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> So here is an important moral question: is knowledge of moral risk (in the sense of a risk that I will do something bad, unknowingly) a reason to hold me mora

> So here is an important moral question: is knowledge of moral risk (in the sense of a risk that I will do something bad, unknowingly) a reason to hold me morally culpable? I would say yes. Let’s make an analogy to physical risk: suppose you are a shift manager who is aware of general and persistent safety issues at a factory (by hearing about mutilations and deaths), even if you don’t know any of the specifics. Formally, inspecting equipment is not your job and you only have “standard” safety responsibilities. Still, if you take no effort to investigate potential safety issues in your own factory line, and one of your workers gets killed due to an undiagnosed machine fault, I would say you held significant culpability in their death. This might not be legal culpability vis a vis manslaughter or OSHA trouble, but in an informal and societal sense, you could have done more to protect that person, and the only thing stopping you was your indifference and a shield of “it wasn’t my responsibility.” In general: if you are aware of potential ethical or moral liability, you can’t lawyer or philosopher your way out of it. Engaging with the question itself is assuming responsibility.

yyyymmddhhmmss 6y ago
What if you are not a shift manager but instead the owner of a factory, and you need more profit so you can invest in some environmentally friendly factory equipment, so you spend less on safety, leading to the the worker’s death? That, my friend, is the question.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
kd5bjo 6y ago
> Engaging with the question itself is assuming responsibility. This is a dangerous sentiment as it incentivizes people to not engage with such questions in order to avoid the accompanying duty, which cannot be known before considering the question.
- eeZah7Ux 6y ago
  +1 What makes the manager responsible is not the engagement with the question but the power and responsibility that comes with being the shift manager.
  - ratherbefuddled 6y ago
    What makes the manager responsible is being a human who is aware of danger they might reasonably be able to protect other humans from.
    - eeZah7Ux 6y ago
      Responsibility comes with power. Especially when managers have the power to put psychological pressure on employees to work faster, and for longer hours and therefore disregard safety procedures. It is very unfair to hold other employees to the same standard of accountability.
- mping 6y ago
  One could read your reply as saying that people want to dodge responsibility, though. It's a double edged sword.
- ojnabieoot 6y ago
  To be clear the question is not “is this morally questionable?” but rather “I know this is morally questionable, is there a way for me to avoid responsibility?” Otherwise I am having a bit of difficulty actually untangling your comment.
  - kd5bjo 6y ago
    By putting a burden on people who know something is “morally questionable,” you are discouraging people from taking actions which might reveal such knowledge to them. In the hypothetical you posted, the manager is not in a position to avoid this knowledge. By your logic, an activist that knows about the conditions inside the plant is also responsible for the safety of the workers, and no action other than successfully protecting the workers will satisfy that responsibility. In this framework, it’s better for an outsider to actively avoid learning about the working conditions because it might impose a duty that’s impossible to fulfill.
    - ojnabieoot 6y ago
      This is a tortured misreading of what I’m saying - and regardless is addressed by my argument. > you are discouraging people from taking actions which might reveal such knowledge to them If you are deliberately and knowingly avoiding that knowledge to escape culpability then that’s morally equivalent to having the knowledge but failing to act. A police sergeant who says “get a confession, and if you rough him up don’t tell me about it” might be protecting themselves from legal responsibility but certainly not moral responsibility. Again: there isn’t a loophole here. Constructing a loophole is itself immoral. > By your logic, an activist that knows about the conditions inside the plant is also responsible for the safety of the workers No - the manager has substantially more capacity to act than the activist. There is some fuzziness - is the activist is deliberately suppressing information about conditions inside the plant then they do share responsibility. But if the activist is merely ineffective then it’s not reasonable to blame them for injuries or fatalities. This is not a question that’s amenable to algorithms or flowcharts, which seems to be giving you some difficulty. > and no action other than successfully protecting the workers will satisfy that responsibility. This is not what my logic said at all! It’s such a ridiculous misreading that I wonder if you are arguing in good faith. I didn’t say the manager had to successfully protect the worker, but that they had to try. If