Business and Management

1. Business and Management BAM321 Business Ethics and Social Responsibility Session 7

2. Agenda for today • Rawls on social justice • Maybe a little more on egoism • Your essays

3. Justice • We have tended to consider individual behaviour • eg lying, management decisions. • What about the ethical status of the economic system as whole?

4. Distributive justice • Boatright suggests justice is relevant to this issue in connection with the distribution of benefits and burdens • Distributive justice. • We may also speak of compensatory and retributive justice (also relevant to business).

5. Distributive justice • Comparative. • We compare the benefits received and burdens borne by different individuals. • What benefits and burdens should be considered?

6. Distributive justice • What benefits and burdens should be considered? • Health care, education, protection from crime, housing, food… • How should these things be distributed?

7. Utilitarianism and justice • Utilitarianism says we should focus on increasing utility without regard for which individuals benefit. • Only if we assume diminishing marginal utility might adoption of utilitarianism lead to something like an equal distribution.

8. But is an equal distribution just?

9. The free market and justice • The free market as modelled by economists leads to maximum utility. (I don’t follow Boatright’s argument at the bottom of p85 – he seems to be wrong) • But free markets in practice seem to lead to quite a high degree of inequality.

10. The free market and justice • But free markets in practice seem to lead to quite a high degree of inequality. Is the inequality observed in market economies just?

11. John Rawls • A contract theory. • If individuals would unanimously accept certain terms to govern their relations then those terms are just. • Distinctive feature of Rawls’s method is the veil of ignorance.

12. John Rawls • Suppose a completely new society is about to be constructed. • Suppose you don’t know what your position will be in the new society. • What features would you want that society to have? • Write ideas on post-it notes. • Then diamond mine!

13. John Rawls • Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all. • Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both • to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged, and • attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity.

14. Robert Nozick’s entitlement theory • A distribution is just if it was arrived at by just transfers, and… • the original distribution was just.

15. Robert Nozick’s entitlement theory • The condition that the original distribution must have been just is problematic. • And why are property rights so important?

16. Ayn Rand’s egoism • Egiosm is not doing what you fancy… on a whim • It’s rational… doing what is needed to be fit to continue to live long-term • This is saying a little more than what we said when we previously discussed rational egoism

17. Ayn Rand’s egoism • As in Kant’s thinking, humans’ rationality is crucial to Rand • Humans do not act on instinct as animals do • Achieving your aims requires thought and planning and you must be free to act on the basis of your thinking

18. Ayn Rand’s egoism • People’s rational interests do not conflict, as would be expected in a more conventional egoist theory • Thinking ahead I can see that it is in my interests for someone better qualified than me to get a job rather than me

19. Rand’s seven major egoist virtues • Rationality • Honesty (more than just truth-telling) • Independence • Justice • Integrity • Productiveness • Pride

20. Inter-session tasks • Do some reading on Rawls’s theory of justice, eg Boatright chapter 4 • Keep logging! • See website