Have any of you faced a dilemma of working at a job that you don't agree with? What have your experiences been like?
I spent 20 years in the submarine force training on breaking things and killing people. I never saw combat but I was considered pretty good at my profession.
My first tour was on a 1980s ballistic missile submarine at the peak of the "Evil Empire". It wasn't as paranoid as the 1950s-60s but we still felt that the Soviets and Chinese were economically desperate enough (or incompetent enough) to start a nuclear war.
Today I struggle to explain to younger people (like my Navy daughter) how the Cold War felt and why we agreed to be a part of it. For example, at many points during my tour we'd be awakened suddenly by an emergency announcement. Literally 90 seconds later we'd find ourselves in Radio decrypting missile-launch orders under lots of time pressure. They turned out to be exercises, but as we went through the process I realized that I was ready to launch nuclear warheads if it meant that I could just get a few hours' sleep before I had to go back on watch.
That attitude sounds insane in the third millennium-- perhaps because it's insane in any millennium. But at the time we were defending our families by "holding the enemy at risk". We were willing to do that even when it involved killing tens of thousands of civilians, because we felt that we were protecting millions of other civilians. We had decided that we were doing the right thing on the day we joined the submarine force, and every day afterward we were reaffirming that commitment.
If you decide that a job presents a moral dilemma then you can choose to fix the problem from within. You'd hope to change people's behavior at your level and eventually all the way up to the executive suite.
However when the moral conflict can't be resolved internally, unless you already possess considerable influence, it's usually best to leave the job. You have the option of getting away from the problem by working in another career field. Or once you're no longer with that company then you could still try to change your old company's behavior by whistle-blowing, protesting, politics, or otherwise imposing external pressure.