| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6] > | I have doubts (on ethical grounds) about taking on a certain assignment Thread poster: Aleksandra Mazur-Bryla
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Alex Lago 
Spain
Local time: 09:18
English to Spanish
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| Personal issue | Feb 28, 2012 |
I do believe translators should use ethics when choosing their work, however ethics are always a personal issue, we can probably all agree on large ethical issues (don't kill, don't steal, etc.) but it is the grayer shades that we all differ on. So I fail to see the point in asking other people for their opinion in the end you will do what your own conscience tells you to do.
There is no way to know if these documents were obtained legally, however I don't see how that makes a diffe... See more I do believe translators should use ethics when choosing their work, however ethics are always a personal issue, we can probably all agree on large ethical issues (don't kill, don't steal, etc.) but it is the grayer shades that we all differ on. So I fail to see the point in asking other people for their opinion in the end you will do what your own conscience tells you to do.
There is no way to know if these documents were obtained legally, however I don't see how that makes a difference, I can think of other cases were I would have no trouble translating illegally obtained documents (say documents obtained illegally by an employee proving a company is dumpling chemicals), which kind of infers that the end justifies the means (oh no! another shady issue, do the ends justify the means even for a good cause? Kill 1,000 to save 1,000,000 kind-a-thing).
Is it ethical for someone to cheat on the boyfriend/girlfriend? How can I say without knowing the circumstances.
If you don't feel good doing the job don't, it's as simple as that. ▲ Collapse
| | | | sofijana
Serbia
Local time: 09:18
English to Serbian
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| Sometimes you have to judge... | Mar 15, 2012 |
Nani Delgado wrote:
Your example shows perfectly that we can´t know everything about the purpose of the projects we translate, nor wether they are ethical to us or not. But again, it is not our job to judge, we are translators.
What if you receive a material, let's say - a video material for transcription and translation which containes, for example, child pornography or scenes of rape or execution or other documentary (or feature) videos displaying all kinds of violence.
Would you simply take the job? Or bring this issue to the client? Or notice authorities?
For me, it would be hard to look the other way!
And I'd surely reject such assignment - for ethical reasons.
| | | | | Pass it on to somebody more needed of a job | Mar 15, 2012 |
That is, just pass it on to somebody who needs the job more than you and so has not the time to be bothered by ethical problems.
| | | | | @Sofijana: I don´t like prejudices, they often come along together with lack of information... | Mar 15, 2012 |
... and that´s all I meant: I don´t know everything, so I should be careful with prejudices. My healthy common sense tells me to refrain from discussing every imaginable scenario and tell you what *I* would actually do. I am not the topic here. Also I think it is clear that nobody is supposed to do any harm to others and that a good person should not support that.
But if you like to bring up to topic such extreme issues, I´d like to point out that you wouldn´t be able to do so ... See more ... and that´s all I meant: I don´t know everything, so I should be careful with prejudices. My healthy common sense tells me to refrain from discussing every imaginable scenario and tell you what *I* would actually do. I am not the topic here. Also I think it is clear that nobody is supposed to do any harm to others and that a good person should not support that.
But if you like to bring up to topic such extreme issues, I´d like to point out that you wouldn´t be able to do so today if nobody never ever in the past had talked about it publicly. No one (the society, the authorities, privates, whoever…) would be able to actually fight against the evil of this world if nobody had the strength or the courage to talk (or translate) about it for the purpose of informing the world about what other people is able to do to other humans (or animals, forests etc.). Keeping silence is not always the best option. ▲ Collapse
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sofijana
Serbia
Local time: 09:18
English to Serbian
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| Not sure if I understand your comment... | Mar 15, 2012 |
Pedro Godfroid wrote:
That is, just pass it on to somebody who needs the job more than you and so has not the time to be bothered by ethical problems.
Are you "offering your services" - no matter what?
| | | | sofijana
Serbia
Local time: 09:18
English to Serbian
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Nani Delgado wrote:
....Also I think it is clear that nobody is supposed to do any harm to others and that a good person should not support that. ...
