6 ms·

> there is no moral obligation for employers to pay a wage that's fair, based on the value of the employee work, perhaps above ~subsistence levels. is there m

by ajuc 6y ago

> there is no moral obligation for employers to pay a wage that's fair, based on the value of the employee work, perhaps above ~subsistence levels. is there moral obligation to do your job well instead of let's say watching youtube and doing bare minimum not to get fired? It's funny how people expect moral behaviour from other people but not from companies made of these people. Somehow it's fine for companies to be jerks.

jhowell 6y ago
> Somehow it's fine for companies to be jerks. Look at many of the products we make together. Why would we hide behind laws that protect bad practices and think those same companies take a moral high ground on this issue. It is, and always will be, due in part to fiduciary responsibility to shareholders, about the money.
- falcolas 6y ago
  Funny how Target and Costco are still in business, since they're both public and pay living wages to their employees. The duty of a business is to keep the business healthy. This whole "profit at any cost" is a fairly new development.
  - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
    Yeah, Milton Freidman has a lot to answer for.
joelbluminator 6y ago
> It's funny how people expect moral behaviour from other people Do we though? We expect people to not break the rules, e.g murder or steal. We don't expect people to stop eating meat, polluting the earth, or generally to stop being extremely selfish. If we expected everyone to be moral you and I wouldn't be spending money on vacations and buying computer games but on trying to save poor kids in Africa and Bangladesh.
- bserge 6y ago
  Over the years, I realized that everyone is selfish and will literally throw you under a bus for the right amount of money, or some other acceptable incentive. Laws keep people in line, except for the few who break them and get away with it. Maybe I'm hanging around the wrong people (I often wonder where all the "right" ones are), but that's how it is. And if I don't play the same game, I'll keep getting fucked until I die. It's really depressing.
  - LeonB 6y ago
    I think you might be hanging around the wrong people. I’ve rarely met people with the ethics (or lack) you describe and certainly haven’t stayed in their presence if i can help it.
  - joelbluminator 6y ago
    Everony is selfish yes. Throw you under the bus - not sure about this one. Might be you need better friends.
  - yboris 6y ago
    Once you make claims like "everyone is", it sounds like you've given up on evidence, or have a tautological (always true) definition. Empirical evidence says otherwise (about altruism): see the work of Daniel Batson - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Batson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Batson As for good people, there are many. There are thousands who give at least 10% of their income to the most cost-effective charity they can find - https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/ https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/ There are thousands of people working very hard on the most effective solutions to the world's most important problems - https://www.effectivealtruism.org/ https://www.effectivealtruism.org/ There is plenty of hope. Find better people, work to improve yourself, the world, and others.
  - licebmi__at__ 6y ago
    This cynical outlook it's definitely helpful, but I believe the truth is more gray. It's quite likely and understandable that my friends will throw me under the bus if they see their livelihood in danger, but so far it hasn't been the case for measly higher pay. And yet I have depended on the kindness of strangers who had nothing to gain by helping me enough times to acknowledge that it's not selfishness what engages human behavior. As always it kinda depends on the framing, you can even say that it's on my best interest to act for the common good, so even altruism is selfish, but then you'll have a useless definition of altruism.
ukoki 6y ago
> is there moral obligation to do your job well instead of let's say watching youtube and doing bare minimum not to get fired? No You can choose to do well to avoid being fired. You can choose to do well to chase a promotion. You can choose to do well because the work interests you. But you are not morally obligated to do anything, and if your employer is not very good at evaluating your work, then — like a man who buys a gym membership and never goes — that's on them.
- cashewchoo 6y ago
  I think an extremely large percentage of America would disagree with you, though. The puritan work ethic is absolutely the backbone of society for a lot of americans.
  - HarryHirsch 6y ago
    Only for the employee, though, never for the employer. When the employee doesn't work he's a slacking <epithet>, when the employer overworks the employees or pays poorly it's "go find another job". It's religion for the masses, capitalism for the rich.
    - ajuc 6y ago
      That's my whole point, and it works the same in Catholic countries, too (at least in Poland).
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
- davemp 6y ago
  Who's morals are in question here? Both you and GP seem to be talking from an amoral perspective. To many people there is certainly a moral obligation to put in an honest effort and pay fair wages.
  - 6y ago
PunchTornado 6y ago
> is there moral obligation to do your job well instead of let's say watching youtube and doing bare minimum not to get fired? of course not. I do that all the time and don't think I'm doing something imoral. it's up to the employer to figure out that I could do more tickets. I'm not stupid to say: hey, I finished my tickets, give me more work :))
pavel_lishin 6y ago
> It's funny how people expect moral behaviour from other people but not from companies made of these people. Somehow it's fine for companies to be jerks. We expect different behavior from a beehive than we expect from the bees, don't we?
- ben_w 6y ago
  I’ve never thought about it before, so no, in the absence of your prompt I would have expected a beehive to just be N bees being bees. Obviously you wouldn’t have suggested this if my expectation was correct, but it would’ve been my guess if I didn’t use meta-reasoning about why you might be giving that example.
- drdeadringer 6y ago
  I don't want to be a bee. How can I be not wrong? "Entrepreneur" is not an answer.
  - WJW 6y ago
    Presumable the first step would be "philosophy", so that you can determine for yourself what "not wrong" is. Then once you find out, act accordingly.
dionidium 6y ago
You're conflating two distinct concepts: 1) what you're obligated to agree to; 2) what you're obligated to do once we've established what you've agreed to. You're not morally obligated to agree to literally anything, but you are morally obligated to uphold your end of an agreement.

