Apparently I'm too drunk to figure out how to post a poll without getting the

"THE FOLLOWING ERROR(S) WERE FOUND
A Poll is a choice, 1 entry is not a choice"

message, so I'll just make it a regular thread.

Kurukami gave me the idea to ask this question. Hit the poll, and then sound off with your opinion, before I kick you in the nuts.




Corps are evil, they seek the bottom dollar and nothing else.

Corps are good, they benefit the economy and have our good at heart.

Corps are in it for the money, just like you and I, and that\\\'s neither good nor bad. It just is?

Good ? Bad? What are you, Aesop?

If seeking the bottom dollar is evil, then you've got a whole lot of Homo Economicus' to burn at the stake...

Make that one vote for the neutral.

Ugh.

First we would have to have a working definition of Good and Evil to properly answer this question.

Businesses exist to make maximum profit with minimum cost. If we accept the common definition of Evil as "acting with malicious intent", corporations are not Evil. They are simply pursuing the almighty Profit and any actions taken are in accordance to this end, so the lack of malicious intent renders the actions Neutral at best.

If we take an Affirmative position, defining Evil as a possible consequence of an entity's action or inaction irrespective of the intent of the action then yes -- the Corporation cannot be shielded from the consequences of their actions as it impacts others. Which hasn't declared any particular entity Evil but has defined the parameters how we may pass judgement.

-Siege

Hi,
they are neither good nor evil. One of the major points of the cyberpunk genre is that there is no such thing as alignment. People only vary in the degree of their egoism. A fantasy genre has good and evil. There is a reason that D&D has rules for alignment but Shadowrun does not.
A cyberpunk world is a social battlefield; without money you have neither security nor education nor status nor food. Thus, people try to maximize their money possessions. People even go as far as crippling their body to maximize their potential of maximizing their wealth, by implanting cyberware.
If a Johnson betrays the runners and sets up a trap after they did their job, it was only because of his fight for survival, not because he liked it (there are those people, too though...).

tbd

Neutral.

This isn't D&D, there are no alignments. There is no evil, there is no good. The world of Shadowrun is all shades of grey.

Mostly evil. But then, in the world of Shadowrun, everyone is mostly evil .

Evil.

There is no good. The universe of Shadowrun is all shades of Black.

I like what they mention in Corporate Download.
A corporation is an enitity far too large to be classified as 'good' or 'evil'. The problem is, they've all done some really shady stuff, and they've all done some pretty good stuff. Some managers and employees are in it for the money, some aren't, some are sadists, some aren't....really, it's like a big conglomeration of humanity as a whole, and I don't think anybody's really been able to say whether humanity is definitivly good or evil...

Good... bad... I'm the guy with the gun.

Simple solutions to complex questions rarely give full and proper answers.

I will grant you simple answers will lead to results, but are they the right results? Effective is not always as desirable as effecient.

As to your evaluation of big business or even business in general, I tend to agree. My accounting professor characterized everything in life as winning or losing transactions. A rather cold-blooded analysis, but it does illustrate the underlying philosophy of accountants and business.

I argue that there are more factors to consider in business decisions than pure dollars and sense, but I will also point out that I'm not the president and CEO of a multi-million dollar company either.

-Siege

Websters has the following definitions for evil.

Morally bad or wrong; wicked: an evil tyrant.
Causing ruin, injury, or pain; harmful: the evil effects of a poor diet.
Characterized by or indicating future misfortune; ominous: evil omens.
Bad or blameworthy by report; infamous: an evil reputation.
Characterized by anger or spite; malicious: an evil temper.

n.
The quality of being morally bad or wrong; wickedness.
That which causes harm, misfortune, or destruction: a leader's power to do both good and evil.
An evil force, power, or personification.
Something that is a cause or source of suffering, injury, or destruction: the social evils of poverty and injustice


-------------------------------------

Now nobody is perfect, but people strive to be so. They strive for self improvement. To help there fellow man in need. To assist those weaker than themselves. Anyone who says good and evil isn't simple, is ignoring the truth for fear of looking in the mirror. Good and Evil are very simple. And while there are shades of gray in between, YOU can't be grey (hence there are no fence sitters). You have to choose to be good or you are evil. It's that simple.

