It's obviously complete tosh.

If work were good, then labour saving devices would be evil. Ban the wheel!

Clean dishes are the good that make washing up have value, and that's why if the dishes are not dirty, no one washes them - work is not good, and that is why the devil makes it for idle hands.

On the contrary, civilisation is founded on idleness and the desire to avoid work. If washing dishes were good, no one would have a dishwasher. The whole thing is just fascist propaganda to persuade someone else to do all the work - 'Arbeit Macht Frei'.

How would you define with exactitude and clarity what ethical work is? What should we teach the young generation as praise-worthy labour?

I have a very particular situation to offer. I retired at 35, against my will and many tears and legal threats from my headmaster if I did not go to the doctor and asked for a sick leave. Two years later I was retired permanently. Since the hard time at my school, that gave me post-trauma syndrome and will not talk further about it, I have not worked, and only dedicated myself to otium as Ancient Romans called it: creative activities that are not paid, as opposed to nec otium, or negocio (business). I have found these activities a must to keep myself sane and in peace. So it is true that you still need to work and feel useful to others when you don´t need the money. This does not mean, however, that whatever makes you feel good or useful is ethical.

Clean dishes are the good that make washing up have value — unenlightened

I actually find washing up therapeutic.

I think work, loosely defined as effort, is enjoyable if you like what you are doing or find it therapeutic or get pleasure from the end results.

I think some labor saving devices we use are used for their novelty and the enjoyment of gadgets. On the other hand some of these labor saving devices give us more time to do more other work as well as increasing leisure time.

How would you define with exactitude and clarity what ethical work is? What should we teach the young generation as praise-worthy labour? — DiegoT

I would rather define unethical work. Work that makes other people waste their money, work that damages the environment. Work that exploits the environment in an unsustainable way. Work that is cruelly monotonous. And more.

Ethical work is harder to define but I assume most people believe health care work is ethical, Nurses, carers and Doctors, therapist and so on if it is done for a compassionate way and not solely for financial gain and power.
Also ethical leaning would be work to help the poor, challenge inequality and prejudice, environmentally sustainable work or work to improve the environment.

What concerns me is the idea that generating money or accumulating wealth is good thing on its own regardless of context or just the over riding desire for profit and excess wealth as a good motive for work.

I actually find washing up therapeutic. — Andrew4Handel

I find mince pies and a glass of whiskey therapeutic, but I don't claim that it is anyone's duty to consume them.

Martin Luther called the work of lay people (whatever that was) as holy as the work of monks, nuns, and priests. Religious work (preaching, praying, serving) is holy, but so is bricklaying holy; so is milking cows holy; so is mining and smelting iron holy; so is teaching school, and all manner of work. That what the Protestant Work Ethic is about: The work of man is the work of God.

So, that's one way of looking at it.

Our problem with work, people living 500 years after the Reformation, is that most of us are engaged in work that is far removed from the more obvious work of the 15th and 16th centuries: extractive, agricultural, building, domestic, relatively simple manufacturing, and a very limited number of intellectual jobs (like teacher). Processing words, for instance, does not feel like holy work; in many cases it feels like a sickness unto death. Service work can seem like an extremely bureaucratic rigamarole that never touches people in a meaningful way.

I think work is something we ought to do and do with pride (pushing life forward). My brother and dad work really hard for pay. They don't really realize how important for society they truly are, they just see the end product of being tired.

If mechanics, farmers, doctors just said fuck working... society would hurt. They also lose out on their passions. I mean define HARD WORK. All work is hard in one way or another (tedious, strenuous, or mentally exhausting) and is something that needs to be done. I respect workers no doubt.

The worker is being squeezed time out and paid less to do so... I don't like that one bit. They should be able to do their job and feel it has meaning.

I'm in awe at even how Fast food workers do it everyday... it's a 40-50 year thing for some.

I would rather define unethical work. Work that makes other people waste their money, work that damages the environment. Work that exploits the environment in an unsustainable way. Work that is cruelly monotonous. And more. — Andrew4Handel

I think you're on the right track here.

When we say work is good I think we're saying it in contrast to alternatives like robbery, fraud, murder for money, etc.

Having a job means you earn a living ethically. It may be boring or difficult but it isn't immoral. Most crimes are committed by the unemployed who, well, steal from someone else through the myriad ways to do so.

There may be other ways of interpreting the statment though.

Having a job means you earn a living ethically. It may be boring or difficult but it isn't immoral. — TheMadFool

I would not want to do a job or start a business that just harmed the environment and was not sustainable just in order to become rich and give people a short pleasure from a disposable item that then remained in the environment as a pollutant.