machine maintenance is the responsibility of another team then perhaps the manager could do everything right and still have a worker killed. No one human can solve every problem that might come up. But if the manager knew there was a risk and did nothing, not even taking a look, then they share moral responsibility with the team actually responsible for maintaining the equipment. There is a huge difference between “the firefighters failed to stop the fire because it got too dangerous” and “the firefighters failed to stop the fire because they went out drinking,” even if in the latter case the fire was hopeless. Again - you really can’t lawyer or logic your way out of moral responsibility, even if it works on a legal or social level. And no, there isn’t a foolproof algorithm for determining moral questions like this. But if your approach is “where are the gaps in this moral framework that lets me get away with bad things?” then you are not interested in acting morally.
the-dude 6y ago
> Engaging with the question itself is assuming responsibility. Isn't this commonly referred to as the 'Copenhagen interpretation of ethics' ?
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  It is, and I think that's where GP went a bit too general in his conclusions, which I otherwise share. The problem with CIoE is "the other observer" - the other people, that judge you for not sacrificing 100% of your resources to deal with an issue that's far outside your area of responsibility, but that you noticed and dared to help with (or even comment on it). That's no way for a society to work. Completely untangling what's wrong with this view is nontrivial, and touches upon a similar question of why won't you, or me, sell all what we have, give it to the poor, and forever live in poverty (as Jesus would want us to). In this case, I think GP meant a more complex relationship than the word "aware" in "if you are aware of potential ethical or moral liability" would make you think. I think they meant "aware" as "aware in detail and having power to meaningfully affect the outcome". I'm aware of a lot of bad things that happen on the other side of the planet, that are not in any way caused by me, and which I have no good way of helping with. So I don't think bad about deprioritizing them in favor of things I can help with, as there are countless other people like me over there, who are both aware and able to help with the problem. Also what matters is the scale and scope of the problem. A manager at a plant can, by their own action or inaction, cause people to get hurt, or prevent that from happening. In this case, not only ignoring the problem they know about is morally wrong, but also doing steps to avoid ever learning about a hazard is itself doing wrong. But that same manager won't single-handedly solve the housing crisis in their city, so I wouldn't blame them if they decided to stop reading news to preserve their sanity. WRT. consulting businesses, I'd say the knowledge about how they're screwing up companies (and countries) is known, but not widely enough to blame a random new college hire (you have to contrast that with the marketing these companies do to attract employees - so I'd redirect some of the moral responsibility towards people who know and work to get others involved). Joining despite knowing about these things? That's another thing entirely.
fierarul 6y ago
> Engaging with the question itself is assuming responsibility. This explains why at any major software company looking up for similar patents is actively discouraged.
wongarsu 6y ago
> Engaging with the question itself is assuming responsibility. I would argue the exact opposite. Let's stay at the factory analogy: If I'm shift manager and never think about the kinds of accidents that could occur under my supervision and something happens then that's criminal negligence. If I consider the risks, put appropriate safeguards in place, and something still happens them I'm innocent. Accidents happen and I did what I could. Of course if I recognize the risk and choose to do nothing we are getting into manslaughter territory, much worse than negligence; but assuming I'm actually striving to mitigate risks where possible I'm in a much better position by engaging with them. The same should be true of moral risks. Simply not thinking about them is no solution.
- ojnabieoot 6y ago
  I believe you misread my argument in the same way that kd5bjo did above and you should see my response to them. In a later response I specifically addressed the difference between knowing there’s a risk and doing nothing vs taking action that proves inadequate.
downerending 6y ago
Somewhat agree, but this gets tricky fast. Everyone only has so much time, so how can you tell how much time is appropriate to spend investigating problems that you're only generally aware of? And what about the opportunity cost of all of the things you didn't do instead? Does it matter if the factory produces things that save other people's lives? How much time should you spend trying to figure out how much time you should spend determining whether the safety problem at the factory is worth pursuing? (I've faced this problem directly at work before.)

