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> so we expect them to make a moral choice.

We do? Why? Because, by one interpretation, they pay lip service to it by saying "Don't be evil"/"Do the right thing"? I take those as marketing (both to the public and to their employees).

Even if we take their mottos as honest statements of intent, how do you know that their definitions of "evil" and "right" match yours? Or that their definitions won't shift to fit the situation?



I don't care. They pretend to play morality games, they get held to a certain standard by public, that's just how it works.

If they are amoral entity, I'm sure they won't care for Spanish government doing unethical but not illegal things to them as well.


> If they are amoral entity, I'm sure they won't care for Spanish government doing unethical but not illegal things to them as well.

Why would that be true? It would be inconsistent for them not to fight for their own self-interest. Also: Governments must be held to higher standards than corporations.

I expect the Spanish government to act (nominally) in the best interests of its citizens. I expect Google to act in its own best interests.


Separation of morality and law is a recent trend. For most of human history, morality was the law. As such, it was a social contract born out of necessity and not some arbitrary installation.

It's fine to take a modern, legalistic, maximize-shareholder-value-or-gtfo approach and eschew the ethics and spirit of law perspective altogether. However, generally it would be irrational for corporation to expect a favourable outcome in a survivalist game on a legal field against the host government. That's why most corporations at least do lip service to ethics, community values, social responsibility and so on. Which leads us to square one.




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