Business and Management
BAM321 Business Ethics and
Social Responsibility
Session 7
Agenda for today
• Rawls on social justice
• Maybe a little more on
egoism
• Your essays
Justice
• We have tended to consider
individual behaviour
– eg lying, management decisions.
• What about the ethical status of
the economic system as whole?
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).
Distributive justice
• Comparative.
• We compare the benefits
received and burdens borne
by different individuals.
• What benefits and burdens
should be considered?
Distributive justice
• What benefits and burdens
should be considered?
– Health care, education,
protection from crime, housing,
food…
• How should these things be
distributed?
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.
But is an equal distribution just?
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.
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?
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.
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!
John Rawls
1. 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.
2. Social and economic inequalities are to be
arranged so that they are both
a) to the greatest benefit of the least
advantaged, and
b) attached to offices and positions open to all
under conditions of fair equality of
opportunity.
Robert Nozick’s entitlement
theory
• A distribution is just if it was
arrived at by just transfers,
and…
• the original distribution was
just.
Robert Nozick’s entitlement
theory
• The condition that the
original distribution must
have been just is
problematic.
• And why are property rights
so important?
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
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
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
Rand’s seven major egoist virtues
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Rationality
Honesty (more than just truth-telling)
Independence
Justice
Integrity
Productiveness
Pride
Inter-session tasks
• Do some reading on Rawls’s theory
of justice, eg Boatright chapter 4
• Keep logging!
• See website