AN APPLIED PHILOSOPHY APPROACH 1

John Prince, J.D., claims a copyright for this work under the terms of the Berne
Convention. Permission to use these slides as class presentation material will be
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 The Nature of Morality 3
Who or What is a Moral Agent? Company Social Responsibility. 18
Moral Theories An Overview 55
Doing Good: Consequentialism 73
Do No Harm: Deontological or Constraint-based Views 108
Being Your Best: Living the Life of Virtue 131
Confucianism: The Great Syncretic Approach 142
Distributive Justice 149
Justice Within the System: Conducting Your Business Justly 177
Business and the World Around Us: Our impact on the Earth 184
Cost-Benefit Analysis 203
Business and the World Around Us: What we owe our customers (Product
Safety) 211
Business and the World Around Us:
What else do we owe our customers? (Honesty) 217
Justice in the Workplace 232
Loyalty and Honesty 233
What Loyalty Means at Work 250
Duties to Your Employer and the Public: Where does Loyalty Lead? 257
Loyalty is Reciprocal: What Employers Owe Employees 263
About ACCAs Fundamental Principles 277

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3

And what does ETHICS mean?

 What is this study we call Philosophy?
The word can be used many ways, but we are focusing on its
central task; teaching us to think critically about our basic ideas
and beliefs, and teaching us to build good arguments to justify
those ideas and beliefs.
Philosophy is about trying to use logic and correct
argumentation to support or criticize various ideas.
Ethics is the philosophical study of morality and business
ethics is the philosophical study of how we can apply morality
to economic life.

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 So philosophy is trying to think carefully and trying to use
justified arguments about our basic ideas and belief.

AND one major set of important beliefs are our moral beliefs.

ETHICS, as we are using the word here, is the philosophical

investigation of our morals beliefs.

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 The text defines moral questions as different from other
questions in this way: moral standards concern behavior that
seriously affects human well-being.

Do you agree with that definition? If so, how do you decide

what is serious? How do you define well-being? Why is it just
human well-being?

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 The term morality can be used either
descriptively to refer to some codes of conduct put forward by a society or,
some other group, such as a religion, or
accepted by an individual for her own behavior or

normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions,

would be put forward by all rational persons.

This is from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

But what kind of conduct codes about what to do if you want certain
results? OR codes about what you SHOULD DO, full stop, no ifs involved?

As we will discuss in Chapter 2, Immanuel Kant used this question in his

philosophy

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 One way to look at it is that the word morality refers to what
you should do and what you should not do
But not because you should do this IF you want this other
thing like you should take the elevator IF you want to get to
the sixth floor quickly BUT RATHER
You should do this simply because it is the right thing to do.

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 Descriptive ethics
The description of the ethical beliefs of a certain group of people.

Normative ethics
Attempts to create a rationally justified theory of right and wrong.

Metaethics
Deals with the nature and meaning of ethical language
and the question of whether any particular normative
theory can be justified.
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With thanks to Peter Singer, in his first chapter of Practical Ethics.
What ETHICS IS NOT:
Ethical thinking cannot be just an ideal system that is all very noble in
theory but no good in practice. A moral judgment that is no good in
practice must suffer from a theoretical defect as well, for the whole
point of ethical judgments is to guide practice.
Ethics is Not Relative to the Society in Which You Live.
Let us take first the oft-asserted idea that ethics is relative to the
society one happens to live in. This is true in one sense and false in
another. It is true that, as we have already seen in discussing
consequentialism, actions that are right in one situation because of
their good consequences may be wrong in another situation because
of their bad consequences.But
Anyone who has thought about a difficult ethical decision knows that
being told what our society thinks we ought to do does not settle the
quandary. We have to reach our own decision.

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 If ethics helps us apply the techniques of rational argument to
morality, we need to figure out exactly what we mean by
morality.

Moral standards concern behavior that has serious

consequences for human well-being, and they take priority
over other standards, including self-interest.

Morality must be distinguished from etiquette (rules for well-

mannered behavior), from law (statutes, regulations, common
law, and constitutional law), and from professional codes of
ethics (the special rules governing the members of a
profession).

