Is It Moral to Work for a Tech Giant?
I recently read “The Great Google Revolt” in the New York Times Magazine. The article chronicles the conflict between Google and some of its employees over company practices that some employees deem unethical. I found the article interesting because I taught computer ethics for many years and I’ve always wanted to do meaningful work. Moreover, some of my former students who work at one of the tech giants—Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft—have asked me about ethical issues in the workplace.
Now tech giants undoubtedly do things that aren’t in the public interest. One only needs to think about how Facebook allows the blatant dissemination of falsehoods in political material, a policy that subverts the integrity of the electoral process and undermines social stability. Other corporations are just as sinister. Oil companies fund climate change denial, a practice that increases the chance of future catastrophic climate change that threatens the species’ survival; and tobacco companies systematically suppressed evidence of the lethality of their products for decades, leading to millions of deaths.
But if you have a job at one of the tech companies and you have moral qualms about how your company’s technology is used, then your choices include:
ignore your moral reservations and use the money (power) your job provides to help yourself and others, influence the political system, etc.
change the company from within if that’s feasible;
find a company whose values more align with your own;
move to a less corrupt country than the USA (because otherwise, your taxes will support some things that don’t align with your values no matter who you work for);
become a slacker if you have enough money and avoid working altogether;
live “off the grid” so as to be less complicit in governmental corruption.
No doubt my readers can imagine other options.
One problem is that some of these solutions may be impractical. Moreover, you live in a world where money is power which can then be used either for good (Bill Gates, Warren Buffett) or ill (Charles Koch, Sheldon Adelson, Donald Trump). So leaving your job might decrease your ability to do good. Furthermore, it is nearly impossible to avoid the global social-economic-political system altogether. In addition, if we push our concerns to their logical limit, simply living and consuming resources may result in a kind of existential guilt. Afterall what we necessarily consume—food, clothing, shelter—is unavailable to others.
I suppose the philosophical problem is, to put it simply, how to do good in a world with so much bad in it. Unfortunately, I don’t think there is any way to live which isn’t complicit somewhat in evil. In answer to all these issues, let me quote from my essay, “Should You Do What You Love?”
So what practical counsel do we give people, in our current time and place, regarding work? Unfortunately, my advice is dull and unremarkable, like so much of the available work. For now, the best recommendation is something like: do the least objectionable/most satisfying work available given your options. That we can’t say more reveals the gap between the real and the ideal, which is itself symptomatic of a flawed society. Perhaps working to change the world so that people can engage in satisfying work is the most meaningful work of all.
And, assuming you find work that isn’t too objectionable and somewhat satisfying, what is the point of doing that work? Here’s what I wrote in my essay “Fulfilling Work.”
In the end, we are small creatures in a big universe. We can’t change the whole world but we can influence it through our interaction with those closest to us, finding joy in the process. We may not change the world by administering to the sick as doctors or nurses or psychologists, or by installing someone’s dishwasher, cleaning their teeth or keeping their internet running. We may not even change it by caring lovingly for our children. But the recipients of such labors may find your work significant indeed. For they received medical care, had someone to talk to, got their teeth cleaned, found an old friend on the internet, avoided the laundromat, or grew up to be the kind of functioning adult this world so desperately needs because of that loving parental care. These may be small things, but if they are not important, nothing is.
Perhaps then it is the sum total of our labors that makes us large. Our labors are not always sexy, but they are necessary to bring about a better future. All those mothers who cared for children and fathers who worked to support them, all those plumbers and doctors and nurses and teachers and firefighters doing their little part in the cosmic dance. All of them recognizing what Victor Frankl taught, that productive work is a constitutive element of a meaningful life.
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Previous Articles About Work Include:
“Should You Do What You Love?”
“Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose: What We Really Want From Our Work”
“Friendship is Another Reason to Work”
“The Problem of Work-Life Balance”
