This gave me pause for thought, so thank you for writing it. I also respect that you likely won’t engage with this response to protect your own wellbeing.
I just want to raise, however, that I think you have almost completely failed to address a) the power dynamics involved; and b) the apparently uncontroversial claim that people were asked to break laws by people who had professional and financial power over them.
It seems impossible to square the latter with being “honest, honourable and conscientious”.
Thanks, this also made me pause. I can imagine some occasions where you might encourage employees to break the law (although this still seems super ethically fraught) - for example, some direct action in e.g. animal welfare. However, the examples here are ‘to gain recreational and productivity drugs’ and to drive around doing menial tasks’.
So if you’re saying “it isn’t always unambiguously ethically wrong to encourage employees to commit crimes” then I guess yes, in some very limited cases I can see that.
But if you’re saying “in these instances it was honest, honourable and conscientious to encourage employees to break the law” then I very strongly disagree.
Yes of course there are—I don’t think anyone who has to live with them contests that!
But where this story (and other ones EA has dealt with) is that this shows a willingness to break laws if they’re deemed “stupid” or “low value” or “woke shibboleths”[1]. There are some cases where laws are worth breaking, and depending on the regime it may be morally required to do so, but the cases involved don’t seem to be like this.
What Jack is pointing to, and people like myself and lilly[2], is that often the law (or norm) breaking seems to happen in a manner which is inconsistent with the integrity that people in the EA community[3] should have—especially when they’re dealing with responsibilities such as employing others and being responsible for their income, being in a position of mentorship, being in a position to influence national or international policy, or trying to ‘save the world’
I think it matters a lot to be precise with claims here. If someone believes that any case of people with power over others asking them to commit crimes is damning, then all we need to establish is that this happened. If it’s understood that whether this was bad depends on the details, then we need to get into the details. Jack’s comment was not precise so it felt important to disambiguate (and make the claim I think is correct).
This gave me pause for thought, so thank you for writing it. I also respect that you likely won’t engage with this response to protect your own wellbeing.
I just want to raise, however, that I think you have almost completely failed to address a) the power dynamics involved; and b) the apparently uncontroversial claim that people were asked to break laws by people who had professional and financial power over them.
It seems impossible to square the latter with being “honest, honourable and conscientious”.
There are a lot of dumb laws. Without saying it was right in this case, I don’t think that’s categorical a big red line.
Thanks, this also made me pause. I can imagine some occasions where you might encourage employees to break the law (although this still seems super ethically fraught) - for example, some direct action in e.g. animal welfare. However, the examples here are ‘to gain recreational and productivity drugs’ and to drive around doing menial tasks’.
So if you’re saying “it isn’t always unambiguously ethically wrong to encourage employees to commit crimes” then I guess yes, in some very limited cases I can see that.
But if you’re saying “in these instances it was honest, honourable and conscientious to encourage employees to break the law” then I very strongly disagree.
Yes of course there are—I don’t think anyone who has to live with them contests that!
But where this story (and other ones EA has dealt with) is that this shows a willingness to break laws if they’re deemed “stupid” or “low value” or “woke shibboleths”[1]. There are some cases where laws are worth breaking, and depending on the regime it may be morally required to do so, but the cases involved don’t seem to be like this.
What Jack is pointing to, and people like myself and lilly[2], is that often the law (or norm) breaking seems to happen in a manner which is inconsistent with the integrity that people in the EA community[3] should have—especially when they’re dealing with responsibilities such as employing others and being responsible for their income, being in a position of mentorship, being in a position to influence national or international policy, or trying to ‘save the world’
not direct quotes, just my representation of an attitude in some EA/Rationalist spaces
as far as I’ve interpreted her comments in this thread. Jack also feel free to say I’ve got your view wrong
and people in general, to be honest
I think it matters a lot to be precise with claims here. If someone believes that any case of people with power over others asking them to commit crimes is damning, then all we need to establish is that this happened. If it’s understood that whether this was bad depends on the details, then we need to get into the details. Jack’s comment was not precise so it felt important to disambiguate (and make the claim I think is correct).
Thanks, I agree with your clarification on the point I was trying to make