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 Moral, immoral, and amoral.
Moral is a term we use to describe the conduct that is the right thing
to do. To be moral is to do the right thing. But be careful, we can use
this word two ways.
I can say this was a moral decision, and mean that it was the right
decision. On the other hand,
I can mean it was a decision ABOUT what is moral.
Immoral means it is not a morally correct action.
Amoral means it has nothing to do with morality.
I could mean it this way he is an amoral person, meaning he simply
has no sense of morality at all. That is a bad thing to say, of course.
Or I could mean it this way I chose noodles, not rice, for lunch. This
was an amoral decision; it had nothing to do with morality.

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 To help us consider our own moral beliefs, we will examine some
of the major ethical theories, both Western and Asian. There are
some themes common to many of these theories, as well will soon
see.

They are interesting in themselves, but we will also have to try to

remember that we will use them to think about real life moral
problems in business.

When we discuss them, we discuss them as being primarily either

consequentialist or teleological (e.g., utilitarianism and
Mohism); nonconsequentialist or deontological (e.g., Kantian
ethics, Confucianism); or on self-expression or virtue (e.g.,
Daoism, Aristotle). Of course, most theories are a mixture of some
or all of this approach. Probably our own moral intuitions consist of
a mix of all of the above, too.

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 Just asking these questions shows that morality is not just
rules it requires us, all of us, to engage in moral reasoning.
We have to think about why things are right, or wrong and
what things are right, or wrong.
Moral reasoning consists of forming moral judgments,
assessments of the moral worth of persons, actions, activities,
policies, or organizations. Moral reasoning and argument
typically appeal both to moral standards and to relevant facts.
Moral judgments should be entailed by the relevant moral
standards and the facts, and they should not contradict our
other beliefs. Both standards and facts must be assessed when
moral arguments are being evaluated.

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 We must be careful not to consider all our moral beliefs to be
true without first examining them closely.
We should try to develop considered moral beliefs.
A considered moral belief is one held only after we have made
conscientious effort to be conceptually clear, to acquire all
relevant information; and to think rationally, impartially and
dispassionately about the belief and its implications.

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 So now we can explain THIS course.
Business ethics is not a course to teach you rules of behavior in
business.
Business ethics is a form of moral philosophy that helps you
decide what's morally right or wrong in the challenges you face
in the workplace and in business.

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 Several aspects of corporate structure and function work to
undermine individual moral responsibility. Organizational
norms, group commitment, and pressure to conform
(sometimes leading to bystander apathy or groupthink) can all
make the exercise of individual integrity difficult.

Lets spend a semester trying to think about our beliefs, so we

are better able to act on them, when the time comes.

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18

That is, who or what can be held to be responsible for what it

does, morally?
 Can an organization be a moral agent?
If so, what are its moral duties?

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 Four stories:
The Business Ethics Club
The Secret Society
DeBeers
Volkswagen

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 The strategic importance of diamonds became acutely clear to
both the Allies and Axis powers with the approach of the Second
World War in 1939. Only diamonds were hard enough to stamp out
the millions of precision parts that were necessary for mass-
producing airplane engines, torpedoes, tanks, artillery and the
other weapons of war. Only diamonds could be used to draw the
fine wire needed for radar and the electronics of war. Only
diamonds could provide the jeweled bearings necessary for the
stabilizers, gyroscopes and guidance systems for submarines and
planes. Only diamonds could provide the abrasives necessary for
rapidly converting civilian industries into a war machine. Without a
continuing supply of diamonds, the war machine would rapidly
slow to a halt. Yet, nearly all the diamond mines remained closed,
and De Beers controlled the world supply of diamonds. Obtaining
these industrial diamonds thus became a paramount objective for
both the United States and Hitler's Germany.

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 According to a summary of OSS documents, the OSS learned
through its agents in Germany that in November of 1943 Hitler
had only an eight-month supply of industrial diamonds. When
these diamonds ran out, Hitler's war machine would be crippled. It
would no longer be possible to build V-2 rockets or other exotic
weaponry. It was thus a crucial wartime goal to prevent Hitler from
replenishing his supply of diamonds.

