I voluntarily participate in an employment contract. I like what I do and am good at it. I could work harder but I work what I consider a “fair” amount. Many weeks that is less than 40 hours of my time but sometimes it’s more - if there is an emergency or a crunch time for a reasonable goal, esp if the goal date is not arbitrary.
I really don’t like the idea expressed in some threads here that “I should stop caring about my employer’s goals”. If you don’t care about their goals, then the ethical decision is to quit. They’re not asking you to compromise your principles; they’re offering to pay you in exchange for supporting their goals.
I think a lot of the ideas on this topic are a little bit muddled. If your employer sets unreasonable goals then you’re not doing you or them a favor by trying to meet (much less actually meeting) those goals. If they try unreasonable shit and it works then they will keep on doing unreasonable shit until it bites them, and make everyone miserable in the process.
But not killing myself to meet the unreasonable goal my manager agreed to is not the same as just slacking off all the time. I’m a professional and consider myself ethical and I don’t see a huge ethical difference between stealing and accepting pay for work I didn’t do.