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by chucksmash
2621 days ago
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On its face the statement is true. LM does design missiles, and some non-zero number of them have been used to kill innocent people. I'm curious what part of the statement is important to you in making that decision though. Is it that LM is part of the military-industrial complex, full stop? That the weapons are used by the US military? That they are sold to and used by other governments? Would LM be acceptable if they created weapons that magically never harmed the innocent? What if they occasionally harmed the innocent but were always used by people with good intentions who were doing things you supported? Never worked in that industry, just curious. |
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As for my personal view, it's fairly clear that Lockheed-Martin props up (through lobbying) and profits (through government contracts) from the US war machine -- which in turn has killed millions of innocent civilians. And then there's the contractors that Lockheed-Martin has provided to government agencies to further strengthen the surveillance tools of the NSA, CIA, FBI, and so on. So, I think Lockheed-Martin was a good example of a "clearly immoral" company.
EDIT: You changed your comment after I responded to it. I don't think the ethics of hypothetical magic missiles is a super useful conversation to have (changes in technology don't change our underlying ethics, they just change what ethical questions are being asked).
On the question about unintended consequences, obviously in wars you can't guarantee zero civilian casualties and innocent bloodshed is inevitable (though still unjustifiable). But the US is currently engaged in several illegal wars of aggression (which is a crime under international law) and clearly planning to engage in several more. Personally, I think the "unintended consequences are inevitable in war" defense isn't available to you if the war itself was illegal from the outset.