of aggression. If you can’t see how these two aren’t the same you can’t be helped.
Korea seems like a really bad example for you, since the South relies on the US to prevent invasion.
I wonder who was leading South Korea for like forty years after the war? There’s no way it would a fascist dictator was it? Yes, no peace treaty was ever signed. What is your point exactly? Why do you think the north has somehow less of a claim than a country that had to be propped up by the world’s biggest bully for decades?
Come on, more even the north admits they don’t want unification, just that South Korea is their number one enemy.
As for the dictator, yes the was bad and dark times. But nowadays SK definitely doesn’t want to get taken over by NK.
Yeah, since literally this year. Nearly sixty years on.
As for the dictator, yes the was bad and dark times.
The US didn’t seem to.see that as a problem.
We in the West certainly need a strong defense industry.
But our defense industry sells arms to more or less anyone willing to pay. Most types of arms have basically become commodities, and the net effect of anyone producing more is that arms become cheaper and more accessible worldwide.
I’m no expert on arms control, but I’m pretty sure the industry in the West can only sell to approved countries. But, yes, I take your point that there is always some form of arms race happening in the world and keeping the arms industry going means having to sell more arms, which will be used to kill people at some point. Unfortunately, we still need a defense industry.
Good point.
I’d think that the work these folks in Ukraine are doing would be an example of ethical (and, my God, it must be fulfilling) defense work.
deleted by creator
I feel like this really depends on your options. Ethics are less crucial when your options are lesser as well.
If you’re choosing between equally paying jobs in military contracting vs saving lives? Pretty easy choice to me. If you’re choosing between doing manual labor for a military supplier vs your family being on the street? Also a pretty easy choice.
I work for an aerospace and defense contractor. The vast majority of my activities over the years has been for non-military space flight, but not all of it, I’ve also worked on torpedos, missile defense, and other military systems.
When I started working for the company, it was on the space shuttle project, so the military part didn’t even occur to me (though the shuttle did place some military payloads). When I was first asked to support the military side, I found myself doing some soul searching, and I decided the main question I had to ask myself was, “Should the United States have weapons or a military?” I pretty quickly decided the answer was yes.
Does that mean I agree with every military action the government has taken? No, far from it. But there have also been many I do agree with, and I for sure believe the country needs a strong military.
So yes, I believe it’s ethical.
No.
i mean, i probably wouldn’t resent you for mopping the floors at BAE. but if you actually design or build the missiles, yes, that is unethical
a lot of people are using the example of ukraine to say ‘sometimes the missiles are for the greater good’, and while i would agree with that specific example, you don’t have control over where your missiles go. russian tank, yemeni refugee, etc
i also think saying ‘the parts will be made anyway’ is kind of a dodge, the question isn’t whether the parts will be made, it’s whether you will make them
Fuck no.
As a rule of thumb… no.
I don’t really think you need to worry about inanimate objects seeing as they haven’t been made for good or evil specifically. On the other hand, if you write software that decides who lives or dies, you have a gigantic responsibility and the blood of any accident is on your hands
Definitely not if you have the opportunity to work somewhere else.
deleted by creator
It’s a complex question, but I think the short answer is it depends on if your country has safeguards in place to control where that manufactured equipment goes. A few months ago I watched a video interview of a US State Department official who publicly resigned because he felt those safeguards (specifically laws of war and laws of proportionality) had been bypassed during recent arms transfer to Israel. I could see someone quitting their military manufacturing or engineering jobs for the same reasons. Whether or not you agree with how your nation’s arms are being used is a matter of personal ethics and involves things like political accountability.
I know I want my country to have self-defense capabilities, and that means having a well-supplied military. Thus I support at least some arms manufacturing. I very much dislike the idea of it being entangled with major economic factors because I don’t want war to make economic sense - i.e. “drive the industry”. My guess is a lot of people worldwide would like to see less arms-for-profit trading because it makes military industrialists rich at the expense of weapons spreading around the world and often causing harm to innocent people.
do you feel what the united states spends on its military is proportionate to its direct defense requirement?
i think were up to 950b/year in ‘danger’
Honestly, I’m not wise/educated enough to give a certain answer. I sure feel like there’s a lot more spending being done than is probably required, and the DoD has failed multiple audits for 6 years now. So there’s cause for concern or at least accountability about where the US taxpayer’s money is ending up. The DoD budget could buy a lot of infrastructure, teachers, healthcare, debt relief, etc. so it’s not unreasonable for citizens to want to know what they’re gaining in exchange for giving those things up.
On the other hand, I live in Canada and the hard truth is we rely on the USA for a lot of our military needs. I know if Putin decides Ukraine isn’t enough and he starts eyeing Canadian land (say in the Arctic), then I’m going to want to know NATO can win. My final take is probably that US military spending could be moderated, but cuts should be made carefully with justification.
Probably fine if you are the janitor. If you are the engineer in charge of maximising “effectiveness” of weaponry well…
