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while I agree with you, you have to remember that the current administration and many of their supporters support ICE's actions. What you're arguing for is that

while I agree with you, you have to remember that the current administration and many of their supporters support ICE's actions. What you're arguing for is that the actions of Uber or Palantir's designers are against your personal ethics, or those of the wider movement you identify with.

gridaphobe 9y ago
You seem to be implying that morality is subjective, which I think is a dangerous belief. People may believe their actions are ethical, but that doesn’t necessarily make them correct.
- kerkeslager 9y ago
  What could be an objective basis for morality?
  - Nav_Panel 9y ago
    Jonathan Haidt's work on "Moral Foundations" could be worth investigating. They determined 5 major cross-cultural "moral foundations," to which each person assigns various degrees of importance: Care, Fairness, Loyalty, Authority, and Purity, suggesting these stem from a biological/neurological source. From Wikipedia: > Haidt and Craig Joseph surveyed works on the roots of morality... From their review, they suggested that all individuals possess four "intuitive ethics", stemming from the process of human evolution as responses to adaptive challenges. They labelled these four ethics as suffering, hierarchy, reciprocity, and purity. According to Haidt and Joseph, each of the ethics formed a module, whose development was shaped by culture. They wrote that each module could "provide little more than flashes of affect when certain patterns are encountered in the social world", while a cultural learning process shaped each individual's response to these flashes. Morality diverges because different cultures utilize the four "building blocks" provided by the modules differently. Perhaps these four "building blocks" -- suffering, hierarchy, reciprocity, and purity -- are sufficient for an objective basis upon which an intersubjective understanding of morality can be determined. Then again, even the notion of objectivity is questionable and culturally-dependent...
    - kerkeslager 9y ago
      Okay, but it's important to note that studying the evolutionary and neurological bases for morality give us a description of morality, not a prescription for morality. In other words, Haidt can only describe how people behave, he can't prescribe how people should behave. There's a big logical leap between (for example) observing that many cultures proscribe lying, and saying that one shouldn't lie.
  - steve_g 9y ago
    God or nothing. See Arthur Leff's article: http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/2814/ http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/2814/
    - bjl 9y ago
      If its god or nothing, then how do you explain the fact that most philosophers are both atheists and moral realists?
      - kerkeslager 9y ago
        There are two cases I've seen: 1. Some philosophers have a descriptive ethic (this is what people do) rather than a prescriptive ethic (this is what people should do). This is certainly interesting, but it isn't what most people mean when they talk about ethics--it doesn't give us any guidance on how to behave ethically. 2. Some philosophers try to work backward to a prescriptive ethical principle from a set of ethical prescriptions which are widely accepted but, importantly, unproven. For example one might start from the prescriptions "murder and lying are wrong, giving and learning are right" and attempt to come up with a prescriptive ethic that unites these prescriptions. But "murder and lying are wrong, giving and learning are right" aren't objective facts even though they're widely accepted, so any prescriptive ethic that comes from these prescriptions can't be objective either. It's not coincidence, for example, that in the west, the atheist/moral realist philosophers mysteriously often start from Judeo-Christian prescriptions.
  - pmarreck 9y ago
    Sam Harris has a book about exactly that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Landscape https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Landscape Even the "Christian Post" will agree he's "partly right": https://www.christianpost.com/news/atheist-sam-harris-right-about-morality-and-humans-but-god-still-necessary-says-christian-apologist-170897/ https://www.christianpost.com/news/atheist-sam-harris-right-...
    - kerkeslager 9y ago
      My impression of Harris' morality from videos I've seen of him is that, like most ethicists, he's attempting to work backwards from existent ethical prescriptions to find fundamental prescriptive ethical principles. The fact that he's sourcing the ethical prescriptions from scientific method rather than religion means that the prescriptive ethical principles he arrives at are more palatable to people like me who practice science and not religion. But he's still starting from the unproven assumption that the ethical prescriptions he's started from have objective validity. As such, I don't think he's arrived at an objective prescriptive ethic any more than anyone else. I think you should practice the scientific method if you want to understand and operate in reality, but I don't think that practicing the scientific method is an ethical imperative. That said, I haven't read the book you mentioned, so there might be something in that book which isn't in his talks which would persuade me.
