Notesale: Turn your study into money

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CLASS 2:

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Believes in a capitalist free-market and minimal government interference (Study
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they need equal distribution of goods
o Distribution should be equal
• Intrinsic concepts are important for business
Believes in Intrinsic and just business ethics
Moral + economical incentive

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“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our
dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest
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Trying to maximize good [for all affected + myself]
o Every time you try to figure out the action, you need to think of what action
would maximize the good
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Consequentialism
o How do you determine whether the action you did was good or bad? You look at
the consequences; if the consequences are such that you created more pain you
can judge your action to be morally bad, if they are good then you did good
o There will be situations where you cant do good, you have to minimize pain
▪ Ie) two options that are both bad, you have to choose one that minimizes
pain
▪ For UT the trolley scenario they would kill the ONE

FORSEEN VS FORESEABLE CONSEQUENCES
• UT say you are only responsible for the FORESEABLE CONSEQUENCES;
o the consequences that at the time of the action I can see what is
going to happen (i
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, opening the door for a murderer) you can’t
foresee that the person you opened the door for is a murderer
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HOMELESS EXAMPLE:
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Rule Vs
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(harvest
organs if they believe that it would maximize happiness in society)
-> relates to KANTS idea of ABSOLUTE MORAL BUT NOT REALLY
▪ Nothing is absolutely morally apprehensible;
They do not distinguish between if you are a good person or bad person, they don’t
distinguish between action or inaction
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Idea that some people believe that UT is too demanding
• You are responsible for the evil things that are happening
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No room for MORAL EXCELLENCE
• Does matter if you are a good person etc
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Impartiality does not make sense
• Doesn’t make sense to make someone save someone else’s child
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When we make moral decisions, we should use our heads and not emotions as it
can lead us to make immoral decisions
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o We cannot control consequences/ they are too volatile
Morality has a lot to do with your intensions/ duty of the situation
Kant distinguishes between actions done in accordance with duty versus actions
done for the sake of duty
o Only actions done for the sake of duty have moral worth
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My rationality that determines what im going to do
How do you determine what is your duty?
o We have to follow categorical imperative vs hypothetical
imperative
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▪ Contradiction in conception (Test)
• I cannot conceive of a world where everybody does
that act that I want to do -> lying example
• This test yields perfect duties “do not lie”

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▪ You should never lie, its absolute morality
What happens when two duties conflict
o Kant states that there will able be one duty that will override the
other
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The failure here is that it is bad,
because no one wants to live in such a place
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Never as mere
means
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Fear of punishment
▪ 2
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interpersonal Relationships
• familial relations
▪ 4
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Social Contract
• pertaining to a group of peoples that do not
belong or are beyond your community

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6
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Which we can
Co-nationals
extend
Region
▪ Dependency and vulnerability are 2
All humans
considerations we have to apply to know what
type of obligation we have with the person
Animals
and how we should extend it
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It is immoral
o Care ethics and virtue ethics do not give principles they only tell you how to feel
in for the moral obligations
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A being that has
the capacity to do the right thing
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o Plato said if you are virtuous then you are happy
o Aristotle thought that you need to have external goods to be happy
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What is virtue?
o For Aristotle virtue is something that has to be ‘put’ or taught to people at an
early age
o Aristotle thought that virtue is a mean state between two vices
Liar
Coward

Honesty
Courage

•Safe/ weak/
bad

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Bluntness
Hubris

•good
•virtuous

• Extreme

▪ For Aristotle, a virtue will always be a ‘middle’ state
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Fighting for a sickness is not being courageous
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e cancer and war example
o Emotions are ok in virtue ethics, although they aren’t ass keen as care ethicists
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▪ Emotions are non-rational faculties that can be trained
Main issue with virtue ethics
o Not action guiding, it says very little about what we have to do
o Virtue ethicists are not action guiding
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o Cases when virtuous people are doing something wrong
o Terms are vague

Solomon Business ethics and virtue
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The profit/economic responsibility
o They have to make profit otherwise they will shut down
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they
have to do the right thing
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They start to elevate a socialist doctrine and
corrupt the free market economy since they are bringing considerations in
too the market that are foreign
o The only thing CEOs have to do is advance the interest of shareholders
o CEO has to make profit while maintaining what is legal and ethical