yyyymmddhhmmss 6y ago

What if you are not a shift manager but instead the owner of a factory, and you need more profit so you can invest in some environmentally friendly factory equipment, so you spend less on safety, leading to the the worker’s death? That, my friend, is the question.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

kd5bjo 6y ago

> Engaging with the question itself is assuming responsibility. This is a dangerous sentiment as it incentivizes people to not engage with such questions in order to avoid the accompanying duty, which cannot be known before considering the question.

eeZah7Ux 6y ago
+1 What makes the manager responsible is not the engagement with the question but the power and responsibility that comes with being the shift manager.
- ratherbefuddled 6y ago
  What makes the manager responsible is being a human who is aware of danger they might reasonably be able to protect other humans from.
  - eeZah7Ux 6y ago
    Responsibility comes with power. Especially when managers have the power to put psychological pressure on employees to work faster, and for longer hours and therefore disregard safety procedures. It is very unfair to hold other employees to the same standard of accountability.
mping 6y ago
One could read your reply as saying that people want to dodge responsibility, though. It's a double edged sword.
ojnabieoot 6y ago
To be clear the question is not “is this morally questionable?” but rather “I know this is morally questionable, is there a way for me to avoid responsibility?” Otherwise I am having a bit of difficulty actually untangling your comment.
- kd5bjo 6y ago
  By putting a burden on people who know something is “morally questionable,” you are discouraging people from taking actions which might reveal such knowledge to them. In the hypothetical you posted, the manager is not in a position to avoid this knowledge. By your logic, an activist that knows about the conditions inside the plant is also responsible for the safety of the workers, and no action other than successfully protecting the workers will satisfy that responsibility. In this framework, it’s better for an outsider to actively avoid learning about the working conditions because it might impose a duty that’s impossible to fulfill.
  - ojnabieoot 6y ago
    This is a tortured misreading of what I’m saying - and regardless is addressed by my argument. > you are discouraging people from taking actions which might reveal such knowledge to them If you are deliberately and knowingly avoiding that knowledge to escape culpability then that’s morally equivalent to having the knowledge but failing to act. A police sergeant who says “get a confession, and if you rough him up don’t tell me about it” might be protecting themselves from legal responsibility but certainly not moral responsibility. Again: there isn’t a loophole here. Constructing a loophole is itself immoral. > By your logic, an activist that knows about the conditions inside the plant is also responsible for the safety of the workers No - the manager has substantially more capacity to act than the activist. There is some fuzziness - is the activist is deliberately suppressing information about conditions inside the plant then they do share responsibility. But if the activist is merely ineffective then it’s not reasonable to blame them for injuries or fatalities. This is not a question that’s amenable to algorithms or flowcharts, which seems to be giving you some difficulty. > and no action other than successfully protecting the workers will satisfy that responsibility. This is not what my logic said at all! It’s such a ridiculous misreading that I wonder if you are arguing in good faith. I didn’t say the manager had to successfully protect the worker, but that they had to try. If machine maintenance is the responsibility of another team then perhaps the manager could do everything right and still have a worker killed. No one human can solve every problem that might come up. But if the manager knew there was a risk and did nothing, not even taking a look, then they share moral responsibility with the team actually responsible for maintaining the equipment. There is a huge difference between “the firefighters failed to stop the fire because it got too dangerous” and “the firefighters failed to stop the fire because they went out drinking,” even if in the latter case the fire was hopeless. Again - you really can’t lawyer or logic your way out of moral responsibility, even if it works on a legal or social level. And no, there isn’t a foolproof algorithm for determining moral questions like this. But if your approach is “where are the gaps in this moral framework that lets me get away with bad things?” then you are not interested in acting morally.

the-dude 6y ago

> Engaging with the question itself is assuming responsibility. Isn't this commonly referred to as the 'Copenhagen interpretation of ethics' ?

TeMPOraL 6y ago
It is, and I think that's where GP went a bit too general in his conclusions, which I otherwise share. The problem with CIoE is "the other observer" - the other people, that judge you for not sacrificing 100% of your resources to deal with an issue that's far outside your area of responsibility, but that you noticed and dared to help with (or even comment on it). That's no way for a society to work. Completely untangling what's wrong with this view is nontrivial, and touches upon a similar question of why won't you, or me, sell all what we have, give it to the poor, and forever live in poverty (as Jesus would want us to). In this case, I think GP meant a more complex relationship than the word "aware" in "if you are aware of potential ethical or moral liability" would make you think. I think they meant "aware" as "aware in detail and having power to meaningfully affect the outcome". I'm aware of a lot of bad things that happen on the other side of the planet, that are not in any way caused by me, and which I have no good way of helping with. So I don't think bad about deprioritizing them in favor of things I can help with, as there are countless other people like me over there, who are both aware and able to help with the problem. Also what matters is the scale and scope of the problem. A manager at a plant can, by their own action or inaction, cause people to get hurt, or prevent that from happening. In this case, not only ignoring the problem they know about is morally wrong, but also doing steps to avoid ever learning about a hazard is itself doing wrong. But that same manager won't single-handedly solve the housing crisis in their city, so I wouldn't blame them if they decided to stop reading news to preserve their sanity. WRT. consulting businesses, I'd say the knowledge about how they're screwing up companies (and countries) is known, but not widely enough to blame a random new college hire (you have to contrast that with the marketing these companies do to attract employees - so I'd redirect some of the moral responsibility towards people who know and work to get others involved). Joining despite knowing about these things? That's another thing entirely.

fierarul 6y ago

> Engaging with the question itself is assuming responsibility. This explains why at any major software company looking up for similar patents is actively discouraged.

wongarsu 6y ago

> Engaging with the question itself is assuming responsibility. I would argue the exact opposite. Let's stay at the factory analogy: If I'm shift manager and never think about the kinds of accidents that could occur under my supervision and something happens then that's criminal negligence. If I consider the risks, put appropriate safeguards in place, and something still happens them I'm innocent. Accidents happen and I did what I could. Of course if I recognize the risk and choose to do nothing we are getting into manslaughter territory, much worse than negligence; but assuming I'm actually striving to mitigate risks where possible I'm in a much better position by engaging with them. The same should be true of moral risks. Simply not thinking about them is no solution.

ojnabieoot 6y ago
I believe you misread my argument in the same way that kd5bjo did above and you should see my response to them. In a later response I specifically addressed the difference between knowing there’s a risk and doing nothing vs taking action that proves inadequate.

downerending 6y ago

Somewhat agree, but this gets tricky fast. Everyone only has so much time, so how can you tell how much time is appropriate to spend investigating problems that you're only generally aware of? And what about the opportunity cost of all of the things you didn't do instead? Does it matter if the factory produces things that save other people's lives? How much time should you spend trying to figure out how much time you should spend determining whether the safety problem at the factory is worth pursuing? (I've faced this problem directly at work before.)