[geofft]

That is not the question I'm asking. The question is what ethical principles distinguish these cases. How do we get a consistent decision process out of this?

One consistent answer is, Dehomag did nothing wrong, if the legitimate German government wants to commit genocide, that's a matter for perhaps international law, and local companies should cooperate. (I think that's a horrid moral position, but it is, at least, a well-defined one.)

One answer is simply that extermination camps are beyond the pale but all other activities are fine. But then there's a weird case-by-case problem: if a government treats slavery as legal, is it okay to power their slave-catching program? If they run electroshock therapy for gay deconversion, is it okay to support that infrastructure? Basically, when we say "Never again," is it tautological—are we defining the Holocaust as unique to ensure it never again could happen?

Or is there a common ethical principle that Dehomag could have applied before the Holocaust, when the programs were merely deportation/relocation and not genocide, to say "Wait, we don't need to make money from this," and if so, is it relevant today?

As I said, we can always reach the conclusion that ICE is not perpetuating crimes against humanity, that their work is morally acceptable. But if we believe that, why try to purchase morality offsets for it?

[toasterlovin]

I guess if you think people have an inalienable right to cross whatever national border they want, then ICE is perpetuating crimes against humanity. If you believe otherwise (which I think is the generally accepted reasonable stance), then ICE is engaged in the difficult task of dealing with an influx of illegal border crossers whose identity and nationality is not known, with a subset of those illegal border crossers being children for whom it is not easy or straightforward to determine their legal guardians. To most people, that is not at all comparable to any of the abhorrent crimes you mentioned.

So why even mention them?

[geofft]

Because clearly GitHub thinks there's something wrong with what ICE is doing: they're donating more than the revenue of the contract to anti-ICE organizations, they're suing ICE, etc. Why should they do any of that, if ICE is simply doing an important and difficult job?

Again, I am not asking about your opinion of ICE, or mine - I am asking about ethical frameworks in general, and GitHub's opinion. What is the ethical framework under which GitHub decided to offset the value of their contract?

[toasterlovin]

I get your point now. Thanks for clarifying.