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o Taxation without representation; they pay taxes to the government but then they
also have to pay extra taxes because the company decides
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o If each and everyone of us is going to act rationally (which we do to advance our
self interest) we are going to deplete the commons
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Whereas
economists say no, technology will find a solution
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▪ But he does not want to adopt the stakeholder b/c its problematic
▪ We must deal with competition; the non-preferred strategies are cartels
and monopolies
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o Heath talks mostly about the ethical dimension and less about the philanthropic
o What happens when you have a conflict in interests
o He wants companies to adopt preferred strategies
o Urges managers to go ‘beyond’ the law; be a good sport (sportsmanship) don’t try
to cheat your way into competition
▪ If they adopt this strategy there wont be market failures
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Because people tend to overuse things
▪ very much against neoclassical position of some economies to believe
that we can bring into consideration environmental consideration

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environmental considerations cannot be commodified because they
do not fit into the system
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▪ WTP; Willing to Pay
o How much are you willing to pay?
o How much do you think you’ll benefit from it?
▪ Markets fail to reflect the idea of intrinsic value (care about something
for its own sake)
• the environments fall under this intrinsic value; ecosystems etc
have intrinsic value
• the WTP concept doesn’t reflect intrinsic value; but it doesn’t
mean that you aren’t willing to pay for the care
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▪ She doesn’t state why it’s good, she only argues that it’s the best they
have
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It’s just the best that we have right now
▪ She rejects criticism because it’s not an individual choice, it’s a rational
method for societal decision making
▪ We can agree the rational decisions are part of what we do
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▪ Cost benefit analysis isn’t necessarily a utilitarian tool
▪ She shows why the objections do not work; cost benefit analysis is the
best we have so far
▪ Cost benefit analysis isn’t against environment
Value debate
o Fuels a lot of the economic debate; fueled by what position you take on the
value debate
o Anthropocentrism-> Human center
▪ In terms of value, humans are the only ones who have intrinsic value;
value for its own sake
o Biocentrism (Singer, Bentham)
▪ Life centered

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Not only humans have values, but also animals
• What gives a creature value is its capacity to feel pain
(sentience)
• Utilitarian’s said that not only humans have value
▪ Peter Singer is Vegetarian
o Eco-centrism
▪ Environment centered
▪ Ecosystems are more important than human value
▪ Some ecocentrics would say that
o Peter Singer
▪ states that Antrop
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o Poff
▪ Erosion of global boundaries make it hard to sustain
▪ Two extreme views; we cant focus just on the international level

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Shes critical of structural adjustment; measures forced on developing
countries b/c of economic crisis 1980s
▪ These measures are used to practice a certain economic system that
they may not be able to practice
▪ We “erode” democracy in these developed countries, for some
countries it doesn’t work well -> justice economy comes
▪ Distribution justice
▪ Worried that once the markets are open, it’s a competition and
distribution of justice if often undermined
▪ Third world countries have to suspect the globalized economy; its
better to keep their decisions within the nations state
o Donaldson + Globalization
▪ Who bears the risks/cost of things
▪ Environmentalist issue -> where do you put toxic waste (throw away)
usually where the poor live
▪ Often times the distribution of risk is not just b/c they can do whatever
they want
▪ He addresses “responsibilities that agents have towards third party
victims (victims who are not part of the organization) i
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and 4th party victims;
the ones that are not born yet but will be affected by the toxins
▪ The poorest and least advantaged people are the ones who carry most
of the risk; they suffer most of the technological risk
▪ Statistical Welfare
• Risks can be imposed in other places even thou they may not
be imposed in “our” country
• Some people will trade off their values for the sake of other
values (they don’t have another choice) e
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Have to assume that what the company is doing could create serious harm
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There is no internal solution; you realize you told them and they are not doing
anything
If all these happen then it’s OK to whistle blow
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You have good reasons to believe that going public will solve the problem
These are mandatory; you have an obligation to whistle blow

