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Today’s Topics

Today’s Topics. Roles, Responsibilities, Values and Conflicts Economic Justice and Social Responsibility. Roles, Responsibilities, Values and Conflicts. Social Roles and Institutions. Established and continuing parts in a social enterprise Characterized by distinctive activity

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Today’s Topics

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  1. Today’s Topics Roles, Responsibilities, Values and Conflicts Economic Justice and Social Responsibility

  2. Roles, Responsibilities, Values and Conflicts

  3. Social Roles and Institutions • Established and continuing parts in a social enterprise • Characterized by distinctive activity • Special contexts of evaluation and appropriateness

  4. Contexts of Evaluation and Appropriateness • Prescribed means (constraints on reasons) • Constraints on actions • Prescribed ends

  5. The Ecology of Social Roles • A role is shaped by the demands of complementary roles surrounding it, and roles change in response to changes in other interacting roles

  6. Responsibilities and Values are Defined by Roles

  7. Role Responsibilities • Expectations that are placed on an agent in virtue of that agent’s acting in a certain role capacity • Included and excluded reasons--agents acting in roles are expected to use, or exclude certain types of reasons

  8. Values Vary by Role • What is valued in one role may not be valued in, or may be harmful to, another

  9. People Fill Several Roles Simultaneously • The fundamental values and responsibilities of different roles may come into open conflict • Inconsistent social messages about values

  10. Inconsistent Social Messages About Values • Success: wealth and avarice • Work: virtue or punishment • Societal Values: liberty, justice, and equality • Confusion between morality and legality

  11. M.L. King on Morality and Legality • Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. We cannot change the heart, but we may restrain the heartless.

  12. Law is External • Morality is Internal • Law is about what we MUST Do • Morality is about what we STRIVE to Do and Be

  13. Ethics is about doing more than you are required to do, but less than you are allowed to do • Michael Josephson

  14. Justice

  15. Types of Justice • Retributive--Criminal Law • Compensatory--Civil Law • Distributive--Fair allocation of the goods of society

  16. Distributive Justice • Substantive • Procedural

  17. Substantive Theory of Distributive Justice • A distribution of the goods of society is just if, but only if, it meets a certain standard or test (e.g., equality, merit, need)

  18. Procedural Theory of Distributive Justice • A distribution of the goods of society is just if, but only if, it results from the application of a specific procedure (e.g. whoever cuts the pie gets the last piece)

  19. Types of Social Goods • Private--Cars, stereos • Public--Schools, roads, police protection • Common--Civic institutions, voluntary associations

  20. Economic Sources of Different Types of Goods • Public--Government • Private--Markets • Common--Non-Profit (Voluntary) Sector

  21. Two Questions: • Do Free Market Principles Apply Equally to All Three Sectors of the Economy? • Grocery Stores/Hospitals/Banks • Do Markets Fairly and Efficiently Allocate Different Types of Goods?

  22. Today’s Readings • Rawls-Justice as fairness • Nozick-Justice as entitlement • Smart-Justice and utility • Wilson—Capitalism and Morality • Nielsen-Justice and socialism

  23. Rawls on Justice as Fairness • A procedural theory of justice--p. 53

  24. The Original Position • Veil of ignorance • All desire primary goods of society • Capable of rational cooperation

  25. 2 Principles of Justice • The Liberty Principle

  26. The Liberty Principle • Maximum Liberty for All Compatible with Equal Liberty for All.

  27. 2 Principles of Justice • The Liberty Principle • The Difference Principle

  28. The Difference Principle • Differences must result from fair, equal opportunity. • Differences must benefit the least well off.

  29. Tendency Towards Equality • Equality is a value the balances (sometimes counteracts) liberty • The natural lottery is unequal, and societies must respond in some way to that inequality--p 56

  30. You can judge the character of a society by looking at how it treats its most vulnerable members--children, the sick, the infirm, and the aged.

  31. Nozick on Justice as Entitlement

  32. Returns to John Locke’s Theories of Justice and Property

  33. A Distribution is Just If, But Only If: • It is the result of a just initial acquisition

  34. Initial Acquisitions are Just If: • They result from mixing one’s labor with unowned property • Remember Locke’s proviso • They result from the natural lottery

  35. A Distribution is Just If, But Only If: • It is the result of a just initial acquisition OR • It is the result of the just transfer of a legitimate holding

  36. Just Transfers Are: • The result of free, open market exchanges between informed, rational agents

  37. From Each as They Choose, To Each as They Are Chosen --p.63

  38. Smart on Justice and Utility

  39. Utility is THE Fundamental Moral Concept • Justice matters, if at all, because it maximizes utility, but this is a purely contingent relationship

  40. The Utilitarian is Concerned with the Maximization of Happiness, Not with the Distribution of It--p. 66

  41. Rawls’ and Nozick’s Theories BOTH Violate the Principle of Utility • The difference principle places limits on utility • The entitlement principle places limits on utility

  42. Consider the following scenarios: • P1 P2 P3 Net • S1 100 20 40 160 • S2 180 19 45 244 • S3 200 35 39 274 But P3’s rights are infringed • Rawls objects to S2 over S1 • Nozick objects to S3 over S1 or S2

  43. Wilson on Capitalism and Morality • Is capitalism opposed to morality so that it will be destroyed by its success? Joseph Schumpeter • How does capitalism produce both prosperity and (gross) inequality?

  44. Capitalism • Production is organized by and around privately owned resources • Exchanges take place voluntarily in free markets

  45. Are Free Markets Fair? • The Law, in its Majestic Equality, prohibits the rich as well as the poor from sleeping under bridges • Anatole France

  46. Capitalism is an Optimistic Theory • Capitalism brings many goods, but economic equality is not one of them • Inequality and privilege are features of all economic systems, but capitalism more than any other sustains challenges to privilege

  47. The Virtue of Self Interest • In seeking one’s own best interest, the business person makes everyone better off • Capitalism requires trust and ‘other directed’ thinking • Smith never advocated a harsh or heartless capitalism, the society we live in is larger than the economy we live in • Wealth is good--only wealth and abundance allow for charity

  48. Malthus and Ricardo gave Capitalism a Bad Name • Expanding populations and the prediction of hopelessness • “Get mine and get out” as a rational economic strategy

  49. Nielson on Justice and Socialism

  50. Socialism--Public Ownership and Control of the Means of Production

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