Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!lll-crg!lll-lcc!pyramid!hplabs!hplabsc!taylor From: taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (Dave Taylor) Newsgroups: mod.comp-soc Subject: Re: The Ethics of Work Message-ID: <552@hplabsc.UUCP> Date: Tue, 12-Aug-86 15:54:09 EDT Article-I.D.: hplabsc.552 Posted: Tue Aug 12 15:54:09 1986 Date-Received: Wed, 13-Aug-86 01:42:52 EDT Reply-To: mcb%lll-tis-b.ARPA@lll-tis-gw.arpa (Michael C. Berch) Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories Lines: 129 Approved: taylor@hplabs Reference: <524@hplabsc.UUCP> This article is from Michael C. Berch and was received on Tue Aug 12 12:03:19 1986 Dave Taylor and John Gilmore's articles about the ethics of doing defense work caused me to think about why I do what I do, and how I feel about it. It is important to me to do things that I consider socially useful, which is one reason I gave up practicing law three years ago to return full-time to computer science. The ethical questions that Dave and John pose are real, and I will attempt to answer them in this public forum in a straightforward manner. While I do not claim to speak for others who are currently involved in defense work, I would not be surprised to learn that others share my opinions; perhaps more than one would expect. To put the summary first -- I do not consider it unethical or immoral to do defense work, nor do I find it a contradiction that one can be an informed, moral, peace-loving person and also work on terrible weapons. I am not a weapons scientist; most of the work I'm currently engaged in is for rather non-lethal military applications like office automation, records processing, networking, C3I, and so forth. Nevertheless, it does have applications for both tactical and strategic weapons systems, and our project provides some support in those areas as well. So I do not propose to hide behind the idea that I am merely plugging in disk drives instead of building bombs; I agree that doing the former may support the latter, and hope to explain why this is consistent with my goals and how I view the way my work may affect society. 1. Building weapons does not necessarily mean making war. It seems to me that there are only two consistent points of view about maintaining a military: either you accept the necessity of defending your country (or planet, state, village, whatever) from those who mean to do it harm, or you are a pacifist who does not condone the use of violence, even in self defense. I am comfortable with people of either persuasion, since they are internally consistent, non-hypocritical philosophies based on solid values. I personally believe in the necessity for defense, and base my belief on the lengthy history of human conflict, and the pragmatic observation that there are forces in the world that desire to destroy our way of life, our property, or our lives. (Please do not think that I am some kind of raving right-wing militarist; I'm not, and I've spent a good deal of time in my life opposing unjust wars and military adventures and aid to totalitarian dictatorships and the like.) >From this postulate I derive the necessity of building weapons for defense. There are those who accept the necessity of defense but refuse to have anything to do with it PERSONALLY on "moral" grounds; I find this irritating and hypocritical, like meat-eaters who don't mind seeing packaged cold cuts but do not condone the existence of slaughterhouses. 2. Weapons are tools. Weapons are tools, and like other tools are capable of being used rightly or wrongly. A handgun in the possession of a police officer patrolling a crime-ridden area or held by a homeowner defending his/her home are (to me) "right" uses. The SAME handgun in the possession of a criminal is a "wrong" use. Is it therefore "right" or "wrong" to be involved in the manufacture or distribution of handguns? In my mind, this same analogy applies to the more terrifying weapons of war. I firmly believe that if this nation had not developed nuclear weapons during/after WWII, and the Soviets had, this particular dialogue could not be taking place, and that many of us (if in fact we had been born at all) would currently be inside Soviet gulags, given our penchant for free thinking and expression. 3. Nuclear weapons and stability. Nuclear weapons, like handguns, are often accused of having the single purpose of killing humans. This is not true: a much more important purpose of both is coercion. Coercion by threat of force is not pleasant to me; nevertheless the superpowers of the world have engaged in a standoff for nearly forty years based on the threat of mutual destruction (MAD). There is significant reason to believe that notwithstanding the massive expenditures (and resultant economic displacement) caused by the US-USSR arms race, it has probably prevented the occurrence of a major war for global domination for the last 40 years (with massive loss of life resulting), and is likely to do so for the indefinite future. The key to avoiding a nuclear war is stability. Whatever the drawbacks of the current MAD situation, it is relatively stable, even taking into consideration nuclear third parties and others. There are various ways to stop an arms race: unilateral disarmament, multilateral disarmament, demonstration of clear superiority, and mutual or unilateral development of a defensive capability. All except unilateral disarmament (which I consider unwise) depend on the continuation of a weapons research, development, and testing program. The last depends on continued research into a defensive capability such as SDI. 4. Scientific workers as ethical forces in the defense industry. Whatever your opinions about my analysis of the nature of weapons and defense technology, there is a further point that I would like to bring up: the necessity of having ethical, "good" people in the defense industry. While I consider technology (including weapons) to be neutral, that does not mean that I endorse every (or even most) military actions -- far from it! I believe that it is the responsibility of scientific workers (who are the most highly educated, and probably most intelligent people, in the defense industry) to take positions about warfare, defense policy, and the use of weapons. I've found the weapons and defense scientists that I've worked with to be a highly thoughtful, moral, and ethical group of people, well informed about public policy, arms control, critical technologies, and the like. They are as horrified as I am at the idea of nuclear war, and hope, through a strong R&D program, to maintain stability so that a nuclear war can never occur. If you decline military-related projects on a "moral" basis, remember that the consequence of this is that the work might be done by others who are of less high purpose. Would you rather the DOE, DOD, CIA, and NSA were staffed by "good" people, or just whomever the agencies could hire after all the "good" people refused to get involved? Think about it. Comments welcomed. Michael C. Berch ARPA: mcb@lll-tis-b.ARPA UUCP: {ihnp4,dual,sun}!lll-lcc!styx!mcb The opinions above are solely those of the author, and should not be attributed to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory nor Control Data Corporation, to whom the author is a non-employee consultant.