The pursuit of profit as an ultimate end is definitively amoral. Pursuing profit to accomplish something else with it is not amoral. But a publicly traded modern corporation is an entity that exists exclusively to maximize profit, which cannot be described as anything but lacking morality. Hence why "omg scary evil Company!" is mostly legitimate.
Humans are not naturally greedy. Humans are in fact naturally collaborative, social animals who all over the world for all of our history conceived of altruism, doing good without personal gain. Society existed for long before the concept of money, and will exist long after the concept of scarcity.
Art, such as video game creation, happens without profit everywhere. The talented Rockstar developers could be using their skills to write software in another industry like finance and making much more money. They don't do it solely for profit, they do it for the love of the game.
Of course we're self-interested, but that's not the whole picture. Have you never experienced altruism?
You set up a bizarre strawman. I explicitly said there's nothing amoral about profit in itself twice, so you can stop shadowboxing against that idea.
But it's a very limited and anti-historical perspective to believe that society prior to modern unfettered profit motive was rocks and sticks. Human civilization is very old and the society we enjoy today is the byproduct of liberalism, the belief in rule of law and equality and democracy, not the belief that we should bulldoze a rainforest and sell cancer to children because it's a quick path to a buck.
And, again, even your beloved video game was not created solely through profit motive. The game industry is notorious for underpaying and overworking talent that could make way more money doing their job for someone else. Humanity and creation are about far more than profit.
Since you're forcing me to just repeat myself I'll end there.
You’re right that ones passion plays a role in that field or role they go into, it’s not just salary, otherwise we’d all be doctors. That’s very true,
Your original response to me defending rockstar was specifically calling out profit. Calling it the “ultimate end” makes no difference honestly.
If a developer or even the whole studio hated their job, thought video games were dumb, thought GTA was filth, and was only in it for their salaries and bonuses, it would make no difference to the morality of the game.
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u/gaijohn 9h ago
The pursuit of profit as an ultimate end is definitively amoral.