Now either you strive to help those around you, to assist those in need. To ponder the consequences of your actions, or you don't. You either try to be good, or you are evil.

President Thomas Jefferson said: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. And I for one, belive him.

Now I know I am not going to convince any of you of my ideas, too many people see the world as complicated and grey. They refuse to belive in absolutes like truth, justice, and good and evil. But I had to try.

Seriously, corporations aren't anything. They're conceptual constructs that lack even objective existence, say nothing about the ability to make moral decisions and impose them upon others by their actions. Asking whether something that has no intellect, can't make decisions, can't take action, and, in fact, doesn't even exist outside people's belief structures is good or evil is a fundamentally invalid question.

Corporations are not good or evil or even neutral. People are good and evil and neutral. People make good decisions, evil decisions, take good actions or evil actions. Corporations don't. People may hide behind the corporate veil when they make those decisions or take those actions, but it's still people making those decisions and taking those actions, not corporations. Blaming the corporation for evil actions taken by people associated with it is as much a cop-out as "I was just following orders." It is, in fact, the exact same thing, just from the other direction.

And, like any other conceptual grouping of people, corporations are made up of good people and evil people and a lot of people somewhere in between, all of whom are solely responsible for their own actions. The corporation, insofar as it even exists, is not to blame for their actions any more than they can abdicate responsibility for their actions to it.

I'm going to unmire this a little - or maybe bury it completely.

In effect, what's really being asked here is to evaluate the morality of the basic function of a for-profit corporation: to make a profit. In other words: is capitalistic economic theory good, evil, or neutral at its core?

Then you plug into this question whatever working conceptualisation of "the good" and "the evil" you are buying into this particular week, including whether it is to be an absolute definition or an individual definition, whether it is to be applicable "objectively" (independent of an individual's context or perspective) or be absolute yet context-dependent (eg. the murder-killing-homicide-negligence causing death-self defense-war spectrum), whether it applies across the net effects upon a population ("greatest good for the greatest number"?) or is dependent upon each individual, whether result/consequence/intent are relevant factors and to what extent ...

[IMHO]
There is no such thing as evil or good because evil and good is entirely 100% subjective to the person percieving it and the scociety in which he is a part.

Nothing can be "good" or "evil" as a blanket statement. I believe this holds true in the real world too.

Good and Evil are word politicians use to display somehting in a negative or positive light.
[/IMHO]

Firstly, yes, there are morals and ethics in shadowrun. They aren't black and white, but that's because IRL ethics are a huge and convoluted subject. So there is no 'absolute' good or evil everyone agrees on in SR (whether absolutes exist in our world is debatable too).

Just like Siege, I have to agree that to answer the question, you need to define the terms. Good can mean a lot of things; selflessness, applying to higher moral truths etc. However, when it comes to an entity being 'good' or 'evil', a huge role in that determination is intent (FYI, good and evil I think is most appropriately applied to actions, however lets assume the 'alignment' of an entity is the average of the alignment of their actions, for the purpose of debate). This reflects upon what BitBasher said; if I think by pushing the big red button I'm saving someone, I am doing a Good act, because my intent is to do something good (or, at least, it reflects upon me as a good person, even if the act has bad consequences I could not have predicted). Intent is subjective. Since a corporation as a whole does not have its own intentions, but merely reflects some sum of its constituent components, it is neither good nor evil, it is merely a tool which can be used towards those ends. It's just like a gun is neither good nor evil; it has no intent and, if left on its own, will just sit around. It needs individuals to use it to be involved in an evil act.

That said, in Shadowrun corporations are almost always used for Evil ends. By this I mean destructive or selfish ends. They don't care about the little guy and generally making profit involves screwing over as many people as possible. That's how the world is set up, because if corporations could make a profit by giving out puppies and flowers, it really wouldn't be so exciting (imagine a run into Ares' secret candy making facility to steal their marshmellow peeps recipe in time for Easter).

Alternatively, watch the Greed is Good speel in the movie Wall Street. Great movie for this thread.

Corporations owe their allegiance in large part to their stockholders. Not maximizing profits could be seen as evil; these people have given you their money in trust that you (the corp) will use it to make more money. If you don't do everything in your power to maximize their return, you're cheating those you owe, and that's evil.

I guess what it comes down to is the question of whether we "owe" anything to others by simple virtue of all being (meta)human...