- beaconstudios 9y ago
  I don't believe that myself, but I do believe that people advocating for a specific ethic are usually supporting their own point of view, which may be closer or further away from the ideal.
ndespres 9y ago
Both can be true. I do believe anyone supporting the administration's efforts on immigration and many other issues, and anyone working to assist ICE in these efforts, etc to be acting unethically. I think there is such thing as an ethical Ideal, and my own ethics are an attempt to get as close to the ideal as possible. I like to think that they don't exist in a vacuum.
- SlowRobotAhead 9y ago
  Is it unethical to follow law? Is it ethical to break a law you personally don’t agree with? The whole way society works is that we all agreed to follow the system even if we don’t always agree with that it says all the time. You can say whatever you want about it freely. When it’s real naughty we’re supposed to end it. Selective enforcement of the law is actually unethical. If you don’t like it, you need to work to change it. Saying something is unethical just because you don’t like it is not rational. Moritality is personal, ethics are societal. Maybe your morals state open borders should be a thing, but our shared ethics don’t. In this case, immigration law is messed up in both directions. Why do you feel like you feel like you should judge the side following the rules? Are the people who support the people following the law unethical too?
  - gnode 9y ago
    I don't believe selective enforcement of the law is unethical, if enforcement of the law would be immoral. However, criminalization of acceptable behaviour with an aim to selectively enforce it for some other motive may be immoral. E.g. if you wanted to imprison a particular race, so criminalised something acceptable which everyone does, and more aggressively policed that race.
  - walshemj 9y ago
    It depends as Seward said "There is a higher law than the Constitution" And Soldiers are legally obliged to not obey illegal orders
  - kiliantics 9y ago
    I have no idea how people can believe this kind of thing. The law is not in anyway ethical. Most of our law was handed down to us by monarchs and slavers. Almost no one agreed to it. We get a performative charade once every couple years which pretends everyone has agency in changing it. People who actually try to make real change, however, are usually murdered or locked up and forgotten.
watwut 9y ago
Well, yes. The thing is, if you believe that ICE is bad or you are about to complain that a doctor ignored some regulation, you should not work for Palantir or Uber.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  Well, the irony of those two examples is one is using tech to skirt laws and the other to enforce laws. It's hard for me to consider both of them unethical at the same time without resorting to raw partisanism.
  - watwut 9y ago
    I don't think there is ethical need to follow laws you find despicable. I think that one should follow laws as long as those laws don't require you to do something bad. And there is no ethical requirement to contribute to law enforcement - it is not even against the law. You can also agree with law and find agency tactics bad.
    - mbrumlow 9y ago
      Yes, but what is "bad"? Maybe I find it despicable that I can't scam you out of money if you happen to be dumb enough to let me. There are actually cutlers int he world that are "shame on you if you get scammed" That is the entire problem when you talk about ethics at all beyond a few truths that 99% of people can agree on. So one could argue not following any law becomes unethical -- and the only ethical thing to do is follow the law until it is changed, which puts us at a interesting juxtaposition -- that sometimes you have to be unethical to be ethical! This will always be the hard part of making rules or laws on things that are so subjective such as ethics.
      - watwut 9y ago
        When we talk about my personal ethics or morality as a developer, I do not need wide consensus over the issue. It is about what I personally will or will not do. Or under which circumstances would I do it. The discussion with others does help me to decide and they can bring arguments I did not considered, but decision is mine. There is wide agreement about many ethical questions through. I also think that ignoring ethics question completely is easy cop out - yes one should do it no matter what job. I don't think that law and ethics is the same. I think that following law is ethical where law species competition rules (accounting, regulation etc).
ryandrake 9y ago
History is full of atrocities (and milder bad behavior) committed “by the people currently in power” with strong popular support.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  ...using tools and weapons developed by the last regime. If we're that worried about abuse of power, we need a better conversation than "that guy is bad; vote for our guy". We need to talk about actually reforming systems, laws, and norms.

