For some it is nurses and teachers; for others, soldiers and firefighters; for others priests and missionaries, who hold the jobs most worthy of praise.
I had difficulty answering your question as to whether i'm politically on the left or right. While I certainly have many strongly-held political beliefs, because i think for myself rather than just pick up others' beliefs, they are idiosyncratic, and many would be described by others as on the left whereas many would be described by others as on the right.
IMO the most description of my politics is "unpigeonholable".
I feel like most jobs are morally neutral, but that some of the ones listed here (politician, police, arguably human rights lawyer) need an option like "can be very good or very evil", and that some important signal would be lost by equating this to "neutral", but it doesn't seem right to tick a box on the only-good or only-evil side for them either, so I'm not sure how to answer those.
I was expecting to see something like "health insurance executive" or "claims adjuster" on here (or is it too US-centric?) One of the (many) polarising issues lately seems to be whether Luigi Mangione is a murderer who shot an innocent family man in cold blood, or a folk hero who delivered justice to a mass murderer who had the blood of thousands on his hands on account of his job. (I think the latter comes from a view that not saving people is morally equivalent to actively killing them and/or that resources are infinite so any attempt to allocate them is evil. I prefer the UK NHS over the US private healthcare system, but obviously in either case you need someone making decisions about what gets funded and what doesn't. I wonder if a "British Luigi" would have killed someone from NICE.)
OK, in the end I rounded off the "both good and evil" ones to neutral if I thought the good and evil roughly balanced out, or one side or the other if not.
I think I haven't been super consistent about what moral basis to rate them on. I think I generally applied "evil" ratings on utilitarian grounds (this job is bad for society) and "good" ratings on virtue ethics grounds (you have to be especially compassionate, patient, or brave to do this job).
I did deliberately adjust the scale to be centred at 0 though. I actually think pretty much any job has a small positive balance by default, on the grounds that it's more virtuous to provide for yourself/your family and to contribute to society and/or the economy than not; but I thought it was more helpful to factor this out and just rate how each job compares to a default generic job.
"I think I generally applied "evil" ratings on utilitarian grounds (this job is bad for society) and "good" ratings on virtue ethics grounds (you have to be especially compassionate, patient, or brave to do this job)."
I think I am quite similar to this - although the 'good' ones I also have to think are doing good (e.g. I wouldn't give it to 'mobster' even if they may be brave).
I didn't think about health insurance executive! Agree that would have been a good one. Re politician, I thought about splitting it into 'Conservative politician' and 'Labour politician' but ultimately didn't think that would tell us anything very interesting beyond political affiliation. For, say police, I think that is very much at the heart of what this is about: what do people think, on balance, about this profession.
I would say that there’s no such thing as a ‘good’ job and I would define what’s good by a persons intent for going into a given job. With only the category of the job you can’t know why everyone in that category of job is going into that for the right reasons.
This being said we can infer the intent in the goodness of a job by whether you could easily switch job to get better (or worse) wages working elsewhere, it suggests they value something beyond money
For me this make politicians and teachers good and arms dealers evil. Obviously there’s problems with this, for example a doctor might not be able to easily switch roles but it seems they’re doing something good. Overall it’s still a good heuristic imo.
I agree that is a good heuristic, although people can desire things other than money. For example, maybe some politicians care about power more than money?
Not sure how we could determine whether politicians are in it for the power? I feel like most politicians at least believe themselves to be in it for altruistic reasons.
The other issue i see is that work in charity sector is perceived to be lower pressure and less competitive which could lower salaries
Although it's obviously a sweeping generalisation to class swathes of people by profession in terms of virtue, the aim of the survey is something I've often pondered.
I think the more exposed you are to an industry, the greater the spread of people you will have encountered, and your answer might often tend towards "Uh, well it's not that simple"
Also most people bend their moral compass to fit their situation, so even if someone accepts that their industry (or that of their spouse/offspring) causes demonstrable harm to society overall they often wave this away with weak arguments. We all need to sleep at night.
Some additional categories I might have put in there (apologies if I misremembered and these were already covered):
- Psychotherapist
- Hedge fund manager
- Estate agent
- Sportsperson's agent
- Gambling industry (not pro gambler, who mostly live outside of the system entirely - in the UK they are not even subject to tax on winnings)
Yes - I think most jobs are worthwhile, but it's interesting how we do often, subconsciously and consciously, 'rate' jobs in this way, whether socially or in the media, or in thinking about which careers to go into. And occasionally we get something - like COVID - which maybe shakes up our perceptions a bit.
Hi Iain. My name is Kim Andrus from Opelousas,Louisiana. I am a 1st cousin of George Larry Andrus and he mentioned you to me several times in the past. My wife and I live in Carencro,Louisiana. Just wanted to introduce myself. Cheers.
Thanks for accepting my Facebook account. Larry has sang your praises many times in the past. Maybe one day we will meet. My wife Paula and I did a 40th anniversary bus tour of England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland last summer. Loved London, it grows on you. Kim Andrus.
I do love your substack!
Thank you!
