> i can look at just about anyone -- myself included -- and tie them to a vicious deed in 3 hops
You're not distinguishing between remote and proximate cooperation with evil, or material and formal cooperation. No one is claiming that buying a pair of sneakers from a company that uses part of its funds for an evil end makes you guilty of the crime. If that was the standard, then forget 3 hops. Everyone would be saddled with an unbelievable amount of guilt, and trying to avoid it would make life unlivable. But more to the point, you aren't actually guilty according to the principle of double effect. We do not have in life the luxury of avoiding all evil, so we can only do what is best, and that often means allowing evil side effects, within bounds.
I do have problems with the author's views, of course, and I think Ed Feser's article "Justice or Revenge?" can explain at least one of them [0]. But I am not opposed to retributive justice. It is part and parcel of justice. Mercy presupposes the legitimacy of retribution as well as just deserts; it would be a meaningless idea otherwise.
> No one is claiming that buying a pair of sneakers from a company that uses part of its funds for an evil end makes you guilty of the crime
If you are a German company, yes, the law makes you guilty. This goes by the sweet name of Lieferkettensorgfaltsplichtengesetz (also known as LkSG), and makes it a duty (Pflicht) for companies to pay diligence (Sorgfalt) to the absence of crime at any point in their supply chain (Lieferkette). I do not know exactly what the criteria are to decide whether you did your search with enough diligence, should a crime be found in your supply chain, but I just wanted to point that this concept definitely exists in some jurisdictions.
You're not distinguishing between remote and proximate cooperation with evil, or material and formal cooperation. No one is claiming that buying a pair of sneakers from a company that uses part of its funds for an evil end makes you guilty of the crime. If that was the standard, then forget 3 hops. Everyone would be saddled with an unbelievable amount of guilt, and trying to avoid it would make life unlivable. But more to the point, you aren't actually guilty according to the principle of double effect. We do not have in life the luxury of avoiding all evil, so we can only do what is best, and that often means allowing evil side effects, within bounds.
I do have problems with the author's views, of course, and I think Ed Feser's article "Justice or Revenge?" can explain at least one of them [0]. But I am not opposed to retributive justice. It is part and parcel of justice. Mercy presupposes the legitimacy of retribution as well as just deserts; it would be a meaningless idea otherwise.
[0] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/09/justice-or-revenge....