gridaphobe 9y ago

You seem to be implying that morality is subjective, which I think is a dangerous belief. People may believe their actions are ethical, but that doesn’t necessarily make them correct.

kerkeslager 9y ago
What could be an objective basis for morality?
- Nav_Panel 9y ago
  Jonathan Haidt's work on "Moral Foundations" could be worth investigating. They determined 5 major cross-cultural "moral foundations," to which each person assigns various degrees of importance: Care, Fairness, Loyalty, Authority, and Purity, suggesting these stem from a biological/neurological source. From Wikipedia: > Haidt and Craig Joseph surveyed works on the roots of morality... From their review, they suggested that all individuals possess four "intuitive ethics", stemming from the process of human evolution as responses to adaptive challenges. They labelled these four ethics as suffering, hierarchy, reciprocity, and purity. According to Haidt and Joseph, each of the ethics formed a module, whose development was shaped by culture. They wrote that each module could "provide little more than flashes of affect when certain patterns are encountered in the social world", while a cultural learning process shaped each individual's response to these flashes. Morality diverges because different cultures utilize the four "building blocks" provided by the modules differently. Perhaps these four "building blocks" -- suffering, hierarchy, reciprocity, and purity -- are sufficient for an objective basis upon which an intersubjective understanding of morality can be determined. Then again, even the notion of objectivity is questionable and culturally-dependent...
  - kerkeslager 9y ago
    Okay, but it's important to note that studying the evolutionary and neurological bases for morality give us a description of morality, not a prescription for morality. In other words, Haidt can only describe how people behave, he can't prescribe how people should behave. There's a big logical leap between (for example) observing that many cultures proscribe lying, and saying that one shouldn't lie.
- steve_g 9y ago
  God or nothing. See Arthur Leff's article: http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/2814/ http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/2814/
  - bjl 9y ago
    If its god or nothing, then how do you explain the fact that most philosophers are both atheists and moral realists?
    - kerkeslager 9y ago
      There are two cases I've seen: 1. Some philosophers have a descriptive ethic (this is what people do) rather than a prescriptive ethic (this is what people should do). This is certainly interesting, but it isn't what most people mean when they talk about ethics--it doesn't give us any guidance on how to behave ethically. 2. Some philosophers try to work backward to a prescriptive ethical principle from a set of ethical prescriptions which are widely accepted but, importantly, unproven. For example one might start from the prescriptions "murder and lying are wrong, giving and learning are right" and attempt to come up with a prescriptive ethic that unites these prescriptions. But "murder and lying are wrong, giving and learning are right" aren't objective facts even though they're widely accepted, so any prescriptive ethic that comes from these prescriptions can't be objective either. It's not coincidence, for example, that in the west, the atheist/moral realist philosophers mysteriously often start from Judeo-Christian prescriptions.
- pmarreck 9y ago
  Sam Harris has a book about exactly that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Landscape https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Landscape Even the "Christian Post" will agree he's "partly right": https://www.christianpost.com/news/atheist-sam-harris-right-about-morality-and-humans-but-god-still-necessary-says-christian-apologist-170897/ https://www.christianpost.com/news/atheist-sam-harris-right-...
  - kerkeslager 9y ago
    My impression of Harris' morality from videos I've seen of him is that, like most ethicists, he's attempting to work backwards from existent ethical prescriptions to find fundamental prescriptive ethical principles. The fact that he's sourcing the ethical prescriptions from scientific method rather than religion means that the prescriptive ethical principles he arrives at are more palatable to people like me who practice science and not religion. But he's still starting from the unproven assumption that the ethical prescriptions he's started from have objective validity. As such, I don't think he's arrived at an objective prescriptive ethic any more than anyone else. I think you should practice the scientific method if you want to understand and operate in reality, but I don't think that practicing the scientific method is an ethical imperative. That said, I haven't read the book you mentioned, so there might be something in that book which isn't in his talks which would persuade me.
beaconstudios 9y ago
I don't believe that myself, but I do believe that people advocating for a specific ethic are usually supporting their own point of view, which may be closer or further away from the ideal.

ndespres 9y ago

Both can be true. I do believe anyone supporting the administration's efforts on immigration and many other issues, and anyone working to assist ICE in these efforts, etc to be acting unethically. I think there is such thing as an ethical Ideal, and my own ethics are an attempt to get as close to the ideal as possible. I like to think that they don't exist in a vacuum.

