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Our tools are computers not MP40s. For our tools to be as dangerous as Godwin's MP40s, someone else must connect an MP40 to a computer. And that person is the r
by mmirate 9y ago
Our tools are computers not MP40s. For our tools to be as dangerous as Godwin's MP40s, someone else must connect an MP40 to a computer. And that person is the root of responsibility.
- mnm1 9y agoI thought the tools were the programmers. Which one is it? Programmers are much more dangerous than any gun and using the "it was just my job" cop out to excuse atrocities like killing people is still immoral, regardless of what tools the people who do so use. People aren't tools. No person is a tool, period. That's the point of my original reply. You can't excuse atrocities by saying people are tools and therefore not responsible for their actions. You also can't excuse atrocities by claiming people were just following orders. People are moral agents except in very extreme circumstances (such as lack of mental capacity, which the law does deal with). Programmers that helped big pharma ruin thousands upon thousands of lives are most certainly partially responsible for their immoral actions (working for big pharma) just like the Nazis who ran the concentration camps were partially responsible for the Holocaust. Hannah Arendt tackles this subject in "Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil."