8 ms·

Maybe there isn't a moral high ground here? You can't sign a contract that allows someone to murder you -- there's case law supporting that. But you can sign

by ohazi 7y ago

Maybe there isn't a moral high ground here? You can't sign a contract that allows someone to murder you -- there's case law supporting that. But you can sign a contract that limits your future ability to speak freely. Regardless of what case law says about this, a lot of people appear to feel that this really shouldn't be a thing, particularly when there's a large power imbalance between the parties, and when the more powerful party is obviously trying to hide evidence of malfeasance, embarrassing secrets, etc. What is the moral thing to do if you're the less powerful party and you feel that your counterpart is acting immorally in offering you a contract like this? Maybe the moral position is not to take the money. Maybe it's okay to take the money and leak it anyway (assuming you think you can get away with it), because your counterpart is already irredeemably unethical, and all you can do is try to make the best of a bad situation. I don't think it's always so clear cut. Contracts shouldn't always be considered sacred.

duxup 7y ago
She could have left without signing.... there isn't anything to indicate there was more than money at play.
- ohazi 7y ago
  Yeah, she could have. There's often social pressure to shut up, sign whatever they put in front of you, and take the severance money. It can be extremely difficult to go against this pressure, especially if you're not particularly well paid or powerful and the company is throwing resources at trying to fire you. I'm not suggesting that she should or shouldn't have done what she did here, I'm just trying to push back against all the commenters blindly stating that "she violated her contract! what did she expect would happen?" It's true, that's what happened, and that's what one should expect. But there's more nuance to how this interaction works, and I think it's a little disingenuous to leave it at just that, especially if you're going to bring morality into the picture.
  - dominotw 7y ago
    > There's often social pressure to shut up, sign whatever they put in front of you For me it wasn't social pressure. Its 'at will' laws, employer can fire you for no reason whatsoever( unless its discrimination sort of deal), so ppl get what they can in form of severance.
  - monkeywork 7y ago
    The thing is legally it is just that black and white. If she wants sympathy or what have you that's fine but legally she has no leg to stand on - there is zero nuance there.
    - senordevnyc 7y ago
      Untrue. Not all contracts are enforceable, even if one side accepted the consideration.
      - monkeywork 7y ago
        Are you asserting that an NDA about limiting what you can talk about an organization is not enforceable? Because I think a 30 second google search will literally find you thousands of such NDAs being perfectly legit.
        senordevnyc 7y ago
        Did I say that? I’m responding to your assertion that this is a simple open and shut case legally and she has zero recourse. You don’t know the facts and I suspect you’re not attorney. You have no idea whether that’s true or not.
        monkeywork 7y ago
        The Verve article which is heavily slanted in her favour makes it sure seem like it's an open and shut case. But ping me if she wins a legal case here and I'll gladly admit I was wrong.
- michaelmrose 7y ago
  She was 5 months pregnant being threatened with termination for not complying with a performance plan she had never seen before. They were trying to get rid of her without doing the proper legwork to establish that she failed in any measuable fashion. Depending on her other financial situations she might be facing financial disaster including uninsured, life destroying, medical bills plus the inability to get any other position while visibly pregnant. It's highly likely that she was pretty much obliged to take the money regardless of how she felt.
  - duxup 7y ago
    You talk to a lawyer in that situation... you don't take the cash.
    - pmiller2 7y ago
      And the lawyer tells you something like "maybe we could win against them in court, but it will take a year. Even if they settle, we're looking at 3 months." Meanwhile, she's still uninsured, etc.
      - duxup 7y ago
        Potentially, but then you make that call in an informed way.
    - ohazi 7y ago
      > She was 5 months pregnant being threatened with termination > You talk to a lawyer in that situation Stop and listen to yourself. Do you honestly not see how someone in this situation might not believe that retaining a lawyer is a realistic possibility for them?
      - duxup 7y ago
        She's an adult and responsible for her actions.
someone7x 7y ago
It's crazy how entrenched the notion is that contracts have an inalienable divine right to be honored.
- monkeywork 7y ago
  how else would you suggest it be done? if there can not be legally enforced contracts how can even the most basic of transactions be completed?
  - HarryHirsch 7y ago
    Contracts are re-negotiated all the time when circumstances change. Just consider this case: Lambda School paid their head of career services some money to be rid of her under the condition that she keep silent because they didn't consider her trustworthy. Now it turns out that every last bad rumour you head about Lambda School is in fact true, so this person feels that she should keep the money because you can't penalize someone for speaking the truth. We are back at the negotiating table because public opinion is justifiably very much against Lambda School.
    - monkeywork 7y ago
      > Contracts are re-negotiated all the time when circumstances change Re-negotiation happens between the two parties, one person can't simply choose to break the agreement becasue they feel it is fine. > Now it turns out that every last bad rumour you head about Lambda School is in fact true Source?
    - bjornsing 7y ago
      > you can't penalize someone for speaking the truth The purpose of an NDA is typically to penalize someone if they speak the truth.
- pochamago 7y ago
  I think people want to live in a world where breaking a contract is a serious moral quandary. The notion of an oath is old, and has seemingly always resonated as sacred. It's one of those lawful aspects of society that make people feel safer and more capable of trust.
monkeywork 7y ago
> Maybe the moral position is not to take the money. This would have been the correct route > Maybe it's okay to take the money and leak it anyway (assuming you think you can get away with it), because your counterpart is already irredeemably unethical, and all you can do is try to make the best of a bad situation. No this sets you up for even more financial harm and makes you untrustworthy ... if you can't follow a simple agreement that you are freely signing how can I trust anything that comes out of your mouth. > I don't think it's always so clear cut. Contracts shouldn't always be considered sacred. If the contract is legal it should be - if your unsure if it's legal talk to a lawyer. Without contracts being actually enforceable if one party believes it's immoral then everything goes to shit.
- ohazi 7y ago
  I was responding to an assertion about who has the moral high ground here. The law does not dictate this. Repercussions that stem from breaking the law also have no bearing on whether or not an action can be morally justified. You are talking about whether a position can be legally justified. The two are not the same thing.
  - monkeywork 7y ago
    ok here is a moral question then. You and I have a disagreement privately lets say over a potted plant. In the end we decide to part ways and I say here you can have the potted plant lets just never have this come out again I never want to hear about this argument again. You shake my hand and agree that's fair, take your potted plant head home and immediately call all of our mutual friends and begin to say all kinds of horrible things about me. Who was the immoral one there? I'd argue the one who broke the final agreement The entire point of a settlement / severance / etc is the two parties saying you know what we are done of this fight - here is what makes you feel happy to walk away from it ($$) and here is what makes us feel happy (to not have to hear about it anymore).
    - ohazi 7y ago
      Your example is a mockery of what was claimed, and I think you're being disingenuous. You're using a generic "disagreement" and "potted plant" rather than "employer tried to improperly fire an employee" and "$36,000 severance for a non-disparagement agreement." I think you're doing this deliberately in order to make the letter of the agreement seem more important than the details of what happened. My moral calculus is explained clearly here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22533048 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22533048 If your question is serious, then no, I don't think the immoral one is necessarily the one who broke the final agreement. In certain cases, the one who acted poorly first might be the immoral one. Signing and then breaking an agreement could, in some cases, be a response that is morally justifiable, even if it is illegal, and even if there are legal reprecussions. If the retaliating party takes it too far, then they might be the immoral one. I'm making no claims about what was or wasn't morally justifiable in this particular story. But I'm shocked that so many people seem to think that a contract is sacred and that a person who breaks one is automatically the immoral party. The actual circumstances of the situation matter more than whether or not a written agreement is broken. There are times when deciding to break a contract after signing it is morally justifiable. There are even times when signing a contract with the intention of breaking it later might be morally justifiable. Is it really that difficult for people to come up with a contrived example here? Coercion? Duress? Extreme power imbalances between the signing parties? Implied threats? Lying to get out of a dangerous situation? Do people not even see these things as possibilities? It seems blindingly obvious to me that the circumstances matter.

