Blog Post 4: Corporate Malfeasance

IBM Controversy

Summary

The IBM punch card and card sorting system played a part in Hitler’s program of Jewish destruction. IBM, primarily through its German subsidiary, allowed this program of destruction to become a technologic mission in which they pursued with great success. During this time, IBM Germany used its own staff and equipment to design and execute the technological assistance that the Nazis needed to eliminate Jewish people at the time. IBM was the only company that designed, printed, and supplied the punch cards that were used by the Nazis to identify people of Jewish religion and bloodline that went back for generations. There were also IBM employees who regularly maintained and upgraded the machines that were being used by Nazi germany at the time. The Holocaust would have continued to take place without the help of IBM. However, the automation and technology that IBM offered during this time allowed the process of identifying and moving Jews to happen more swiftly so there should be some accountability there.

Stakeholders

There are a number of parties that have an interest in whether or not IBM is found culpable and held responsible for their aiding and abetting of the Nazis in the carrying out of the holocaust during WWII. The first of which is, of course, IBM and its employees. The company does not think it should be named culpable because it was its German headquarters, which had fallen under the influence of the Nazis, which conducted the maintenance of the machines. They also argue that the company built the machines for general purposes and did not originally intend for them to be used for committing genocide. The company’s employees also believe that they and the company should not be held responsible because they were either coerced under a threat of death or did not know that what they were developing would aid the Nazis. Another notable party with a stake in this situation are those who are survivors in the holocaust and their descendants. These individuals believe IBM is culpable in this case because their machines directly allowed the Nazis to organize and execute the Holocaust and, furthermore, IBM continued to aid the Nazis even after they knew what was going on. Other, less involved, parties include the governments of Germany and the surrounding countries, Jewish families not directly involved in the holocaust, and fellow technology companies which all largely believe IBM should be held responsible.

IBM’s Culpability

The Legalist ethical framework can be somewhat ambiguous with respect to multinational corporations, since the framework seeks “to create a rich state and a powerful army.” In the cases that involve multinational corporations, it can be unclear which state the corporation ought to serve. In the case of IBM in World War II, each branch of the corporation served the interests of their respective countries: The U.S. branch served the United States and its allies while the German branch served the German government. This is generally consistent with Legalism, which does not concern itself with the rights of individuals, much less with human rights in foreign countries. One complicating factor, however, is that the U.S. branch was the main branch, and was, at least in theory, in charge of the German branch. Such an arrangement is by nature probably inconsistent with the tenets of Legalism, as it introduces a major entity in Germany that may serve an enemy of the state. On the other hand, when the U.S. branch of IBM allowed the German branch to act independently in opposition to U.S. interests, it failed to support the strength of its own nation. Thus, under a Legalist framework, the very structure of IBM was unethical and would inevitably lead to improper behavior by one of its branches. To avoid the situation altogether, the United States government should have taken direct control of the company to strengthen its own national interests. In response, Germany should have seized IBM’s German assets and the United States should have sought to sabotage them.

Muslim Registry

Summary

During his campaign and presidency, Donald Trump promoted policies that target Muslims, refugees, and immigrants for the purpose of national security. It is possible that one of the policies that is implemented is a Muslim registry, a database used to track Muslims in the United States. At the moment, no registry exists, but the pieces are in place for one to be put in place. In 2002, the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) was implemented with two registration programs. The first program required individuals from certain counties to check-in with the government before entering and leaving the country. The second program forces foreigners living in the United States to register with immigration officials. Initially, the program applied to non-citizen, non-resident visitors from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, and Syria. This list was expanded to 25 countries. 24 of the 25 countries had a Muslim majority with North Korea being the only one that was not. The registration program applied to men over the age of 16, but the entry and exit program applied to both men and women. The registration program did not stay in place long—only a year and three months. The entry and exit program lasted much longer, being suspended in 2011 and ultimately removed at the end of 2016. It is possible that President Trump could implement a similar policy, but with the amount of data available because of the internet, a different method could be used to create a Muslim registry. Despite engineers, designers, and executives from companies such as Google and Twitter pledging to never participate in the creation of a Muslim registry, it would still be pretty easy to access the data necessary to create the registry. Websites such as ExactData.com are willing to sell data on individuals. ExactData claims to have a database of 200 million US citizens which can be filtered based on religion and ethnicity. It is possible to purchase data on over 1.8 million individuals listed as Muslim from ExactData for $138,380 (7.5 cents per person). This data includes names and addresses of all of the individuals. With data like this available to anyone with enough money, it is likely that the government would be able to get ahold of the data to construct a Muslim registry.

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Arguments For/Against

The Muslim registry is a program that a legalist would approve of. However, given that it is implemented by a corporation, the legalist would not choose to go this route. A muslim registry would hold data of all people who enter and leave the country with records of themselves and if they are currently in the country or not. The first reason why this would not work is that this database of all these people would be held by a private corporation. Therefore, it would not be owned by the government. This counters with the idea of the government creating and amending rules and laws so that it can keep them ethical. If this company implements this registry, then it can be accountable to doing “unethical” actions and the government would not be able to keep track of it as well as if it was implemented by the government. A second point that would add to the legalist framework not condoning this would be that if a private corporation implements the registry, then it is more of an inside job rather than a law. If the government had full control over the database and how the registry is used, then they can use it to create laws and amend them to make it more ethical to their standards. The legalist framework focuses on having a set of laws that let the government determine if actions are ethical. If the government doesn’t implement the registry and something unethical occurs, the government will have a harder time regulating it than if they had control. Lastly, also along with point two, if the company were using this registry unethically, then they could not support the registry given that all laws work towards ensuring that actions are ethical and if not repercussions will be taken. Therefore, although it would still work, it would be in the better interest of a legalist for them not to let a registry be implemented by a private corporation. Given the standing of a registry and how important it would be with respect to ensuring it is correctly used, a legalist would not want the Muslim registry to be implemented by a private corporation.

