Perhaps we did not emphasise enough the simple point ânever commit a crimeâ. As I said in the previous point, there have been extensive warnings against naive âends justify the meansâ thinking from many leaders (MacAskill, Ord, Karnofsky, CEA Guiding Principles, 80,000 Hours career advice, etc).
Nevertheless, we could do even more, for example in 80,000 Hours resources or career/âstudent groups, to emphasise this point. There didnât seem to be much explicit âdonât ever commit a crimeâ warnings (I assume because this should have been so blindingly obvious to any reasonable or moral person).
There are many immoral laws in the world, particularly but not exclusively if you look outside Europe and the US, e.g. EAs living in countries where homosexuality is illegal should, I think, have our support in breaking the law if they want to.
In fact, I think most people with a cursory understanding of the history of activism will be aware of the role that civil disobedience has sometimes had in correcting injustice, so breaking laws can sometimes be even virtuous. In extreme cases, one can even imagine it being morally obligatory.
I think a categorical ânever commit crimesâ is hard to take seriously without some explicit response to this context. I definitely donât think we should claim itâs obvious that no-one should ever break the law.
It is intuitively âobviousâ that Samâs crimes arenât crimes like these. (I pretty much always second-guess the word obvious, but Iâm happy to use it here.) But thatâs because we can judge for ourselves that theyâre harmful and immoral, not because theyâre against the law. Perhaps someone could make an argument that sometimes you should follow the law even when your own morality says you should do something else, but I donât think itâs going to be a simple or obvious argument.
There are many immoral laws in the world, particularly but not exclusively if you look outside Europe and the US, e.g. EAs living in countries where homosexuality is illegal should, I think, have our support in breaking the law if they want to.
In fact, I think most people with a cursory understanding of the history of activism will be aware of the role that civil disobedience has sometimes had in correcting injustice, so breaking laws can sometimes be even virtuous. In extreme cases, one can even imagine it being morally obligatory.
I think a categorical ânever commit crimesâ is hard to take seriously without some explicit response to this context. I definitely donât think we should claim itâs obvious that no-one should ever break the law.
It is intuitively âobviousâ that Samâs crimes arenât crimes like these. (I pretty much always second-guess the word obvious, but Iâm happy to use it here.) But thatâs because we can judge for ourselves that theyâre harmful and immoral, not because theyâre against the law. Perhaps someone could make an argument that sometimes you should follow the law even when your own morality says you should do something else, but I donât think itâs going to be a simple or obvious argument.