Keeping silence is not always the best option.
Thank you for understanding my post.
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Sofijana Stamenkovic (ex Onicin Jablanov) wrote:
Thank you for understanding my post.
You are welcome, though I am not sure that you understood mine.
With "keeping silence is not always the best option" I actually mean that, to me, it not always is the best approach *not* to talk about or to translate ugly things just because they are or seem to be ugly. I didn´t mean to play judge, detective, squealer or something like that. That´s not how I make my living and there are lots of professionals that would do a much better job in that than me.
One would not even know what for ugly things there are in this world if nobody wrote and translated about them. There has to be someone to do this "ugly job" for the sake of keeping the world informed, that alone can´t be bad. For now I am glad that I never had to see where my limit is because I am fine with the biological pest control or technical texts I usually receive. But I do think it is extremely important to be careful with prejudices.
| | | | sofijana
Serbia
Local time: 09:18
English to Serbian
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| @Nani: I did understand... | Mar 15, 2012 |
One thing is when you talk (translate) in order to reveal something bad or raise conscience.
The other is - and that is what I've faced (and refused such job) - when you would be taking part (by translating) in some kind of propaganda of something that falls into a category that I've mentioned in my first post.
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Phil Hand
China
Local time: 15:18
Chinese to English
| It shouldn't be about ugliness/propaganda/porn/... | Mar 15, 2012 |
The conversation has veered into areas that Ty and Valerie were warning very strongly against earlier, and I'd like to remind you of what I think is an important distinction: personal vs. professional ethics.
Any one of us might choose not to translate in certain areas. For me, it's a live issue because I translate Chinese, and people who translate Chinese "propaganda" are occasionally accused of aiding a terrible regime. I disagree - but this is a personal ethics issue.
... See more The conversation has veered into areas that Ty and Valerie were warning very strongly against earlier, and I'd like to remind you of what I think is an important distinction: personal vs. professional ethics.
Any one of us might choose not to translate in certain areas. For me, it's a live issue because I translate Chinese, and people who translate Chinese "propaganda" are occasionally accused of aiding a terrible regime. I disagree - but this is a personal ethics issue.
Professional ethics are completely different. They would involve issues around client contact (honesty and clarity about level of skill and experience, for example); and issues around IP (because we are brokers of information).
A couple of people have said "there's no way you can know if a text is obtained legally or not", but that's simply untrue. Often you do know. If you really don't, then you're not at fault. But we wouldn't say, it's OK to handle stolen goods, because sometimes you don't know they're stolen. A bank cannot by law say, I'll accept any cash a customer brings in, because sometimes you don't know where they got their money from. Everyone accepts that both traders and banks can be duped into taking hot goods/laundered money. But they both have a duty of care to try to prevent that from happening.
The whole point of ethics is that they create standards *which change the world for a better place*. Ethics which just allow you to carry on doing whatever you want are no ethics at all. I certainly think that as brokers of information, living in an age when information is increasingly the most valuable commodity, we should take a stance on this issue. Stealing information is theft, like any other theft, and an ethical translator wouldn't (IMO) translate information she knew was stolen. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Balasubramaniam L.
India
Local time: 12:48
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
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SITE LOCALIZER | A religious example | Mar 23, 2012 |
Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:
I am also quite sure that you accept that a Hindu person working at a slaughterhouse should not be expected to kill cows?
Since you have brought religion into it, let me cite an example from religion itself which I think is pertinent to this discussion.
In the Mahabharata, the great Hindu epic which relates many such moral and ethical dilemmas, there is particularly one dilemma which is very similar to the one being discussed here - that of a professional showing disinclination to do what is expected of him.
The professional concerned is a warrior - Arjuna, who on the battlefield sees many of his close relatives, teachers and friends arrayed on the opposite side. He is aghast that if he fights in the battle he will have to slay may of these relatives, friends, and teachers, and feels that victory at such a cost is not worthwhile at all. His inclination is to lay down his weapons, and refuse to fight even if he will be branded a coward for his action.
