Personally I wouldn't want to work for a company actually detaining people, but call me terrible but I'm not sure I'd feel the same about letting them pay to host some code...
1. You provide tools to a group. 2. You believe (in a informed way) that the group intends to act immorally. 3. Your tools will make the group more effective at acting immorally.
Do you have any responsibility for what happens?
1. I make tools (wedding planning software)
2. I believe (in an informed way) that a group intends to act immorally (use my tools to plan a gay wedding)
3. My tools will make the group more effective at acting immorally
Do I have any responsibility for what happens?
Or (alternatively):
1. I make tools (highly specialized chemicals)
2. I believe (in an informed way) that a group intends to act immorally (use my chemicals to improve abortions)
3. My tools will make the group more effective at acting immorally
Do I have any responsibility for what happens?
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IMO, it's better not to attempt to be morality police. Focus on making great tools.
I'm struggling to see how this is intended as a counterexample. Is it because disapproving of homosexuality is wrong? That doesn't at all change the entailment of responsibility by the conjunction of foreknowledge of consequences with uncoerced action.
If you walk out into a public street and fire a pistol around you randomly, you are clearly responsible for any death or injuries thereby caused (given that you were aware of the likely outcomes), even if it is through negligence or indifference rather than deliberate intent.
"hey, if you sell this to me, I'm going to go shoot that black kid outside", and then showed you a few videos of them doing this before?
This is bogus though. Will Home Depot allow me to buy some rope if I declare to a random employee that I plan on using it to do a lynching on my local colored neighbors? Yes, they will. Does that make Home Depot an immoral organization? Nope.
If you showed Home Depot sufficient evidence that you intended to lynch someone with it, and it was Home Depot's policy that we sell rope even if it's used for murder, then yes. I think the issue in your example is that you haven't made the corporate policy clear and you haven't made it clear that the employee is convinced of what you're about to do.
> Suppose that they'd already been on trial for it, found guilty and served their time
Ok, so I'm supposing a convicted felon is trying to purchase a gun, which is illegal under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1).
> Do you sell them the gun, knowing that they intend to use it for violence?
No, I do not sell them the gun, because it would be illegal to do so.
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Bottom line, I believe in "innocent until proven guilty." I don't deny services or tools to someone legally able to purchase it because I think they might use it to commit a future crime. I might report them to authorities if my suspicions are backed by evidence, but it's not my job to prevent future crimes. If I work at a glass blowing shop and someone wants me to create a custom bong for them, I wouldn't deny them because they might use it to smoke illegal drugs. Who knows, they might be scientists that need it to conduct a study.
I'm asking if it's unethical to sell someone a gun if you're convinced they're going to do something you believe to be unethical with it. I would say yes. I'm not sure if you would say, "no, it doesn't matter if I know they're going to kill children with it", "maybe, if I only think they're going to kill animals with it", or "yes, I don't think I should sell them the gun if I know they're going to do something I don't approve of with it".
To your second point, we're not talking about "maybe they're going to do something bad", we're saying "here's plenty of documentation that they're going to do something bad".
I don't like this contrived example though, and I suspect you've only set it up so that if/when I say "nope, I won't sell the gun to that person" you'll then say "in this case the gun is GitHub and the felon trying to buy it is ICE" which I do not think is an apt analogy at all.