I had difficulty answering your question as to whether i'm politically on the left or right. While I certainly have many strongly-held political beliefs, because i think for myself rather than just pick up others' beliefs, they are idiosyncratic, and many would be described by others as on the left whereas many would be described by others as on the right.
IMO the most description of my politics is "unpigeonholable".
That's what the 'not sure' option is for! :-)
But I *am* sure.
Interesting!
I feel like most jobs are morally neutral, but that some of the ones listed here (politician, police, arguably human rights lawyer) need an option like "can be very good or very evil", and that some important signal would be lost by equating this to "neutral", but it doesn't seem right to tick a box on the only-good or only-evil side for them either, so I'm not sure how to answer those.
I was expecting to see something like "health insurance executive" or "claims adjuster" on here (or is it too US-centric?) One of the (many) polarising issues lately seems to be whether Luigi Mangione is a murderer who shot an innocent family man in cold blood, or a folk hero who delivered justice to a mass murderer who had the blood of thousands on his hands on account of his job. (I think the latter comes from a view that not saving people is morally equivalent to actively killing them and/or that resources are infinite so any attempt to allocate them is evil. I prefer the UK NHS over the US private healthcare system, but obviously in either case you need someone making decisions about what gets funded and what doesn't. I wonder if a "British Luigi" would have killed someone from NICE.)
OK, in the end I rounded off the "both good and evil" ones to neutral if I thought the good and evil roughly balanced out, or one side or the other if not.
I think I haven't been super consistent about what moral basis to rate them on. I think I generally applied "evil" ratings on utilitarian grounds (this job is bad for society) and "good" ratings on virtue ethics grounds (you have to be especially compassionate, patient, or brave to do this job).
I did deliberately adjust the scale to be centred at 0 though. I actually think pretty much any job has a small positive balance by default, on the grounds that it's more virtuous to provide for yourself/your family and to contribute to society and/or the economy than not; but I thought it was more helpful to factor this out and just rate how each job compares to a default generic job.
"I think I generally applied "evil" ratings on utilitarian grounds (this job is bad for society) and "good" ratings on virtue ethics grounds (you have to be especially compassionate, patient, or brave to do this job)."
I think I am quite similar to this - although the 'good' ones I also have to think are doing good (e.g. I wouldn't give it to 'mobster' even if they may be brave).
I didn't think about health insurance executive! Agree that would have been a good one. Re politician, I thought about splitting it into 'Conservative politician' and 'Labour politician' but ultimately didn't think that would tell us anything very interesting beyond political affiliation. For, say police, I think that is very much at the heart of what this is about: what do people think, on balance, about this profession.
I would say that there’s no such thing as a ‘good’ job and I would define what’s good by a persons intent for going into a given job. With only the category of the job you can’t know why everyone in that category of job is going into that for the right reasons.
This being said we can infer the intent in the goodness of a job by whether you could easily switch job to get better (or worse) wages working elsewhere, it suggests they value something beyond money
For me this make politicians and teachers good and arms dealers evil. Obviously there’s problems with this, for example a doctor might not be able to easily switch roles but it seems they’re doing something good. Overall it’s still a good heuristic imo.
I agree that is a good heuristic, although people can desire things other than money. For example, maybe some politicians care about power more than money?
Not sure how we could determine whether politicians are in it for the power? I feel like most politicians at least believe themselves to be in it for altruistic reasons.
The other issue i see is that work in charity sector is perceived to be lower pressure and less competitive which could lower salaries
Although it's obviously a sweeping generalisation to class swathes of people by profession in terms of virtue, the aim of the survey is something I've often pondered.
I think the more exposed you are to an industry, the greater the spread of people you will have encountered, and your answer might often tend towards "Uh, well it's not that simple"
Also most people bend their moral compass to fit their situation, so even if someone accepts that their industry (or that of their spouse/offspring) causes demonstrable harm to society overall they often wave this away with weak arguments. We all need to sleep at night.
Some additional categories I might have put in there (apologies if I misremembered and these were already covered):
- Psychotherapist
- Hedge fund manager
- Estate agent
- Sportsperson's agent
- Gambling industry (not pro gambler, who mostly live outside of the system entirely - in the UK they are not even subject to tax on winnings)
Yes - I think most jobs are worthwhile, but it's interesting how we do often, subconsciously and consciously, 'rate' jobs in this way, whether socially or in the media, or in thinking about which careers to go into. And occasionally we get something - like COVID - which maybe shakes up our perceptions a bit.
I like some of your additional ideas!
Hi Iain. My name is Kim Andrus from Opelousas,Louisiana. I am a 1st cousin of George Larry Andrus and he mentioned you to me several times in the past. My wife and I live in Carencro,Louisiana. Just wanted to introduce myself. Cheers.
Hi cousin Kim, good to hear from you! Uncle Larry had mentioned you, also, in the past. We were so sorry to hear of his passing.
I have accepted your Friend request on Facebook.
Thanks for accepting my Facebook account. Larry has sang your praises many times in the past. Maybe one day we will meet. My wife Paula and I did a 40th anniversary bus tour of England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland last summer. Loved London, it grows on you. Kim Andrus.