by ohazi 7y ago

duxup 7y ago

She could have left without signing.... there isn't anything to indicate there was more than money at play.

ohazi 7y ago
Yeah, she could have. There's often social pressure to shut up, sign whatever they put in front of you, and take the severance money. It can be extremely difficult to go against this pressure, especially if you're not particularly well paid or powerful and the company is throwing resources at trying to fire you. I'm not suggesting that she should or shouldn't have done what she did here, I'm just trying to push back against all the commenters blindly stating that "she violated her contract! what did she expect would happen?" It's true, that's what happened, and that's what one should expect. But there's more nuance to how this interaction works, and I think it's a little disingenuous to leave it at just that, especially if you're going to bring morality into the picture.
- dominotw 7y ago
  > There's often social pressure to shut up, sign whatever they put in front of you For me it wasn't social pressure. Its 'at will' laws, employer can fire you for no reason whatsoever( unless its discrimination sort of deal), so ppl get what they can in form of severance.
- monkeywork 7y ago
  The thing is legally it is just that black and white. If she wants sympathy or what have you that's fine but legally she has no leg to stand on - there is zero nuance there.
  - senordevnyc 7y ago
    Untrue. Not all contracts are enforceable, even if one side accepted the consideration.
    - monkeywork 7y ago
      Are you asserting that an NDA about limiting what you can talk about an organization is not enforceable? Because I think a 30 second google search will literally find you thousands of such NDAs being perfectly legit.
      - senordevnyc 7y ago
        Did I say that? I’m responding to your assertion that this is a simple open and shut case legally and she has zero recourse. You don’t know the facts and I suspect you’re not attorney. You have no idea whether that’s true or not.
        monkeywork 7y ago
        The Verve article which is heavily slanted in her favour makes it sure seem like it's an open and shut case. But ping me if she wins a legal case here and I'll gladly admit I was wrong.
michaelmrose 7y ago
She was 5 months pregnant being threatened with termination for not complying with a performance plan she had never seen before. They were trying to get rid of her without doing the proper legwork to establish that she failed in any measuable fashion. Depending on her other financial situations she might be facing financial disaster including uninsured, life destroying, medical bills plus the inability to get any other position while visibly pregnant. It's highly likely that she was pretty much obliged to take the money regardless of how she felt.
- duxup 7y ago
  You talk to a lawyer in that situation... you don't take the cash.
  - pmiller2 7y ago
    And the lawyer tells you something like "maybe we could win against them in court, but it will take a year. Even if they settle, we're looking at 3 months." Meanwhile, she's still uninsured, etc.
    - duxup 7y ago
      Potentially, but then you make that call in an informed way.
  - ohazi 7y ago
    > She was 5 months pregnant being threatened with termination > You talk to a lawyer in that situation Stop and listen to yourself. Do you honestly not see how someone in this situation might not believe that retaining a lawyer is a realistic possibility for them?
    - duxup 7y ago
      She's an adult and responsible for her actions.