SlowRobotAhead 9y ago
Is it unethical to follow law? Is it ethical to break a law you personally don’t agree with? The whole way society works is that we all agreed to follow the system even if we don’t always agree with that it says all the time. You can say whatever you want about it freely. When it’s real naughty we’re supposed to end it. Selective enforcement of the law is actually unethical. If you don’t like it, you need to work to change it. Saying something is unethical just because you don’t like it is not rational. Moritality is personal, ethics are societal. Maybe your morals state open borders should be a thing, but our shared ethics don’t. In this case, immigration law is messed up in both directions. Why do you feel like you feel like you should judge the side following the rules? Are the people who support the people following the law unethical too?
- gnode 9y ago
  I don't believe selective enforcement of the law is unethical, if enforcement of the law would be immoral. However, criminalization of acceptable behaviour with an aim to selectively enforce it for some other motive may be immoral. E.g. if you wanted to imprison a particular race, so criminalised something acceptable which everyone does, and more aggressively policed that race.
- walshemj 9y ago
  It depends as Seward said "There is a higher law than the Constitution" And Soldiers are legally obliged to not obey illegal orders
- kiliantics 9y ago
  I have no idea how people can believe this kind of thing. The law is not in anyway ethical. Most of our law was handed down to us by monarchs and slavers. Almost no one agreed to it. We get a performative charade once every couple years which pretends everyone has agency in changing it. People who actually try to make real change, however, are usually murdered or locked up and forgotten.

watwut 9y ago

Well, yes. The thing is, if you believe that ICE is bad or you are about to complain that a doctor ignored some regulation, you should not work for Palantir or Uber.

humanrebar 9y ago
Well, the irony of those two examples is one is using tech to skirt laws and the other to enforce laws. It's hard for me to consider both of them unethical at the same time without resorting to raw partisanism.
- watwut 9y ago
  I don't think there is ethical need to follow laws you find despicable. I think that one should follow laws as long as those laws don't require you to do something bad. And there is no ethical requirement to contribute to law enforcement - it is not even against the law. You can also agree with law and find agency tactics bad.
  - mbrumlow 9y ago
    Yes, but what is "bad"? Maybe I find it despicable that I can't scam you out of money if you happen to be dumb enough to let me. There are actually cutlers int he world that are "shame on you if you get scammed" That is the entire problem when you talk about ethics at all beyond a few truths that 99% of people can agree on. So one could argue not following any law becomes unethical -- and the only ethical thing to do is follow the law until it is changed, which puts us at a interesting juxtaposition -- that sometimes you have to be unethical to be ethical! This will always be the hard part of making rules or laws on things that are so subjective such as ethics.
    - watwut 9y ago
      When we talk about my personal ethics or morality as a developer, I do not need wide consensus over the issue. It is about what I personally will or will not do. Or under which circumstances would I do it. The discussion with others does help me to decide and they can bring arguments I did not considered, but decision is mine. There is wide agreement about many ethical questions through. I also think that ignoring ethics question completely is easy cop out - yes one should do it no matter what job. I don't think that law and ethics is the same. I think that following law is ethical where law species competition rules (accounting, regulation etc).

ryandrake 9y ago

History is full of atrocities (and milder bad behavior) committed “by the people currently in power” with strong popular support.

humanrebar 9y ago
...using tools and weapons developed by the last regime. If we're that worried about abuse of power, we need a better conversation than "that guy is bad; vote for our guy". We need to talk about actually reforming systems, laws, and norms.