Krishna, his friend, philosopher, guide and charioteer (and also the supreme being of the world - the Jehova or Allah of Hinduism) uses many arguments to counter the position of Arjuna and proves to him that doing his professional duty is uppermost and all other concerns are secondary.
All the arguments of Krishna are codified in the Bhagawatgita (Gita). The gist of the Gita is that you are only concerned with doing your duty; what fruits your actions bear (either bad or good) are none of your concern.
Now, it is difficult to disagree with a religious text like the Gita that has guided millions of people down the ages for thousands of years, many of them much better minds and souls than any of us here (Mahatma Gandhi for one).
So it may seem a very correct position to say that one must follow one's conscious when faced with a moral dilemma and take action at an individual level, but often these dilemmas are not easily amenable to simple individualistic solutions. It will be less of a hassle for everyone concerned if we stuck to doing what is expected of us to the best of our abilities and leave morality to philosophers to discuss and debate, unless of course we also want to don the mantle of a philosopher in addition to that of a translator.
[Edited at 2012-03-23 01:58 GMT]
| | | | Balasubramaniam L.
India
Local time: 12:48
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | We must avoid the smugness of half measures | Mar 23, 2012 |
Phil Hand wrote:
Balasubramaniam: "If everyone begins to use his own consciousness to decide whether he would do a thing or not, there would be chaos in society. So if you are a qualified professional, society expects that when called upon, you will do what is expected of you."
If you want to know what's wrong with your argument, it's right there, in the join between those two sentences. The problem is that *someone* decides what "qualified professionals" should do, and that someone is, ultimately, no more qualified than you to decide what's right and wrong. I know it's a scary thing, but no-one out there has the answers. The government, the bar association, Hippocrates - they're no smarter than us, and they're definitely not our moral superiors. It would be nice if we could rely on them to make our ethical decisions for us, but we can't. That's not professionalism, it's just negligence of your own value and duties as a human being.
I cannot agree that the *someone* is at the same moral ethical level (whether low or high) as I am. I would rather believe that he is at a higher moral platform than I am - it does good to my moral health to believe that way. If I don't, I would have to declare open rebellion against *someone* (whether he be society, religion, state, nation, family, or any other entity), and not merely clandestinely undermine him by being ineffectively disobedient. As someone has pointed out in this discussion itself, that is the easier (and ineffectual) way out. It does not harm the wrong-doer in any way and also bestows a halo and smugness on the refuser that he has done his bit and is now absolved of any further obligation to correct the wrong.
But as an individual there is no limit to what you can do to stop a wrong - the Buddhas, the Jesuses, the Gandhis, the Mendellas of this world have proved it. So by merely opting to refuse to collaborate in a wrong-doing, and shying away from actually confronting the wrong (or the wrong-doer) and putting an end to it once and for all, you are underperforming in your fight against wrong. Would you say that would be the correct thing to do?
So don't take a moral position unless you are prepared to go the whole hog, and do everything in your power to stop something that you think is wrong. Making a token contribution like refusing is not enough - actually it is worse than collaborating in the wrong. For, if you strongly believe that something is wrong, it becomes your obligation to put a stop to it. Not doing everything in your power to put a stop to it, is a crime against your own morality. Do you see my point?
That is why I said it would be much simpler to take a more optimistic view of things and believe that *someone* is morally superior to you and is in a legitimate position to get professional work out of you.
For, if not, the only option you have is to declare open rebellion against him and oust him, because that is what you believe in.
We need to think through and avoid the smugness of half measures.
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Balasubramaniam L. wrote: Phil Hand wrote:
Balasubramaniam: "If everyone begins to use his own consciousness to decide whether he would do a thing or not, there would be chaos in society. So if you are a qualified professional, society expects that when called upon, you will do what is expected of you."
