[blagie]

This argument is nonsense in that a corporation does not "wants to increase its profits and maximize shareholder value" or want anything "executed by its employees." A corporation is a signed document usually in Delware, and a collective belief in it's existence by society-at-large. It doesn't want anything anymore than my computer, my car, or a my fence wants anything.

I do maintain my car so it continues to work for me, but it doesn't "want" oil or gas. I want it to work for me.

The same is true for corporations. Corporations are a useful construct for keeping society free and productive (relative to, say, command economies or feudalism). I want the retirees who invested in the corporation to be able to retire, customers to be happy, and employees to have a healthy work environment. The extent to which that aligns to what you think a piece of paper in Delaware wants varies. It sometimes aligns and sometimes doesn't.

Beyond that, there is no fundamental moral imperative for helping your employer grow anymore than there is for oiling a car.

There is a moral imperative to doing what you agree to do (which includes contracts), the strength of which varies by context and culture. I can go into that in much more depth.

[0xbadcafebee]

I never said there was a moral obligation to helping your employer, I said there was an ethical obligation, which there is (even more so depending on your occupation).

Morally you have an obligation to yourself and other people, and following moral principles in relation to a company should be considered the same as moral principles applied to people. Like you point out, companies are made of people, your actions impact people in and through the company, hence your morals apply to the company.

You don't have any moral obligation to your car. But if you don't eventually change the oil, someone is going to be impacted by it; the people stuck behind you in traffic, the tow truck driver, the mechanic, your kids stuck at after-school practice, etc. And even further, you impact yourself by not maintaining this machinery, by failing to live a principle of hard work, responsibility, caring for others impacted by your actions, the environment. You also fail to treat yourself well through the maintenance of the vehicle you own and use, losing a valuable asset. Pick your philosophical poison, there's not a lot of moral justification for these things. But you're right, you don't do them because you owe it to the car.

[blagie]

Please define your terms. Most communities use "morally" and "ethically" interchangeably, and where there are distinction, they vary by field.

https://www.britannica.com/story/whats-the-difference-betwee...

That's web link #1. Further links showed a few more distinctions, but none which matched what you wrote. It sounds like it's an important point, but I don't know what it is.

In terms of obligations to car (or corporation) versus human beings, it's not a "pick your philosophical poison." I'll give distinctions:

- If I have a friend who in need of help, and a car which would be damaged if driven without maintenance, the ethical behavior is to kill my car and help my friend. If, on the other hand, my spouse is sick, and helping my friend involves neglecting bringing my spouse to a hospital, I should probably "maintain" my spouse's health.

In corporations, a few examples:

- Pricing. I can set pricing to maximize profits / growth or to maximize customer benefit (which involves the company surviving, but not necessarily growing).

- Legal anticompetitive behavior. I can focus on harming my competitors (which may be best for shareholder value but contributes negatively to the world) or on building value

- Spyware / privacy. Profits may be maximized, but customers are harmed.

- Sales, litigation, etc. are all activities which mostly take away value from the world. It's good if people know about what solutions exist, but the profit-maximizing investment goes many times beyond that.

.... and so on.

In many cases, "good of the world" and "good of employer" align. If I'm working on a word processor, it's best for everyone if it works well, doesn't crash, etc. The distinctions come in when there's a misalignment. If all people pick "good of the world" over "good of employer," individual companies will be less competitive, but the ecosystem will be more efficient overall, and the world will work better.