'The deception in which Bankman-Fried is alleged to have engaged was unnecessary and unjustified.'
about Bankman-Fried’s thinking: “Did he reason that the ends justify the means – and that the ends of his plan to give away his fortune would be so benevolent that the risk of wiping out customers’ savings was okay?” The New York Times columnist Ross Douthat a possible “purely negative reading” of these events.
The problem with pointing to “the end justifies the means” as the flaw that brought down Bankman-Fried is that, even for non-utilitarians, it is implausible to deny that sometimes the end does justify the means. The non-utilitarian Immanuel Kant disagreed, writing that if a would-be murderer comes to your door pursuing someone who has taken refuge in your house, you. Today, we honor those who had the courage to hide Jews from the Nazis and lie when the Gestapo came to their door.
Nor is it only when an innocent life is at stake that the end may justify the means. In a forthcoming study of the Southern Black leader and educator Booker T. Washington, Desmond Jagmohan of the University of California, Berkeley reveals that Washington, the founder and president of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, misrepresented what the Institute taught in order to gain financial support from wealthy white donors.
Washington’s secret was nearly blown when a grateful Black student wrote to thank one of the donors for the scholarship that enabled her to study philosophy, politics, and rhetoric. The letter’s angry recipient rightly felt that he had been misled, but Washington pretended that the young woman had greatly exaggerated what she had been taught.
In contrast, the deception in which Bankman-Fried is alleged to have engaged was unnecessary and unjustified. The many examples of successful financiers who have been ruined by unethical and illegal business practices should have been sufficient warning. Kant was wrong to claim that telling the truth is an absolute requirement, but wise effective altruists and utilitarians know that honesty is the best policy, and dishonesty is inherently risky.
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