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.
So yes I think everyone would agree you have some responsibility (otherwise no one would care about the outcome of the case, why request the right to discriminate if you don't feel that you have any responsibility for the resulting acts?)
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.
I'd hope (and expect!) that home depot employees would ask you to leave if you made those statements while trying to purchase rope.
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.
Home Depot (the company) will not make any effort to ban me from using their chain even if an employee did make me leave the premises. I could just go home and order it online from HomeDepot.com and have it shipped right to me.
So, much as after you kick someone out of your store they could order on the home depot website, they could also just go to Lowe's and say nothing. Neither company is really to blame in that case. On the other hand, I wouldn't say that you shouldn't escalate to law enforcement if someone is threatening to go lynch someone in your presence.
> 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.
But you still have responsibility when you assist others in doing things, whether you agree or disagree with those things.
Otherwise you are ignoring the "let live" part of your own philosophy.
For example, someone comes to you asking for your services to help them kill a third person.
If you believe in the "let live" part of your philosophy, you cannot assist in depriving someone of life in that way.
Same applies to the golden rule. It's easy to say you don't want to be denied assistance from others, so you won't deny it to them. But that's the easy scenario. Consider, when Alice is asked by Bob to help damage you, do you think the golden rule tells Alice to deprive you of life and liberty? I don't think it does.
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.
I will agree that it's dubious that that nuance is reflected in the rulings on the Masterpiece case. I'm trying to follow the same lines set there, though, in my argumentation.
And would you have the same answer if you believed that law enforcement wouldn't do anything to stop the buyer from doing anything?
Would the added features be useful in another context? Would they be useful regardless of the type of work being done? Are they merely enhancements of the platform, or are they specifically tailored to the client's domain?
So if ICE asks github to prioritize better native CI support for Windows, or something, they're doing it because it is of maximum benefit to ICE.
The CCP's position seems to be that anything vaguely resembling disrespect of the CCP or their leader will lead to revolution, and therefore must be suppressed with whatever means necessary.
It's generally possible for people to see small, seemingly-harmless, and sometimes-unintentional actions as being part of / enabling / normalizing some terrible threat, which must therefore be burned down, and anyone who opposes such burning must themselves be burned too. I think this happened with the Inquisitions, for example.
It doesn't solve the issue to say "the different political factions will judge for themselves which infractions against their beliefs are harmless". People are very capable of inflaming their own political passions to cast any issue as being the first step towards the end of the world. It only works if there is some common, overarching framework that the different factions agree on. If the common foundation is democracy, then I think that framework would probably be "that which the law allows is permissible; peacefully advocating your policies is permissible; if you think the law is wrong, advocate to change the law". Civil disobedience is a step outside that framework, but (by design) one of the most harmless.
Another responsibility that is not given enough weight is the maintenance of a civil non-polarized society.
IMO the former is more objectionable than the latter.
If GitHub were to go through with it, that would make for an interesting middle-man company business model.