someone7x 7y ago

It's crazy how entrenched the notion is that contracts have an inalienable divine right to be honored.

monkeywork 7y ago
how else would you suggest it be done? if there can not be legally enforced contracts how can even the most basic of transactions be completed?
- HarryHirsch 7y ago
  Contracts are re-negotiated all the time when circumstances change. Just consider this case: Lambda School paid their head of career services some money to be rid of her under the condition that she keep silent because they didn't consider her trustworthy. Now it turns out that every last bad rumour you head about Lambda School is in fact true, so this person feels that she should keep the money because you can't penalize someone for speaking the truth. We are back at the negotiating table because public opinion is justifiably very much against Lambda School.
  - monkeywork 7y ago
    > Contracts are re-negotiated all the time when circumstances change Re-negotiation happens between the two parties, one person can't simply choose to break the agreement becasue they feel it is fine. > Now it turns out that every last bad rumour you head about Lambda School is in fact true Source?
  - bjornsing 7y ago
    > you can't penalize someone for speaking the truth The purpose of an NDA is typically to penalize someone if they speak the truth.
pochamago 7y ago
I think people want to live in a world where breaking a contract is a serious moral quandary. The notion of an oath is old, and has seemingly always resonated as sacred. It's one of those lawful aspects of society that make people feel safer and more capable of trust.

monkeywork 7y ago

> Maybe the moral position is not to take the money. This would have been the correct route > Maybe it's okay to take the money and leak it anyway (assuming you think you can get away with it), because your counterpart is already irredeemably unethical, and all you can do is try to make the best of a bad situation. No this sets you up for even more financial harm and makes you untrustworthy ... if you can't follow a simple agreement that you are freely signing how can I trust anything that comes out of your mouth. > I don't think it's always so clear cut. Contracts shouldn't always be considered sacred. If the contract is legal it should be - if your unsure if it's legal talk to a lawyer. Without contracts being actually enforceable if one party believes it's immoral then everything goes to shit.

ohazi 7y ago
I was responding to an assertion about who has the moral high ground here. The law does not dictate this. Repercussions that stem from breaking the law also have no bearing on whether or not an action can be morally justified. You are talking about whether a position can be legally justified. The two are not the same thing.
- monkeywork 7y ago
  ok here is a moral question then. You and I have a disagreement privately lets say over a potted plant. In the end we decide to part ways and I say here you can have the potted plant lets just never have this come out again I never want to hear about this argument again. You shake my hand and agree that's fair, take your potted plant head home and immediately call all of our mutual friends and begin to say all kinds of horrible things about me. Who was the immoral one there? I'd argue the one who broke the final agreement The entire point of a settlement / severance / etc is the two parties saying you know what we are done of this fight - here is what makes you feel happy to walk away from it ($$) and here is what makes us feel happy (to not have to hear about it anymore).
  - ohazi 7y ago
    Your example is a mockery of what was claimed, and I think you're being disingenuous. You're using a generic "disagreement" and "potted plant" rather than "employer tried to improperly fire an employee" and "$36,000 severance for a non-disparagement agreement." I think you're doing this deliberately in order to make the letter of the agreement seem more important than the details of what happened. My moral calculus is explained clearly here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22533048 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22533048 If your question is serious, then no, I don't think the immoral one is necessarily the one who broke the final agreement. In certain cases, the one who acted poorly first might be the immoral one. Signing and then breaking an agreement could, in some cases, be a response that is morally justifiable, even if it is illegal, and even if there are legal reprecussions. If the retaliating party takes it too far, then they might be the immoral one. I'm making no claims about what was or wasn't morally justifiable in this particular story. But I'm shocked that so many people seem to think that a contract is sacred and that a person who breaks one is automatically the immoral party. The actual circumstances of the situation matter more than whether or not a written agreement is broken. There are times when deciding to break a contract after signing it is morally justifiable. There are even times when signing a contract with the intention of breaking it later might be morally justifiable. Is it really that difficult for people to come up with a contrived example here? Coercion? Duress? Extreme power imbalances between the signing parties? Implied threats? Lying to get out of a dangerous situation? Do people not even see these things as possibilities? It seems blindingly obvious to me that the circumstances matter.