I have been unemployed for six months, during which time I’ve faced a tough job market with few interviews and no offers. Now I’ve been offered a senior executive role in an industry that islodi777, while legal, known for exploiting financially vulnerable people through predatory practices. The role comes with a significantly higher salary than my previous positions, which would help my family; we’re currently incurring debt to pay our mortgage. However, the company’s ownership structure means that, even at a senior level, I would have little to no chance of enacting positive changes from within.

Would it be ethically wrong to accept this role, knowing that my compensation would be derived from taking advantage of those in financial distress? Does the fact that I know I have no other offers and that my family’s financial stability is at stake justify taking a position in an industry that I know is predatory? — Name Withheld

From the Ethicist:

You’re a decent soul; you don’t want to profit from the hardship of the vulnerable. Payday-loan companies, for example, lend money at rates that many of us would regard as usurious. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has noted that a typical payday loan, involving a $15 fee for every $100, is extracting the equivalent of an annual rate of almost 400 percent. Even in a predatory industry, though, one company may be worse than another. The administrative costs of small loans are high; the typical payday-loan recipient has poor credit; and some of these companies seem to be well regarded by their customers. It’s possible that in the absence of payday-loan companies, certain people would be worse off.

But let’s suppose that the quandary you’re facing is exactly as you’ve described it. By taking this job, you’d be a participant in wrongdoing — in the sort of commercial activity that would, ideally, be regulated away. It’s still the case that it’s reasonable and right to give special weight to the needs of your own family. You’d justly find the work dispiriting, but at least you wouldn’t be making things worse. And you can’t be reproached for deciding that the welfare of your dependents matters more than your own peace of mind. That company no doubt has a pool of candidates it can turn to; your family does not.

A Bonus Question

I recently read a novel set in France during World War II. There are clichés (blond and beautiful heroines, British airmen with clipped accents, big and loud Americans) and many incongruities (e.g., treatment with antibiotics before they were widely available). And yet I enjoyed reading it. Here is my question: The greatest catastrophes make the best stories. Is it ethical to derive enjoyment from the miseries of others, or is this exploitation? Does literary quality matter? For example, would it be more ethical to enjoy the suffering in ‘‘War and Peace’’ or ‘‘The Grapes of Wrath’’ than in lesser works? — Bernard Hirschel

From the Ethicist:

There are various theories about what happens when we read fiction, but I’ve long been drawn to an account offered by the philosopher Kendall Walton, in which our response to fictions is an adult version of what children do in their imaginative play. Children who play at baking pies in a sandbox know that they’re not really making a pie. They respond in some of the ways one would if a pie were actually being made, while responding in other ways that show they know better. As a rule, they don’t gobble down mud; they don’t expect it to taste like an actual pie. Adults can be similarly moved by the cruelty and suffering they see on a stage, but they don’t leap up to stop it happening. Aside from participatory fictions — cosplay, for instance — the right response is in the realm of thought and feeling, not in the realm of action.

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