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 As all mines in South Africa were closed, the OSS reckoned that
there was only one place on earth from which the Germans could
get industrial diamonds in sufficient quantity to maintain their
.military-industrial complex: the Belgian Congo. The Belgian
Congo was, however, administered by the Belgian government in
exile, which was in London and completely under British control.
The mines themselves were supervised, and policed, by the De
Beers syndicate. The OSS had determined, however, that tons of
diamonds were somehow reaching Nazi Germany. If the De Beers
system of "elaborate controls" was as effective as the War
Department held, how could such enormous quantities of
diamonds be regularly reaching Germany?
It turns out tons of diamonds were reaching Germany, from
DeBeers-controlled mines, in Red Cross packets.
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 No one at DeBeers was ever prosecuted.
DeBeers continues to have a near lock on diamonds, world
wide.
And now we have Volkswagen start the movie please!

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 What has moral agency? People, definitely.
Computers? No. We blame their programmers, right?
Companies? Why not simply hold their programmers
(management) responsible?
Or is that a bad comparison?

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 Immanuel Kant based his entire moral theory on the idea that we, as autonomous
rational creatures, can choose how to act on the basis of reasons our reason
recommends to us, and that we are subject to blame or praise because we are
such autonomous rational creatures.
You do not have to agree with Kants entire theory to at least see he has a point
there, that morality is something that applies, for example, to people but not to
computers or automobiles. If a computer does something evil, we blame the
people who programmed it to do that bad thing. The moral focus is on the person,
not the computer.
So that leads us to ask is a business organization (corporation, company, firm,
etc.) is that an autonomous rational creature?
Can companies be judged a moral beings?
We assume so, since we talk about corporate social responsibility but why?

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 Remember the ladder of limited liability, from Business Law?

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 In one way, that term is an attempt to sidestep the issue of
whether legally constructed artificial organizations can be
considered true moral agents just like people.
In another way, it addresses the fact just stated, that companies
are legally constructed, which means that our social choices
have made such entities possible and given them a great deal
of power.

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 Note what happened with Volkswagen the scandal over the
program that cheated on emissions test.
The old CEO resigned but this program was a criminal matter;
which VW manager is worried about going to prison?
Why? Well, at least as a matter of legal responsibility, we require
fairly strict proof of actual criminal intent. In a large, diffuse
organization, that is hard to do.
Would hold any one person or group of persons responsible
control company behavior?

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 That means all spread out. Companies are not just about
widespread ownership (allowing the raising of capital) but also
about harnessing lots of different peoples talents, including
decision-making talents.

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 Lets draw an analogy. A famous philosopher, Immanuel Kant,
argued that morality presupposes that moral agents are rational,
autonomous decision makers.
He did not argue that he could prove free will- but rather, that
morality must assume it.
One way to read that argument is that it is morally necessary and
useful in guiding human behavior to talk as if we were free
actors.
So why not make the same as if statement about companies?
They have decision-making processes, like brains so why not
call them rational?
Those brains can be said to be just as autonomous as our own
brains are.
So why not act as if companies are moral agents?

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 Some find that a bit hard to accept. Too speculative.
How about this, then? Society creates them, society can
demand and expect responsibility from them.
An American legal version (reflected in Chinas law, too)
companies are persons, with the powers of personhood so
they must have the same responsibility as persons.

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 So rather than say, moral responsibility, some will say, social
creations have social responsibility.

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 The Company Law of the
Peoples Republic of Southern Pacific Railroad,
China
Article 3
A company is an enterprise
legal person, which has
independent legal person
property and enjoys the
right to legal person
property.
Santa Clara County v.
118 U.S. 394 (1886) often
cited as the foundational
judicial decision for a
doctrine that could be
summarized as
corporations are people
too.
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 We cannot simply assume that all the moral obligations or
duties or responsibilities that individuals have can be directly
assigned to organizations as well.
Put in terms of duty (the deontological approachs favorite
perspective) having decided organizations have moral
duties, to whom does it owe them, and what are they?

