| >> It seems like there's a fine line between being clever and being morally bankrupt. Actions can only be evaluated as moral/immoral/amoral when you've taken the time to define a system of morals. It's the difference between a requirements document and an implementation--just as you can't determine the suitability of software without knowing its requirements, you can't determine the suitability of an action without knowing your morals. Suppose you've decided you want to live in a society that respects the "Don't lie, steal, or cheat" maxims (for whatever reason--I've chosen this here because they're explicatively short!): Then determining what's moral/immoral/amoral becomes an application of:
1) Does this encourage me (or someone else) to intentionally misrepresent the truth?
2) Does this encourage me (or someone else) to take something that hasn't been given?
3) Does this encourage me (or someone else) to misrepresent the truth for gain? On the other hand, consider a company's system of "Maximize profit while minimizing legal liability":
1) Does this encourage me (or someone else) to maximize our company's profit?
2) Does this encourage me (or someone else) to expose our company to legal liability? Notice that these two systems don't address the same concerns. So the fine line exists because what's moral for the company MAY conflict with what's moral for the individual, and many of us don't like to think about /any/ ethical system (after all we're being paid to work in the latter!). |