I'm not missing the point. Ethics isn't negotiable. This is not a place to be cynical.
"Just following orders" isn't an acceptable excuse.
You either quit or you're complicit. It's pretty straightforward actually.
What we're trying to get to is a place where there is some incentive for organizations to do the process you described. At a certain point we're just going to legislate it, so we can wait for that blunt hammer to happen, or we can get our collective act together.
This sort of process where you shame a group of people into collective action just isn't realistic within the day to day lives of working class people in any society on this planet.
Corporate legislation and profit motives are the only real incentives in business, I don't care how much you try to isolate individuals taking part and shame them for complicity. It's not about people capable of making the right choice instead choosing the wrong choice. It's an inevitability of the incentive structures of capitalism and commerce. If someone chooses to take an action that sacrifices profit for ethics, they will be driven out of the market by people who take the "more profit" option. It is not the same players making good choices and bad choices. The only way to actually change the paradigm is if you can figure out a way to align incentives so that the person making the moral choice also makes the most money. This is the only way that the structures we've put in place will play out in the way you want. This has nothing to do with individual choice or free will, it is simply the output of a function.
I'm increasingly convinced that there is no non-coercive way to do it, hence the question: Can anyone think of another way to align incentives other than legislating ethics?
I think the current state was inevitable, assuming there wasn't some coercive legislation preventing it. Even then, would people just go do business somewhere else and continue what they are doing because the new system is just viewed as a cost?
Definitely agree with you that we need legislation.
>"Just following orders" isn't an acceptable excuse.
>You either quit or you're complicit. It's pretty straightforward actually.
I meant that I don't really agree with this part of your rhetoric where you are trying to shame people into behaving ethically in business or quit their job. What happens if everyone capable of thinking about morals quits? Do the companies just disappear in a poof of smoke? How does this fix anything, regardless? You have to understand that the situation is not this black and white for 99% of people.
My intent isn't to shame, but to state a position about immutability of virtue and consistency with respect to an ethic.
Practically I understand full well that it's not black or white, however if we argue how many shades of grey exist, rather than take bold action, history seems to indicate that little progress will happen.
Assuming the business can find new people then basically the ethics-focused opposition is gone and nothing prevents the company from doing worse and worse things.
Have you ever been in a situation where you needed a paycheck to pay rent and you had to either miss rent or do something less than ethical that your boss was telling you to do?
I've been in worse situations than that and refused orders. So, yes.
There are costs involved in taking a stand. If any group has the capacity to take a financial hit in service to an ethical framework it's software engineers.
"Just following orders" isn't an acceptable excuse.
You either quit or you're complicit. It's pretty straightforward actually.
What we're trying to get to is a place where there is some incentive for organizations to do the process you described. At a certain point we're just going to legislate it, so we can wait for that blunt hammer to happen, or we can get our collective act together.