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No - it's not ethical.
Very little evil is actually a direct result of evil people doing evil things. The vast majority of it comes to be through ordinary people doing banal things - things that, like building weapons, are questionable at best, but that they excuse because it's "out of my control."
The thing is that it's not out of their control. Yes - if one individual makes the decision to not take part, that's not going to have much of an effect, but if every person who feels the same way makes that same choice, that absolutely WILL have an effect.
And there's only one way to make it so that every person who feels the same way makes that choice, and that's for each one of them, individually, to look past that "it's out of my control" bullshit excuse and go ahead and do it.
Everything on any significant scale is out of individual control. Individuals just possess a very limited amount of control over affairs on a national, much less global, scale. But that's really entirely beside the point. The point is how you choose to exercise the small amount of control you have. Will you use it for good, or for evil?
I think the argument is kinda weak, because from my decision to do something (like construct a weapon) the other workers at the factories don't change their opinion. For these kinds of events to happen, there must either already be a huge grudge in the workforce, so that you're the "tipping point", or you have to be as charismatic as a reborn Jesus and convince everyone to follow you. Both of these events seem implausible here. Thus, your decision to make or not make a weapon will not influence others, and the outcome won't be significant.
However, I'd love to have your input on it. I think the question if for the judgment of an action it is important that it is significant (or not) is a fundamentally important one, so I'd really appreciate your response here :)
And some number of those workers have the exact same opinion that you do - they're opposed, but they don't think they can make a difference.
And if all of you stopped waiting around for some charismatic leader to tell you what to do and just went ahead and made the choice you prefer, you would make a difference.
Then every single person who takes any action would make a difference in the world and change the situation, which obviousy isn't true. Lots of people have tried rebelling and fighting against a regime, but failed. So this logic doesn't apply in every case, does it?
How did you not get my point?
We'll try it this way:
Thirty people live in a town.
Ten of them, with a leader, want some policy implemented
Twenty of them oppose the policy.
The ten with a leader organize and push for the policy
The twenty who oppose it stand around with their thumbs up their asses, each of them telling themselves that they can't accomplish anything by themselves.
The policy gets implemented
Or
The ten with a leader organize and push for a policy.
The twenty who oppose it each, individually, pull their thumbs out of their asses and stand up and say they oppose it.
Each of those individuals, making their individual choices, finds themselves surrounded by nineteen other individuals who made the same individual choice.
They easily outnumber the ten who want the policy and the policy fails.
That's exactly how and why individuals going ahead and making their individual choices instead of failing to do it because "I can't make a difference by myself" can make a difference.
All they have to do is stop waiting around for somebody to lead them, pull their thumbs out of their asses, and just go ahead and do it on their own, each one as an individual.
Okay, let me rephrase - for me it sounds that if people work together, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Aka, if I am one of the twenty who sit around and do nothing, stand up, I on my own probably won't be able to block the policy. But if I stand up, there's a good chance others will get up as well and do. Or maybe I'll discover that after I stand up, there are three others of whom I haven't suspected anything, but who now also oppose the policy. And thus by standing up, you also influence others. If that is successful (aka if you can stop the policy or not), you can only find out afterwards.
Is that right?