It suggests to me that human values don’t depend on the hardware, and are not a matter of historical accident. They are a predictable, repeatable response to a competitive environment and a particular level of intelligence.
Another possibility is that individual humans occasionally influence corporations’ behavior in ways that cause that behavior to occasionally reflect human values.
If that were the case, we would see specific humans influence corporations behavior in ways that would cause the corporations to implement those humans’ goals and values, without preservation of deictic references. For instance, Joe works for Apple Computer. Joe thinks that giving money to Amnesty International is more ethical than giving money to Apple Computer. And Joe values giving money to Joe. We should therefore see corporations give lots of their money to charity, and to their employees. That would be Joe making Apple implement Joe’s values directly. Joe’s values say “I want me to have more money”. Transfering that value extensionally to Apple would replace “me” with “Joe”.
Instead, we see corporations act as if they had acquired values from their employees, but with preservation of deictic references. That means, every place in Joe’s value where it says “me”, Apple’s acquired value says “me”. So instead of “make money for Joe”, it says “make money for Apple”. That means the process is not consciously directed by Joe; Joe would preserve the extensional reference to “Joe”, so as to satisfy his values and goals.
We should therefore see corporations give lots of their money to charity, and to their employees. That would be Joe making Apple implement Joe’s values directly. Joe’s values say “I want me to have more money”.
Some people point to executive compensation at U.S. firms as evidence that many corporations have been “subverted” in exactly that way.
It says “make money for Apple”, which is a roundabout way of saying “make money for Apple’s shareholders”, who are the humans that most directly make up “Apple”. Apple’s employees are like Apple’s customers—they have market power that can strongly influence Apple’s behavior, but they don’t directly affect Apple’s goals. If Joe wants a corporation to give more money to charity, but the corporation incorporated with the primary goal of making a profit, that’s not the decision of an employee (or even of a director; see “duty of loyalty”); that’s the decision of the owners.
There’s definitely a massive inertia in such decisions, but for good reason. If you bought a chunk of Apple to help pay for your retirement, you’ve got a ethically solid interest in not wanting Apple management to change it’s mind after the fact about where its profits should go.
If you want to look for places where corporate goals (or group goals in government or other contexts) really do differ from the goals of the humans who created and/or nominally control them, I’d suggest starting with the “Iron Law of Bureaucracy”.
Agreed that if Apple is making a lot of money, and none of the humans who nominally influence Apple’s decisions are making that money, that is evidence that Apple has somehow adopted the “make money” value independent of those humans’ values.
Agreed that if Apple is not donating money to charity, and the humans who nominally influence Apple’s decisions value donating money to charity, that is evidence that Apple has failed to adopt the “donate to charity” value from those humans.
Also, corporations are restricted by governments, which implement other human-based values (different from pure profit), and they internalize these values (e.g. social/environmental responsibility) for (at the least) signaling purposes.
Another possibility is that individual humans occasionally influence corporations’ behavior in ways that cause that behavior to occasionally reflect human values.
If that were the case, we would see specific humans influence corporations behavior in ways that would cause the corporations to implement those humans’ goals and values, without preservation of deictic references. For instance, Joe works for Apple Computer. Joe thinks that giving money to Amnesty International is more ethical than giving money to Apple Computer. And Joe values giving money to Joe. We should therefore see corporations give lots of their money to charity, and to their employees. That would be Joe making Apple implement Joe’s values directly. Joe’s values say “I want me to have more money”. Transfering that value extensionally to Apple would replace “me” with “Joe”.
Instead, we see corporations act as if they had acquired values from their employees, but with preservation of deictic references. That means, every place in Joe’s value where it says “me”, Apple’s acquired value says “me”. So instead of “make money for Joe”, it says “make money for Apple”. That means the process is not consciously directed by Joe; Joe would preserve the extensional reference to “Joe”, so as to satisfy his values and goals.
Some people point to executive compensation at U.S. firms as evidence that many corporations have been “subverted” in exactly that way.
It says “make money for Apple”, which is a roundabout way of saying “make money for Apple’s shareholders”, who are the humans that most directly make up “Apple”. Apple’s employees are like Apple’s customers—they have market power that can strongly influence Apple’s behavior, but they don’t directly affect Apple’s goals. If Joe wants a corporation to give more money to charity, but the corporation incorporated with the primary goal of making a profit, that’s not the decision of an employee (or even of a director; see “duty of loyalty”); that’s the decision of the owners.
There’s definitely a massive inertia in such decisions, but for good reason. If you bought a chunk of Apple to help pay for your retirement, you’ve got a ethically solid interest in not wanting Apple management to change it’s mind after the fact about where its profits should go.
If you want to look for places where corporate goals (or group goals in government or other contexts) really do differ from the goals of the humans who created and/or nominally control them, I’d suggest starting with the “Iron Law of Bureaucracy”.
Agreed that if Apple is making a lot of money, and none of the humans who nominally influence Apple’s decisions are making that money, that is evidence that Apple has somehow adopted the “make money” value independent of those humans’ values.
Agreed that if Apple is not donating money to charity, and the humans who nominally influence Apple’s decisions value donating money to charity, that is evidence that Apple has failed to adopt the “donate to charity” value from those humans.
Also, corporations are restricted by governments, which implement other human-based values (different from pure profit), and they internalize these values (e.g. social/environmental responsibility) for (at the least) signaling purposes.