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Government versus Corporate Implementation

From the legalist perspective, if the government were to support the implementation of a Muslim registry with legislation that had been passed into law, the registry would be supported. For the legalist the discussion of the ethics of having a Muslim registry does not stem from whether it would be humane or right to have such a registry but rather from the simple fact that the law must be obeyed as the highest ethical framework. Whereas if the policy were implemented by a corporation, the registry would not be considered law and therefore not have any inherent ethical value. Then the discussion would move towards whether the corporation’s implementation of the registry coincides with the law. If the registry would lead to unlawful action such as harm of any form to another, then the government would disapprove of such a registry. Essentially, if the Muslim registry were backed by law then it would become “ethical” in the legalist framework but if not then the registry would have the potential of being “unethical”.

Interview with the Stoics

Initial Thoughts

A Stoic take on a Muslim registry would likely disapprove of a Muslim registry. First, Stoicism is primarily based on logic, but there is no clear evidence that data collection on individuals is more effective at maintaining security than traditional methods, which makes it pointless. Additionally, Stoicism rejects decisions based on emotions such as fear, and a Muslim registry is a clear response to fear of attack. This is not to say that Stoicism rejects security, but that the motivation behind such a registry is always accompanied by examples of attacks or fear of future attack.

Our framework diverges from the Stoics in that there does not need to be a cost/benefit analysis of the registry; legal precedent and its potential as a tool for maintaining control makes it ethical. With regards to fear-based decision making, Legalism also would not advocate for making decisions based on fear, but the government or corporation should be unbiased and unemotional in their decisions, regardless of the sentiments of the general public.

Interview Summary

The principles of Stoicism that we thought would conflict with a registry were confirmed by the interview, including reason as the foundation of Stoic ethics and not being governed by emotion. The Stoics confirmed the sentiment that the proposal was not reasonable, that the benefits were not necessarily clear, and that the perceived risks may simply be based on fear, rather than real data, which matches our guess at the problem of emotional reasoning . Finally, they argued that any proposal must have measures to protect the privacy of members in the registry and prevent incorrect assumptions based on religion. This closely echoes our estimation that there is not enough evidence to believe such a registry is useful. Regarding emotional decision-making, the Stoics further stated that bias is “one of the greatest threats to humans’ ability to act rationally” and that “there is a strong possibility that a Muslim registry would foster bias”. This bias could later lead to irrational decision-making and unwarranted discrimination, both of which are unethical according to the Stoic framework. This mirrors the general spirit of our guess that a problem with a Muslim registry is the reliance on feelings over reason. Our initial thoughts lined up closely with the Stoics; the reasoning behind a Muslim registry is unsound and it opens the door to emotion-based decision making. The Stoics further clarified that in addition to fear, bias is a threat to reasoned decisions.

Interview with the Ethics of Care

Initial Thoughts

The Ethics of Care emphasize relationships amongst persons and shape morals around benevolence as a virtue. They look at how actions not only affect the actor, but the consequences of these actions on other people. Therefore, the Ethics of Care would argue against a Muslim registry. Despite the safety that a Muslim registry could cause by preventing terrorist attacks, this sense of safety would not justify the personal injustices involved to achieve it. By doing so, you care about the beliefs of a person and the harm that that belief can cause instead of the person who holds that belief. Just because they identify as a Muslim does not mean they believe everything the ideology teaches of the extent of punishment the ideology calls for. On top of that, Islam is a very nuanced religion, with large differences in beliefs between Sunni and Shia groups, which go unnoticed by placing each person in the same registry. The Ethics of Care differ from the Legalist perspective in that they look at the effects on the person instead of for the country as a whole. They value the privacy of each Muslim before the safety of the country because the accompanying effects of the registry, such as the possibility of discrimination based on religion. The power of the state does not concern the Ethics of Care nearly as much as it does the Legalist framework.

Interview Summary

As we predicted, the Ethics of Care are against the Muslim registry because it can lead to discrimination, but the reasoning was different. The issue does not arise by ignoring the differences that define the person and the different sects. Instead, the Ethics of Care recognize the power difference and relationship between the US government and the Muslim population and the relationship between the US government and all American citizens. Since the US government has the clear upper hand, they have a duty to protect and provide for their “underlings”. By enacting a Muslim registry, Muslims would become a quantifiable minority and would become vulnerable to discrimination. Despite everyone having the freedom of religion, a social stigma emerges that discourages a single religion and damages the relationship between the Muslim population and the US government, and the country by extension.

However, the Ethics of Care recognizes the duty of the government to protect its people from threats like terrorism and respects the idea of monitoring the presiding population. The issue comes from choosing a specific group to monitor and whether it becomes invasive to the person’s life.

Our initial thoughts were partially correct. The main idea was correct, that the Ethics of Care are against a Muslim registry, but the reasons why are different. Instead of having concerns with the impersonal nature of the registry, the concerns lie in how the groups as a whole will act, being the Muslim population and the general population. Mass registries can be moral, but only if they do not discriminate minority groups.