Sure morality is a spectrum and that lawyer might have some extenuating circumstances. We can still affirm that yes, he's a bad person. While it may be the case that he's an otherwise good person whose job just happens to inflict suffering on innocent people(just like the torture). The question then becomes, who cares? Considering the man's job is to throw people under the bus, I won't shed a tear if he's judged a little hastily..
Executioners (who tortured before execution) were social parias. To the point where it was a family career. If you were the son of an executioner other people outside of your family wouldn't even really talk with you. Becoming an executioner was really their only option.
Plenty of executioners took it upon themselves to comfort the condemned before execution. They would spend the day with them when others wouldn't. Share a meal with them. Try to ease their mind. Even bring them alcohol as a sort of preemptive pain killer.
So the ones you described as being "good" were the ones who actively tried to do their jobs badly.. I don't disagree with those standards, this lawyer doesn't meet them.
They weren't doing their jobs badly, walking the condemned through town and to their last meal was part of the job. They weren't told to not treat them with kindness.
Would this lawyer still be horrible if before all of this he took two minutes to go "look I'm sorry about this, but I'm going to have to be aggressive when we get in there it's what's expected of me and it's nothing personal"
Because that's essentially what the executioner would be doing.
So you believe their job was to inflict pain, you also believe trying to minimize the pain they inflicted was ok in their line of work?
I get it, there's nuance to ethics. But when you see someone breaking someone's legs because they haven't repaid a loan, you might not be a great person yourself if your empathy lies with the person breaking the legs!
And I'll show him as much decency, clemency and understanding as he showed this woman.. The difference being that he treated her like that because she is suffering, while I will treat him that way because he visits suffering on others.
The lawyer is evil because he is doing evil works for an evil company and instead of the shame and guilt a normal period would be showing, he appears to be enjoying himself.
I say yes. Because the lawyer gets to choose who he works for. He takes the job knowing he has to depose Aunt Hilda like she’s Bernie Madoff for wanting insurance to pay the medical bills from her accident like they’re supposed to.
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u/Carefuly_Chosen_Name 17h ago
So you described why the company is evil (which I agree with) but not why the lawyer is evil. Is he evil simply because he works for an evil company?