Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber
Wait, seriously? Mafia presumably is an organization that primarily works in illegal industries.
Monsanto is a perfectly legal company whether you agree with their business practices or not.
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That's not the issue here. We're discussing ethics, not legality. If the only judgement of a company's ethical practice is strict adherence to the law, then pretty much any business is ethical. I don't think most would agree with this assessment. Sean's point was to pick an *obviously* unethical organization giving money to an *obviously* ethical cause to stimulate discussion.
Something that makes this situation different than other ethical decisions involving individuals and corporations is that sponsorship of an FRC team is rarely a large net benefit to the sponsoring organization (at least short term). The extra press and attention the brand gets is not particularly notable, certainly not for the cost. It's a lot harder to argue that agreeing to be sponsored by an organization is a form of supporting that organization. Choosing not to be sponsored by a company you have deemed unethical for whatever reason doesn't hurt the company or prevent it from growing at all.
Buying company product, working with the company, working for the company, these are when ethical decisions obviously come to play. I don't necessarily see how they do here.