Larmer
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Sometimes whistle blowing is ok
The extreme view is that there is no loyalty and that whistle blowing is totally OK the
other view is that you stay 100% loyal
He suggests the loyalty is necessary and also wants to leave the option of whistle blowing
open to the employees when the time comes

• He says that there is a duty of loyalty to your company even if its not reciprocal
• Makes comparison to parent and child loyalty
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o As a human being you cannot enslave anyone
We don’t need an additional right for workers, human rights are enough
Workers rights violates human rights
o They could be justified but are not entitlements that workers have
Positive and Negative rights
o Negative rights: rights of noninterference; if you have a right to life then don’t kill
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If you can’t afford health care, then too
bad
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Final Exam
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Posted on the 3rd of January (Wednesday) afternoon
Due on the 8th of Jan by 7pm (Israel time) Sarit@mail
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18) class notes (class notes)
o No outside resources
o Thesis, your own view for you to defend
o Consider possible objections (1 or 2)
Sample question:
o Do corporations have a responsibility to advance the common good? Why Or
why not? Explain what justifies this concept of responsibility and what is the
common good to be advanced or not? (what common good do you think they
should advance)

Affirmative Action
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Hettinger is for affirmative action whilest pojman is against
Pojman
o Role models are not necessary to be like us
▪ Excellence will revolve from FAIR opportunities
o Breaking stereotypes
▪ We need more people in high paid positions from certain minorities (we
don’t want stereotypes that certain races/ gender can only do certain
things)
▪ Competence is the most important measure for hiring
▪ Overtime stereotypes will disappear
▪ Some people believe that Affirmative action perpetuates stereotypes
o Equal results
▪ If we are all equal in capacities, then why don’t we see equality in the
work place? why is it still dominated by white male
▪ If you look at how people are being raised, then it explains why you see
stereotypes
o Compensation
▪ How do we determine who gets compensations for injustices?
• Compensation stops at the individual that faces injustice
o Diversity
▪ Meritocracy is better
o Anti- meritocracy
▪ We do not deserve merits because you are where you are because you
were born in that place
▪ Let’s not be hypocritical about it, sometimes we are successful because of
where we are born (he argues against this, and says that we deserve what
we got even if you were born in

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Hettinger
o Looks at objections of affirmative action and says why it’s bad
o Affirmative action is hiring or admitting minorities rather than more qualified
white men
o Morally based discrimination (good type of discrimination)
o We are trying to create role models based on discrimination, its
o Some WHITE men do struggle
o In some cases, it would be unjust to take the rich black guy and ignore the white
guy

Griffith - READING
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First you must distinguish between gender discrimination and sexual harassment which
again can be split into more:
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Sexual coercion
o The worst, forcing someone that can’t say no to participate in sexual
relations
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Sexual boorishness
New Split:
A
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Harassment
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because in taught law evidence has to be
substantial
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SH is not just with one female victim, the underlying point is that all women suffer under
every harassment case, because it shows that all women are at risk
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The above means that all women suffer at the fault of sexual harassment = GROUP HARM
sexual harassment follows women in all positions, and has meant that women have
gotten worse opportunities

The subjective and the objective definition:
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As it is now the woman has to prove that she was bothered by something
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Therefore, she wants objective definitions: general rules that can always be used
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The reason she only
talks about man on woman as the case on point is because the men are the dominant group historically and physically they have the power and use that power to show control over women
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HER PROBLEM: she doesn’t leave room for non-classical power sexual harassment
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Machan
Deception in advertising

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o Do companies have an obligation to tell the truth?
o You can say certain things about the product without talking about the other
things you know
o Its ok not to tell the whole truth cause we ourselves don’t say the whole truth
either
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o Telling truth that the companies wants you to know
Main issue in advertising is truth telling
Often times advertisers change peoples views
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Subliminal advertising etc
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Does advertising compromise our autonomy; no
o But creates a Dependence effect
▪ Consumer wants depends on the same process by which they are
satisfied
• Producers create desires in consumers and then they satisfy this
desire
▪ A desire that you identify with and don’t reject

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