> nothing I or my coworkers do is evil and we would never engage in anything unethical.
Don't you see? Everyone who turned out to be evil in the end would have said and felt the exact same way while they were actually doing their evil. People and corporations do the things they do because they feel they have the right to do those things, and that they are justified in doing those things, in virtually all cases. That is the case for people and corporations who, in hindsight, did lots of evil and unethical things as well.
In the future that may very well include Facebook. And every last Facebook employee will claim that they had no idea what was going on, and/or that they weren't a part of the "evil side" of Facebook, or whatever they have to say to themselves to maintain the illusion that they did nothing wrong.
Your actions alone are not what decide if what you are doing is immoral. If you are in the armed services and you assemble or maintain weaponry designed to kill people (as I did in the US Air Force) then that work is arguably evil and immoral. I feel that what I did was immoral, and at the time I would have laughed at anyone that said turning a torque wrench is immoral. I was doing my job. I was tightening bolts to 100 in/lb and I was putting guidance systems onto test equipment to make sure they worked. I was making sure that those devices would kill when someone set them loose. I definitely did not believe that I was doing anything wrong at the time, and I definitely believe that I was in the wrong today, depending on how those weapons are or will be used. If they are used to sate some evil maniac like our current president then I did immoral work. If they are used to keep peace, then I did not. Weapons are rarely used to keep peace, however. Grenades are not peacekeeping weapons. Scatter bombs are not peacekeeping weapons.
Facebook spying on children without consent is not a justifiable action. Facebook working around the language of their agreement with Apple in order to do something forbidden by that agreement is not a justifiable action.
Don't you see? Everyone who turned out to be evil in the end would have said and felt the exact same way while they were actually doing their evil. People and corporations do the things they do because they feel they have the right to do those things, and that they are justified in doing those things, in virtually all cases. That is the case for people and corporations who, in hindsight, did lots of evil and unethical things as well.
In the future that may very well include Facebook. And every last Facebook employee will claim that they had no idea what was going on, and/or that they weren't a part of the "evil side" of Facebook, or whatever they have to say to themselves to maintain the illusion that they did nothing wrong.
Your actions alone are not what decide if what you are doing is immoral. If you are in the armed services and you assemble or maintain weaponry designed to kill people (as I did in the US Air Force) then that work is arguably evil and immoral. I feel that what I did was immoral, and at the time I would have laughed at anyone that said turning a torque wrench is immoral. I was doing my job. I was tightening bolts to 100 in/lb and I was putting guidance systems onto test equipment to make sure they worked. I was making sure that those devices would kill when someone set them loose. I definitely did not believe that I was doing anything wrong at the time, and I definitely believe that I was in the wrong today, depending on how those weapons are or will be used. If they are used to sate some evil maniac like our current president then I did immoral work. If they are used to keep peace, then I did not. Weapons are rarely used to keep peace, however. Grenades are not peacekeeping weapons. Scatter bombs are not peacekeeping weapons.
Facebook spying on children without consent is not a justifiable action. Facebook working around the language of their agreement with Apple in order to do something forbidden by that agreement is not a justifiable action.