If there’s a good return available from investing in, say Philip Morris, and you abstain on ethical grounds, someone else will invest instead. You probably haven’t actually reduced the amount of funding they get; only changed who gets the return.
So boycott is useless. What actual alternatives are there to stop ChildCorp from childcorping?
Boycotting their goods could work. Or you could offer their child workers better alternatives.
However, it’s important to note that just because (not buying their stock doesn’t stop them) doesn’t mean there’s something else that works better. It might just be there is no way of doing it, at least without violating other moral norms.
It is a situation that relates to exercising power to change the behavior of others with non-negligible power. Larks has a reasonable expectation that you could fill in the blanks yourself and took the tactful option of not saying anything that could be twisted to make it appear that Larks was advocating various sorts of violence or corruption.
I am fairly certain that, between the ineffectual consumer and investor boycotts, and calling Frank Castle, there must be an entire spectrum of actions, only a fraction of which involve “violence” or “corruption”. Because of my ignorance and lack of creativity, I do not know them, but I see no reason to believe they don’t exist.
Of course, this is motivated continuing on my part: I think of sweatshops, workhouses, and modern-day slavery, and I feel compelled to make it stop. Telling me “there are no solutions, that I know of, that are both moral and effectual” won’t result in me just sitting down and saying “ah, then it can’t be helped”.
So boycott is useless. What actual alternatives are there to stop ChildCorp from childcorping?
Boycotting their goods could work. Or you could offer their child workers better alternatives.
However, it’s important to note that just because (not buying their stock doesn’t stop them) doesn’t mean there’s something else that works better. It might just be there is no way of doing it, at least without violating other moral norms.
Such as?
It is a situation that relates to exercising power to change the behavior of others with non-negligible power. Larks has a reasonable expectation that you could fill in the blanks yourself and took the tactful option of not saying anything that could be twisted to make it appear that Larks was advocating various sorts of violence or corruption.
(eg. Stab them to death with Hufflepuff bones.)
I am fairly certain that, between the ineffectual consumer and investor boycotts, and calling Frank Castle, there must be an entire spectrum of actions, only a fraction of which involve “violence” or “corruption”. Because of my ignorance and lack of creativity, I do not know them, but I see no reason to believe they don’t exist.
Of course, this is motivated continuing on my part: I think of sweatshops, workhouses, and modern-day slavery, and I feel compelled to make it stop. Telling me “there are no solutions, that I know of, that are both moral and effectual” won’t result in me just sitting down and saying “ah, then it can’t be helped”.