About a year and a half ago, I received an email which asked if I was interested in a speechwriting job. As I hadn’t applied or even previously known about said job, the email came as something of a surprise. It came from a representative of a large energy company based in the Middle East, who wanted to know if I had any interest in writing speeches for their company executives.

Did I briefly entertain myself by imagining a hypothetical, glamorous life in this Middle Eastern nation? Of course. Did I actually entertain the offer, considering that it would have probably maximised my earning potential at this stage of my speechwriting career? I did not. Any serious thought – before a rigorous evaluation of moral costs vs. financial benefits – was quickly curtailed by the thought of how disruptive it would have been for my partner and I to uproot our lives to a distant place where we lacked a support network.

And yet, this email planted a seed which occasionally circles back to somewhere near the forefront of my mind. The message it carries is not, “Gee, maybe I should have pushed harder to make this happen.” Instead, it is more like, “This is an interesting ethical dilemma for speechwriters or any writers who produce work that is published under other people’s names.”

The dilemma, to spell it out clearly, is this: to what extent, if at all, does a speechwriter have an obligation to refuse work from “unethical” clients?

One answer is: any individual should do what they think is right for them. That’s a common answer, but I don’t think it’s a satisfying one.

The first reason is that it represents a kind of moral resignation. It suggests that our obligations extend no further than ourselves and, perhaps, to a narrowly-defined community of interest. Here’s a fun game: next thing you read about a public figure being criticised for doing something objectionable for commercial gain, check if they cite “providing for their family” as a justification.

The second reason is that this way of thinking is pessimistic about our own potential as writers.

Both of these reasons are tied very closely to what is, in my view, a more general error in thinking: that our work cannot have a positive, tangible effect on important issues.

Today, I’ll explore these ideas in more detail.

Moral resignation

What are the industries that would most commonly fall under the umbrella of “ethically dubious”? Here’s a short list. Big Oil. Big Tobacco. Big Finance. Big Pharma. Weapons manufacturers. The wrong kind of politics. Some people would include industries like real estate (in that the purpose of most real estate-affiliated companies is to inflate the value of real estate) and crypto/Web3 stuff. I’m sure that is only scratching the surface. Our vocabulary for the immoral expands with each passing day.

Let’s say that you’re a speechwriter. You are approached by a representative from one of these industries. “Hello [your name], we’ve noticed that you’re good at writing speeches. Would you like to write some for us? Here is a big sack with lots of money in it.”

There are three basic responses to this:

1. Yes, please. I will do whatever you like as long as you hand over the money. [This is the “every person is an island” school of thought]

2. No, [expletive]. You are making the world worse and I want no part of it. In fact, [further expletives] you! [This is the “moral absolutism” school of thought]

3. Yes… but I feel conflicted about this and I will think about what I can do to soften the moral blow of this activity. [This is the “moral pragmatism” school of thought]

Perhaps we truly don’t believe that we have any obligations beyond what we owe ourselves and our closest loved ones. There are people who don’t even believe they have obligations beyond themselves. Maybe they just want that big sack with the money in it! Lots of people’s motives are, after all, plainly mercenary.

I don’t think living like this is particularly sustainable. But if that’s your philosophy then it’s unlikely I’ll succeed in changing your mind. 

But I’m more interested in the people who know or at least suspect that they’re not doing the right thing. They feel a twinge of discomfort but shrug their shoulders and do it anyway. These are the folks who would choose response #3 from the list above. What do we have to say to them?

We might like to believe that, without our incomparable skills, the company will decide that the speech and indeed their entire business is no longer worth pursuing. That is… probably not what will happen. What they are more likely to do is find someone who will write the speech without any misgivings whatsoever. It is worth considering, therefore, just what purpose is fulfilled, beyond our self-satisfaction, from choosing option #2 – especially if we believe that, because the organisation is prestigious enough and the job lucrative enough, that it will be written anyway.

This leads logically on to the realisation that at least sometimes, the best thing to do will be to agree to write the speech, provided you believe you can shape the message for the better. To be clear, I am not so delusional as to believe that any speechwriter is influential enough to single-handedly convince a Big Oil company to stop drilling for oil. That’s not my point. My point is that, if you’re good enough – both as a writer and as a negotiator – you can influence the message that’s being delivered. You could write a speech that offers more contrition to the collateral damage caused by the firm’s past activities. Or one that emphasises the sincere attempts the company is now making to decarbonise its operations.

Is this hopelessly naïve? Does a Big Oil executive acting contrite about past wrongs and talking up their company’s net-zero ambitions do anything beyond laundering their reputation? It’s completely understandable that there are people – possibly many people – who think that accepting money from companies like these makes one complicit in wrongdoing. They would scoff at the idea that words or platitudes could do anything other than mollify investors and fatten bottom lines.

But maybe we should be helping companies like these make bigger profits. Confused? Angry? Let me try and explain. For the past few years, there have been two revolutions going on inside many corporate boardrooms – the growing demands of activist shareholders and, closely related, the growing prominence of the ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) movement.

ESG is basically an alternative investment approach which encourages companies, especially those in the naughty industries I’ve listed above, to do publicly responsible things. Why on earth would they do that? Well, the idea is that because doing publicly responsible things like decarbonising your operations, divesting from fossil fuels, etc. (or at least making a lot of fuss about doing those things) is highly socially desirable, it can actually become the financially prudent choice. Doing good things may improve your share price, reduce your cost of accessing capital, or other things which help the bottom line. Not everyone is convinced by this basic model – do good things, but profitably – but it’s an idea which is gaining purchase.

As I said, I think there’s a comparison to be made here to speechwriting. If you think that the speech will be written by someone less scrupulous if it isn’t written by you, and you think that you’re good enough to be able to influence the contents of the speech, then perhaps the responsible thing to do is to take the job.

If we believe that we are more than just free-floating moral islands – that instead we live in a society mediated by obligations to our fellow humans – then it becomes incumbent on us to consider the ways we can make the world a little better.

From inciting a revolution to toppling a despotic political regime, we can all do something. Most can’t spare anything greater than kindness. Many of us can do more than a little. Some of us can do huge amounts. But I believe the obligation sits upon all our shoulders.

The merits of changing an organisation from the inside vs. blowing up the whole system is a perennial political debate, and I’m not naïve enough to think I’ll solve it on my speechwriting service’s blog. But if you’re a speechwriter, or any writer whose byline won’t appear on the final text, wrestling with the dilemma of saying yes to working with a client whose ethics you find dubious is an important question. You can stake out a position on either flank – no, I’ll never do this or yes, I have absolutely no issues with this. But there is room for something more nuanced between those poles: do I trust my own ability to make a positive impact? Do I trust my own ability to change this client’s trajectory, one line at a time?

It’s not all that uncommon for speechwriters to be approached by people or organisations many people would find objectionable or even downright despicable. A lot of what we do is PR but with fancier words. But acknowledging that shouldn’t mean either denying our obligations or maintaining a moral standard so high that it acts as a big constraint on the jobs we take. There is a third choice: believing in our own abilities as writers and as people who can make modest contributions to changing big systems from within.