>You're saying pretty explicitly that people who do (3) are okay, possibly conditional on not having interacted with starving people; and people who do (2) are bad.

Things like pure charity, selectively helping some people, etc are all fine and few would argue against them. The negative "CIE" reactions the article cites are far from representative of the most common reactions to these things -- they're mostly some media wanting to make a big deal out of a non-story.

The whole CIE point of view (interaction vs non-interaction) etc confuses things when it comes (as in some examples given) to interactions like employment, etc.

I'd put it as simply as that: If you're the boss of someone, it's NOT OK to be a shitty boss, just because you're "still better than someone not paying them".

That's the argument I see anti-CIE people make ("I can be as bad as I like, as long as the net outcome of my actions to the other is positive"), and I find it morally abhorent.

Yes, you might be more helpful to them than someone not paying them, but you're still a scum for being a shitty boss. Especially if you're being purposefully shitty boss especially because your employee is in need and can't avoid working for you (i.e. scarcity of jobs in the area, he has a criminal record, etc).

This sleight of hand (expanding the subject of good vs bad behavior to non-interaction) mainly serves to divert the responsibility one has to people who interacts with to the general population.

This can be handy for things like the defense of sweatshop child labour: "Hey, I might have kids working for $1/day and make myself a cool $50 million a year from their work, but at least I pay them $1/day. What have you done for them?".

To the most abhorent deals made with desperate people: "I will put a word in with the dictator and save your husband from execution if you let me have sex with your daughter". (Hey, at least the guy saved her husband. What did you do? Besides the daughter begrudgingly agreed to it).

Regarding your other comment:

>You're saying pretty explicitly that people who do (3) are okay, possibly conditional on not having interacted with starving people; and people who do (2) are bad. If that's not what you think, please say so. If it is, then the thing you're calling a straw man is something you actually subscribe to.

Nope, I subscribe to its superset, that includes (1) instead of pretending its all a XOR between (2) and (3), and this (2) is the better option. (1) is the better option. CEI is a strawman because it lacks subtetly and hides the all important (1) alternative.

(2) can be bad independently of what (3) does or doesn't do.

A shitty (abusing, sexist, micro-managing, crappy paying, credit-taking) boss (2) is still a shitty boss, despite the fact that he pays your salary and a random person on the street (3) doesn't.

Yeah, you're better off with a shitty boss than with no boss, because else you'd starve if it was to (3). That doesn't make (3) bad, and it doesn't make your boss any LESS shitty.

Ethics is not just about outcome, it's also, and perhaps mainly, about intent. Which in the long term matters more than outcomes, because it helps shape the future, change policy, etc.

With "utilitarian ethics" we'd still have child labor in the US. And no "safety laws" either, because it's better to be employeed with risks than to force the employer to pay for safety measures and reduce his hiring capacity leading to unemployment. But it turns out if you don't think in "marginal" terms, you can have safety measures and no child labor, and still have a vibrant economy, simply by regulating those options out of the question. Utilitarian ethic proponents more often than not advise us to keep those practices because they're "better than nothing".

The world might be marginally better off by people "paying wages while being shitty bosses", but it's far better by people actually and actively being good bosses.

And by encouraging or praising the first type of behavior we discourage the second. That's what this "CIE" thing is about, seen in it's non strawman form, -- not about the superior morality of not being involved, who nobody really argues for.