@kshegunov said in is it ethical ?:
At least to me, which I believe is @Kent-Dorfman's point too, a business has one purpose to exist (one purpose to rule them all, if you will) - to make money for its owner.
I agree that a business' primary purpose is to make profit too. I don't agree that this primary purpose should be pursued at all costs.
@Kent-Dorfman's argument is "Behaving ethically reduces profit, therefore ethics has no place in business." This is quite different to your argument that "Ethics does not apply to entities that are not natural persons".
Businesses already do consider not killing people, mostly. Elsewise they run the risk of getting forcefully prosecuted and terminated.
Precisely. This shows that ethical considerations are codified in law and applied to businesses, no? (I'm presuming that you agree that "Avoid injuring or killing people" is ethical. Same goes for "Always use accurate scales for your customers, never rig scales" and even "Don't pressure your staff into begrudgingly working unpaid overtime".)
Anyway, the key phrase in my robot example was "even if taking those steps increases the costs... and cuts into profits". In other words, the primary purpose of making money can and should be guided by other (ethical) considerations.
I don't consider a business to be a cohesive single-minded entity, nor that you could assign social attributes to it.
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I guess, if you consider ethics a category applicable to legal entities, which I (still) don't.
That's OK. Regardless of our difference in opinion there, can you accept the following?
A business can be run in an ethical or unethical manner (Example: using rigged scales to unethically increase profits vs. using accurate scales always).
A business should be run in an ethical manner even if it means less money is then made as a result.
'Cos I don't care whether or not it makes sense to stick a label on a business/company. I care about the side-effects of the business' money-making process.
consider something terrible, like a coal mining company, shall they run their operations for free as coal is the terrible industry killing thousands of people worldwide (mostly indirectly)?
If a business is proven to contribute to deaths, then how much it charges for its services is irrelevant. At the very least, it needs to take steps to reduce those deaths, pronto. If it won't do that voluntarily, then it is continuing to operate unethically so the law and/or society needs to ensure that continuing as-is leads to the business "getting forcefully prosecuted and terminated" (Shegunov, 2021).
It ain't sustainable by your definition, shall we close all of them, or condemn them somehow from our warm(-ish) coal-powered homes?
Short answer: If an action reduces those deaths, then let's pursue that.
Long answer: Coal dependence and its effects is a wicked problem that can't be solved in a forum post. When I mentioned the "interests of a multitude of stakeholders" before, that list here includes the towns/communities whose existence currently depends on the operation of the coal mine, the people who currently depend on burning coal to avoid freezing in winter, the people who are currently losing their homes/livelihoods/lives to the changing climate that coal extraction+use is contributing to, among countless others.
So is it ethical to have a mining company to begin with?
I don't understand this question. Care to clarify your underlying question?
Also consider a company that makes/sells explosives, weapons, digs for anything basically (same concerns as with coal), sells medical equipment (imagine you need it, but you don't have enough money to pay); the list goes on forever.
"the list goes on forever" -- This has no bearing on whether or not ethics apply. "Ridiculously difficult" != "Shouldn't do".