If you want to know what's wrong with your argument, it's right there, in the join between those two sentences. The problem is that *someone* decides what "qualified professionals" should do, and that someone is, ultimately, no more qualified than you to decide what's right and wrong. I know it's a scary thing, but no-one out there has the answers. I cannot agree that the *someone* is at the same moral ethical level (whether low or high) as I am. I would rather believe that he is at a higher moral platform than I am - it does good to my moral health to believe that way. If I don't, I would have to declare open rebellion against *someone* (whether he be society, religion, state, nation, family, or any other entity), and not merely clandestinely undermine him by being ineffectively disobedient.
No, you would only need to make your own value judgements.
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JaneD
Sweden
Local time: 09:18
Member (2009)
Swedish to English
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Alex Lago wrote:
There is no way to know if these documents were obtained legally, however I don't see how that makes a difference, I can think of other cases were I would have no trouble translating illegally obtained documents (say documents obtained illegally by an employee proving a company is dumpling chemicals), which kind of infers that the end justifies the means (oh no! another shady issue, do the ends justify the means even for a good cause? Kill 1,000 to save 1,000,000 kind-a-thing).
Is it ethical for someone to cheat on the boyfriend/girlfriend? How can I say without knowing the circumstances.
If you don't feel good doing the job don't, it's as simple as that.
I agree. I have been offered plenty of legally obtained documents that I chose not to translate because of their subject matter.
It is simply a matter of personal choice, and to come back to the OP's question - if you don't feel comfortable doing it, then don't. The money you will earn for the translation will not be worth the discomfort you feel having done it.
If, however, you feel that providing you are earning money it doesn't matter how, then that's fine too.
It's a personal choice, and one that ultimately nobody else can make for you.
| | | | Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:18
Hebrew to English
| The Nuremberg defense....seriously? | Mar 23, 2012 |
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
only concerned with doing your duty; what fruits your actions bear (either bad or good) are none of your concern.
...I'm not sure a lot of people will agree with that philosophy...(which is why it is never wise to invoke religion in forum discussions). The "I was only doing my duty as a translator..." wouldn't wash as a defense if the consequences of your translation turned out to be something sinister (I'm trying to stay away from the grandiose here....)
As I said earlier in the thread, we don't have to make ourselves amoral creatures, we can have our own opinions about the rightness and wrongness of something...and accept/reject work accordingly (with tact!), there is nothing unprofessional about that. Any self-employed service provider can pick and choose who to serve, and who not to. Translators are no different.
You only risk venturing into the realms of unprofessionalism when you start to proselytize your own personal ethics.
Professionalism/being ethical isn't about being a robot. You can make value judgements, professionalism is about how you navigate and act upon the judgement.
| | | | Attila Piróth
France
Local time: 09:18
Member
English to Hungarian
+ ...
| The buck stops with you. | Mar 23, 2012 |
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
If everyone begins to use his own consciousness to decide whether he would do a thing or not, there would be chaos in society. So if you are a qualified professional, society expects that when called upon, you will do what is expected of you."
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
I cannot agree that the *someone* is at the same moral ethical level (whether low or high) as I am. I would rather believe that he is at a higher moral platform than I am - it does good to my moral health to believe that way.
(Bold mine.) Thank you for putting it forward so clearly, Balasubramaniam.
I understand your standpoint, and disagree with it completely. As a professional, I bear all the responsibility of my decisions. If someone purports to be on a "higher moral platform", I will let them present their arguments - but the decision is mine.
The buck stops here.
I understand that it may be comforting, relieving to believe what you believe. But first and foremost, you are a citizen, whose actions have consequences. You write, society expects that when called upon, you will do what is expected of you. But there is not even such a thing as a (unanimous) expectation of society. Interests are very often in conflict, and you have to take sides.
I wholeheartedly recommend that you get hold of Mona Baker's excellent book and read the chapter on ethics. It provides great insight. Unlike the religious source that you cite, it does not provide final answers - rather it raises questions. It helps you to have doubts. Which is the most important step in taking responsible decisions.
Best,
Attila
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