You can transform one obviously evil entity into a functionally equivalent structure of N mini-entities with limited powers, where all the mini-entities can signal good intentions but are forbidden (by other parts and/or by the system) to act upon them.
It's as if I modified my own source code to make me completely selfish, and then said to others: "Look, I am a nice person; I really feel with you, and I honestly would like to help you... but unfortunately I cannot, because I have this stupid source code which does not allow me to act this way."
But if I did it this way, you would obviously ask me: "So if you are such a nice person, why did you modify your source code this way?"
But it works if my source code was written by someone else. People somehow don't ask: "So if you are such a nice person, and the rules are bad, why did you agree to follow such bad rules?" Somehow we treat the choice of following some else's rules as a morally neutral choice.
Somehow we treat the choice of following some else's rules as a morally neutral choice.
The excuse "I was just following orders" is pretty discredited these days.
I'm sure this observation has been made plenty of times before: a principal can gain negotiating power by delegating negotiations to an agent, and restricting that agent's ability to negotiate.
For example: If I'm at a family-owned pizza joint, and I want a slice of pepperoni but all they've got is meat-lover's, I can negotiate for the latter at the price of the former. This is a good deal with well-aligned incentives, and is likely to be accepted. But at a chain restaurant, the employees are not empowered to negotiate: It's the menu prices or nothing. Since I'm aware of their lack of power, and my demand for pizza is not very elastic, I'm likely to give them the higher price.
If I squint, this looks a lot like a precommitment, on the part of the pizza store, not to negotiate prices. But if they explicitly made such a precommitment, it might turn off customers -- nobody likes to feel like they're getting a bad deal, and a statement of precommitment (e.g. a sign reading "all prices are final") is likely to make customers feel marginally negative towards the business by drawing their attention to the money they aren't saving.
By contrast, the corporate form -- such as the chain store has -- gives this kind of 'precommitment' as a side-effect of the otherwise socially-normal behavior of delegating limited responsibility to employees. Same benefit, but without the drawback, mostly because the practice is socially-accepted.
Is there any literature that covers this kind of thing further? Particularly the link between precommitment and agents with limited negotating ability.
(I am sitting in a chain pizza store as I write this. Guess what I wanted to order, and what I got instead?)