Also Jehovah Witnesses in Germany refused to support the Nazis and their war aims and so were persecuted and sent to concentration camps. I think that is a good stance to take but dangerous, by not contributing to something you see as highly immoral.

Martin Luther called the work of lay people (whatever that was) as holy as the work of monks, nuns, and priests. Religious work (preaching, praying, serving) is holy, but so is bricklaying holy; so is milking cows holy; so is mining and smelting iron holy; so is teaching school, and all manner of work. That what the Protestant Work Ethic is about: The work of man is the work of God — Bitter Crank

I like this picture because it seems to value you all work equally. But I think to value all work equally then it should all be paid more equally or at least no job should be poorly paid.

I think I have been confusing the Protestant work ethic with this quote from early on in the bible that God said to Adam and Eve after banishing them from paradise.

Genesis 3:19

"By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return"

I would not want to do a job or start a business that just harmed the environment and was not sustainable just in order to become rich and give people a short pleasure from a disposable item that then remained in the environment as a pollutant.

Also Jehovah Witnesses in Germany refused to support the Nazis and their war aims and so were persecuted and sent to concentration camps. I think that is a good stance to take but dangerous, by not contributing to something you see as highly immoral — Andrew4Handel

I agree. Some jobs are ethically questionable. For instance working in the tobacco industry, atomic bomb making, etc. is not a job the morally enlightened would like.

Perhaps such a line of thinking - work is good - arose when their options were limited and there were no morally suspect jobs around and the alternative was brigandry.

I guess times have changed and things have become more complex. What was once a clear divide between ''good'' work and evil alternatives has now become blurred.

Anyway, I find picking tobacco leaves better than mugging someone in an alley.

Perhaps you see differently.

, I find picking tobacco leaves better than mugging someone in an alley. — TheMadFool

Not every unemployed person turns to crime. Some resort to begging and in the past that was even a religious order. Now we have state dependents and welfare recipients.

The problem seems to me is the proliferation of unethical jobs where as you say in the past most jobs were less ethically suspect. Should we resign ourselves to propping up the status quo.

But could it be that we simply should not do unethical jobs even if the alternative is starvation? Could it be that working in this context is immoral?Or does the fact you are exerting labour give everything a veneer of morality?

nyway, I find picking tobacco leaves better than mugging someone in an alley. — TheMadFool

I think a better moral question would be is picking tobacco leaves for $20 an hr, less moral than say being a nurses aide for $18 an hour if you had a choice

Or one I like better

Choosing, with almost unlimited options, to become an investment banker, to be wealthy

Or use you talents to say

Built a company to build affordable housing

The jobs don't matter here, it is the moral choice to spend your time, effort and talent to maximize wealth or for other "social goods" however you wish to define them.

The problem seems to me is the proliferation of unethical jobs where as you say in the past most jobs were less ethically suspect. Should we resign ourselves to propping up the status quo. — Andrew4Handel

I don't know. I guess it's time to draw a distinction between ''should'' and ''could''. Of the former I have no doubt but the latter seems too high a hill to climb even for the strongest-willed amongst us.

I actually find washing up therapeutic. — Andrew4Handel

You're welcome to come and do mine any time. I get heartily sick of washing up - and there's so damn much of it. It's a great mystery to me how two people (myself and my wife) can use 15 glasses, 10 mugs, 6 plates, 4 dishes, 5 pans, and dozens of knives, forks and spoons, all in the space of a few hours. I can only assume some kind of entropy is at work.

I am interested in whether work is a moral thing.

You could say work is necessary but that it has no moral connotations. Or you could say working is moral but some work is immoral.

I think the idea that it is moral is potentially manipulative and open to exploitation.

Also we had slavery that was once acceptable which is yet another kind of work which seems to have always been completely unjustifiable.

I wouldn't say work is necessarily moral. It's just necessary for everyone to do.

In the case of the billionaire's son; people don't expect him to work because it's moral. People expect him to work because they have to work, and they feel its unfair for someone to never have to work. Not because working is a moral duty, but because He's never had to work a day in his life!

When you say, "It seems that a lot of people have believed that work is a moral good and hard work is even better." I think what you're talking about is just admiration. And generally, hard-working people are good people, no? The work itself isn't inherently good, but people who work hard may be. He's a good, hard-working man.

People expect him to work because they have to work, and they feel its unfair for someone to never have to work — Clark Callander

I think that fairness in work is probably highly desirable.

It seems to be chronic inequality and unfairness that cause people to have to to different types of work and different degrees of work.

I haven't read it but Bertrand Russell did write a book in praise of idleness. But ironically he wrote loads of books which is far from idle.