These kinds of resignations are interesting. The character is such a good protagonist, he resigns rather than do Bad Thing. But that pretty much guarantees the boss will hire someone more pliable. Why not instead swallow the pride and do Bad Thing but with some level of moderation? That would surely be a better outcome overall.
The argument is that it would destroy the character's honor or whatever. But that is also a kind of sacrifice for the greater good. Maybe a lot of those are in fact happening but just not visible.
> Why not instead swallow the pride and do Bad Thing but with some level of moderation?
A better answer is "refuse to do it without resigning". To begin with it gives you a better chance of preventing it, because maybe they back down, whereas if you do it or leave, someone does it. Then if they fire you, well, that's not really that much worse for you than resigning, but it's worse for them because now they're retaliating against someone for having ethical objections. How does that look in the media or in front of a jury? Which is all the more incentive for them to back down.
The problem with "well just do it a little bit" is that you can travel arbitrarily far in the wrong direction by taking one step at a time.
> Why not instead swallow the pride and do Bad Thing but with some level of moderation? That would surely be a better outcome overall.
This is a common debate, especially given current events in US politics. The theory goes that you can do more to effect change by staying inside the system than by resigning.
For powerful positions, it doesn’t really work if there is significant disagreement about what’s being done. If you do the requested actions that you disagree with, you become part of the problem and lose credibility in the process. You also lose some of your ability to blow the whistle because you have some culpability in what happened.
If you resist or try to interfere, it becomes noticeable very rapidly. Sooner than a lot of people in this position expect, from what I gather. Then you find yourself fired for performance problems or insubordination, which makes any future whistle blowing look like cheap attempts at retaliation for being fired. If you did carry out some of the orders then you’ve also lost some standing to blame others.
So resigning, publicly, is the only surefire way to retain your credibility and send a message without becoming involved with the thing you’re trying to prevent.
Sometimes, though, it's a question of retaining actual power vs. sending a message that won't be listened to by the people who need to hear it. Jan 6-7 2021 could have ended very differently if Mike Pence and the other relatively normal Republicans in Trump's first administration had resigned in protest at some earlier point and been replaced by loyalists.
The argument is that it would destroy the character's honor or whatever. But that is also a kind of sacrifice for the greater good. Maybe a lot of those are in fact happening but just not visible.