Thank You For Smoking is a 2005 satirical comedy starring Aaron Eckhart which chronicles the difficult task of being big tobacco’s main spokesman and lobbyist in a world where smoking is becoming increasingly unpopular.
The yuppie Nuremberg defense is to claim that the only reason one is involved in a morally questionable action is because it pays the bills, thus making it seem as though there is no deeper enjoyment of the job or action in question. It is essentially saying that the task is irrelevant to you, but the money you get from it is relevant. In being so amoral, it neither makes the person using the defense seem like a better or worse person than anyone else; it is simply a means to an end.
When it comes to lobbying to serve the interests of big tobacco, whether or not it is ethically acceptable is not the question, the purpose of the occupation is what should be analyzed. Basically, everything is bad for you: eating bacon, prolonged computer usage, loud music, tight-fitting underwear. But no one is lobbying for those things because there is no money in it for them. Lobbying is just a means by which large companies get to keep themselves in business and brush away bad publicity, no matter how bad it is, by skirting around the issues and maintaining their own relevancy. People who lobby for the oil companies do not get half as much flack as people who do the same for the tobacco industry and yet it can be said that there is no difference between the two. Tens of thousands of people die in car accidents every year, innocent people die in gas station robberies, drunk driving is the leading cause of death in people aged 15-19 in this country and yet oil companies, car companies, and alcohol manufacturers can get away with it no problem. Long-term smoking has been shown definitively to cause several types of cancer and heart disease, but not 100% of the time. Long-term heavy drinking has been shown to cause cirrhosis, renal failure, and heart disease, but not 100% of the time. I find these two to be irrevocably intertwined in their methodology and long-term effects, and yet there are still commercials for alcohol on every channel. Either it is all fine and dandy or it is all morally reprehensible. NAMBLA exists and it has the right to exist. Even if I believe their viewpoint and rationale are morally reprehensible, does that mean that any person or entity should be able to forcibly disband the group? Of course not. Sure, the group’s existence is ethically irresponsible, but I would never say anything is completely ethically unacceptable. Which is mostly because I do not accept a stance of universal morality since the people who tend to be on the side of universal morality also tend to be hypocritical and only care about what directly affects them (e.g., if you say that no matter what, it is wrong to kill, then you should not support any wars and be a vegetarian/vegan.)
Antoine Bolden
Link to the movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgKqa8u4uJQ
The Cabinet of Doctor Costanza 