This was a discussion about whistle blowers if it is right or wrong or somewhere in between

  The video is a little hard to stomach.  This is a war situation in which split second decisions have to be made in real time with real consequences for both sides of the “battle”.  The actions of the helicopter team are obvious that they engaged and killed people on the ground.   The debate is should they have or not, this is for history to decide.  The military found that they did nothing to warrant a court martial or any actions against the helicopter team.  The military did state that the families would be compensated.  Manning who is the person who released the video to wiki leaks group did so because they thought this video to be out there to hold the US military accountable for their actions.  Manning found that the military would have otherwise just let this video fade into history if not released.  I will argue that utilitarianism shows that Manning did act out of loyalty to the United States, and that the actions were a moral case of whistleblowing.

  In the paper by Vandekerckhove, he talks about how the whistle blower is an important role and action, and that this can be seen as an act of loyalty.  This idea where a whistle blower can be an important role in the loyalty game is an interesting one.  Whistle blower has two very passionate sides to it.  One where people think that the person is the worst kind of person there is, and the side that thinks they are doing the right thing.  Vandekerckhove, states that a whistle blower is not the worst kind of person but is a person who is actually doing a great service to the businesses they work for and this action is showing that they are loyal.  The loyalty is to both the business and to the community in which the business and the employee are.  The loyalty to the business is that the whistle blower is doing the business a great service.  The whistle blower is helping the business catch a harmful act or harmful product from hurting the customers in the community.  The whistle blower is helping because of the way companies are now.  Companies are large multinational or multistate things that are large and it can be troublesome for them to watch all things, all the time.  These huge companies are now more than ever putting more and more responsibility of the items or services on the lower-level employees.  The management teams are also flush with more and more responsibility, to the point where some responsibilities just naturally rolls downhill.  The ever-shifting responsibilities can lead to things getting overlooked more than ever.  This can lead to dangerous or troublesome issues that with no clear chain of command to point the problems out to.  The lack of a way to bring the issues to the forefront internally makes the whistle blower that more important and this action shows that the person not only shows loyalty to the company in which they work but the community it serves.  The whistle blower provides the company with a means to point out a major problem that could save the company from major laws suits, governmental fines, and even closer if bad enough.  The whistle blower shows loyalty to the community by coming out to provide evidence to protect them from the harm of the bad product or service.  The company and the community both benefit from the whistle blower coming forth with the information.  This central theme is why I think Utilitarian fits both this theme because the act does the best for the most people.  The whistle blower and Manning both do cause a little harm but, the harm is totally outweighed by the good the action causes.  The action brings to light a problem in both the company and with the actions of the military in the video.  The company can stop production of the harmful product or make changes to it services to make them safe.  The video, even though the soldiers were not found to be wrong by the military, shows that they are too quick to fire on groups of people.  This video with the bad press will both make the military more apt to make sure the intel is correct before giving the order to fire and shows what war looks like.  Both actions will save and protect and bring good to the most people over time.

   In the Oxley and Wittkower paper they examine the loyalty one should give to an employer through the lenses of care.  This is to say that loyalty should be given because of relationships that the employee has at work.  I see where this idea is coming from, we as employees spend the most woke hours at the job.  To say we actually spend more time at work with are coworkers than we do with our families is an understatement.  This time spent together forms bonds that intertwine us with each other.  The bonds that we form with our priers and our bosses is how and why there is loyalty to an employer.  I feel that this loyalty is a true loyalty more to our follow employees and doing so gives loyalty to a point to the business.  The business is after all where we go every day, weather in person or through video screens.  We have appointed times to be with our co workers which we care for because we have similar wants(paycheck), needs (social life), and connections (personal contact).  This loyalty to our coworkers can carry over to the companies we work for if the company and its management teams are willing to foster it growth.  The company even though it is truly just a legal entity the exist to create a product or service, I think is seen to exist through the behavior of its leadership and management teams.  Through this group of people a loyalty for the business can be grown.  This loyalty is also must be grown and cared for by the powers that be.  Just to assume you have the loyalty of all the employees without the work necessary to make that loyalty grow is foolish. The idea of whistle blowing in this paper is that it can be ok or even a good thing.  The whistle blower cares enough for their follow employees and the company to try and make it better.  The person is seeing the wrong the person or company is doing, and even trying to let them know, but in the end they blow the whistle to help them to be a better version of themselves or itself.  This idea of how loyalty is grown and given at a workplace is more proof of why and how Manning came to do what she did.  Manning fostered a loyalty to her follow soldiers and to the military itself.  She did what she did to help the military be the best version of itself and to help her fellow soldiers.  The act of giving the video to the world was to hopefully help put pressure on the military to make better decisions with their engagement rules.  The video shows how she felt about where the military was headed if she did not do anything to help themselves.  The video shows a moment in time that looks very damaging to her military or her company.  She was looking for a way to show them hey this is a questionable act and this is not good and we can be better.  In doing so I feel she thought if we do better as a group the very best outcome of a bad situation can be had for all. A Utilitarian would see a whistle blower in a corporation as a good thing if the action helped the most people.  In most cases the whistle blower is helping out fellow coworkers and the community the business is in.  It is saving people from a bad product or service.  It is hurting some of the upper management in the company, heads have to roll when most of these become public.  The math in the end will prove that the whistle blower did the right thing for helping the community and a large number of customers.

   In concluding, I feel that Manning was doing something she felt would help the most people make the best in their lives in a very bad situation.  Her doing so I feel she was helping her fellow soldier and fellow combatant.  The more the military took care to be “sure” of the intelligence and the situation the less “Collateral murder” would happen.  This would lead to a more selective killing and save the most collateral lives.  In doing this it would keep the people of a county from turning on her fellow soldiers, hopefully keeping them out of harms way more than the alternative.  The argument against her is that she betrayed her country.  They say she should have handled it differently and gone up the chain of command.  This all maybe true but what if the chain of command did not listen?  She did what she did to hopefully save the most people.  This action cost her considerably, so this was not done without punishment.  She did it still.