by ajuc 6y ago

jhowell 6y ago

> Somehow it's fine for companies to be jerks. Look at many of the products we make together. Why would we hide behind laws that protect bad practices and think those same companies take a moral high ground on this issue. It is, and always will be, due in part to fiduciary responsibility to shareholders, about the money.

falcolas 6y ago
Funny how Target and Costco are still in business, since they're both public and pay living wages to their employees. The duty of a business is to keep the business healthy. This whole "profit at any cost" is a fairly new development.
- disgruntledphd2 6y ago
  Yeah, Milton Freidman has a lot to answer for.

joelbluminator 6y ago

> It's funny how people expect moral behaviour from other people Do we though? We expect people to not break the rules, e.g murder or steal. We don't expect people to stop eating meat, polluting the earth, or generally to stop being extremely selfish. If we expected everyone to be moral you and I wouldn't be spending money on vacations and buying computer games but on trying to save poor kids in Africa and Bangladesh.

bserge 6y ago
Over the years, I realized that everyone is selfish and will literally throw you under a bus for the right amount of money, or some other acceptable incentive. Laws keep people in line, except for the few who break them and get away with it. Maybe I'm hanging around the wrong people (I often wonder where all the "right" ones are), but that's how it is. And if I don't play the same game, I'll keep getting fucked until I die. It's really depressing.
- LeonB 6y ago
  I think you might be hanging around the wrong people. I’ve rarely met people with the ethics (or lack) you describe and certainly haven’t stayed in their presence if i can help it.
- joelbluminator 6y ago
  Everony is selfish yes. Throw you under the bus - not sure about this one. Might be you need better friends.
- yboris 6y ago
  Once you make claims like "everyone is", it sounds like you've given up on evidence, or have a tautological (always true) definition. Empirical evidence says otherwise (about altruism): see the work of Daniel Batson - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Batson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Batson As for good people, there are many. There are thousands who give at least 10% of their income to the most cost-effective charity they can find - https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/ https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/ There are thousands of people working very hard on the most effective solutions to the world's most important problems - https://www.effectivealtruism.org/ https://www.effectivealtruism.org/ There is plenty of hope. Find better people, work to improve yourself, the world, and others.
- licebmi__at__ 6y ago
  This cynical outlook it's definitely helpful, but I believe the truth is more gray. It's quite likely and understandable that my friends will throw me under the bus if they see their livelihood in danger, but so far it hasn't been the case for measly higher pay. And yet I have depended on the kindness of strangers who had nothing to gain by helping me enough times to acknowledge that it's not selfishness what engages human behavior. As always it kinda depends on the framing, you can even say that it's on my best interest to act for the common good, so even altruism is selfish, but then you'll have a useless definition of altruism.

ukoki 6y ago

> is there moral obligation to do your job well instead of let's say watching youtube and doing bare minimum not to get fired? No You can choose to do well to avoid being fired. You can choose to do well to chase a promotion. You can choose to do well because the work interests you. But you are not morally obligated to do anything, and if your employer is not very good at evaluating your work, then — like a man who buys a gym membership and never goes — that's on them.

cashewchoo 6y ago
I think an extremely large percentage of America would disagree with you, though. The puritan work ethic is absolutely the backbone of society for a lot of americans.
- HarryHirsch 6y ago
  Only for the employee, though, never for the employer. When the employee doesn't work he's a slacking <epithet>, when the employer overworks the employees or pays poorly it's "go find another job". It's religion for the masses, capitalism for the rich.
  - ajuc 6y ago
    That's my whole point, and it works the same in Catholic countries, too (at least in Poland).
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
davemp 6y ago
Who's morals are in question here? Both you and GP seem to be talking from an amoral perspective. To many people there is certainly a moral obligation to put in an honest effort and pay fair wages.
- 6y ago

PunchTornado 6y ago

> is there moral obligation to do your job well instead of let's say watching youtube and doing bare minimum not to get fired? of course not. I do that all the time and don't think I'm doing something imoral. it's up to the employer to figure out that I could do more tickets. I'm not stupid to say: hey, I finished my tickets, give me more work :))

pavel_lishin 6y ago

> It's funny how people expect moral behaviour from other people but not from companies made of these people. Somehow it's fine for companies to be jerks. We expect different behavior from a beehive than we expect from the bees, don't we?

ben_w 6y ago
I’ve never thought about it before, so no, in the absence of your prompt I would have expected a beehive to just be N bees being bees. Obviously you wouldn’t have suggested this if my expectation was correct, but it would’ve been my guess if I didn’t use meta-reasoning about why you might be giving that example.
drdeadringer 6y ago
I don't want to be a bee. How can I be not wrong? "Entrepreneur" is not an answer.
- WJW 6y ago
  Presumable the first step would be "philosophy", so that you can determine for yourself what "not wrong" is. Then once you find out, act accordingly.

dionidium 6y ago

You're conflating two distinct concepts: 1) what you're obligated to agree to; 2) what you're obligated to do once we've established what you've agreed to. You're not morally obligated to agree to literally anything, but you are morally obligated to uphold your end of an agreement.