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 That is, why should there be a difference between the moral
duties of a sole proprietor and the collective duty of a
company?

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 In 1970, a very influential economist named Milton Friedman wrote a
piece in the New York Times where he summed up a position he had been
arguing for years:
In a free -enterprise, private -property system, the corporate executive is
an employee of the business owners [sic]. The owners have direct
accountability to their employers, the corporation's shareholders and
investors. That accountability generates a responsibility to conduct
business in accordance with their desires (within certain constraints),
which generally is to make as much profit as possible while conforming to
society's basic rules, those embodied in law and ethical custom
(Friedman, 1970).
But Friedman made it clear his view of ethical custom was quite limited:
[T] he corporate executive would be spending someone else's money for
a general social interest. Insofar as his actions in accord with his 'social
responsibility' reduce returns to stockholders, he is spending their money.
Insofar as his actions raise the price to customers, he is spending the
customers' money. Insofar as his actions lower the wages of some
employees, he is spending their money (Friedman, 1970).

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 In a free -enterprise, private -property system, the corporate
executive is an employee of the business owners [sic]. The
owners have direct accountability to their employers, the
corporation's shareholders and investors.
But the owners are the shareholders, right?
He meant, I think, the executive is an employee of the business
an entity in its own right.
That business is accountable to its shareholders. What does
that mean? Friedmans view is, only shareholders, and only to
make them money.

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 In our free enterprise system Corporations or, as we call them in China, joint
stock companies, only exist in our free enterprise system because we, as a
society, created them, through very complicated legal systems allowing for
limited liability, etc.
That system states that they are persons. This is the law in the US, and here in
China; e.g., the Company Law of China states:
Article 3
A company is an enterprise legal person, which has independent legal person
property and enjoys the right to legal person property.
And, as Mitt Romney infamously but, under current US law, accurately said,
Corporations are people, too!
So we want to make them responsible, just like people.

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 Managers, as people, have their moral duties; but while on the
job, their duty is to the company (and, as managers, nothing
else?).
In turn, the company has a duty to shareholders, those who own
it (and, apparently, no one else?)
As he wrote, famously,
[T] he corporate executive would be spending someone else's
money for a general social interest. Insofar as his actions in
accord with his 'social responsibility' reduce returns to
stockholders, he is spending their money. Insofar as his actions
raise the price to customers, he is spending the customers'
money. Insofar as his actions lower the wages of some
employees, he is spending their money. (Friedman, 1970)
(emphasis added).

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 Insofar as his actions lower the wages of some employees, he is
spending their money.
Why would those actions lower wages? Arent employees part of the
very social responsibility we are talking about?
Insofar as his actions raise the price to customers, he is
spending the customers' money.
Why would those actions raise prices? Arent customers part of the
very social responsibility we are talking about?
Insofar as his actions in accord with his 'social responsibility'
reduce returns to stockholders, he is spending their money..
(emphasis added).
Who says it is HIS social responsibility, anyway? It is the
companys responsibility we are talking about.

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 But how can shareholders even do that, really? Shareholder
resolutions? Selling out? But why sell shares simply in order to
buy shares in another company that claims to be morally bound
to ignore my moral interests? After all,
This artificial person was created by society, not shareholders.
That person owes obligations to society, not just shareholders.
The dominant answer today is STAKEHOLDER Theory.
A major proponent of this approach is R. Edward Freeman, a
professor at the Darden School of Business of the University of
Virginia. We have some text material from a textbook he helped
write, to which we will now turn.

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 The story of a big, big flood.

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 The main problem with the text material is that is is somewhat
ipse dixit in style.
What does ipse dixit mean!?

Lets see if we can remedy that problem as we go.

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 The text suggests four trends that makes stakeholder relationships more
urgent. The text views these as irreversible and, seemingly,
unquestionably good.
Maybe.
The four trends:
Economic deregulation few people today argue that we need more
government planning and control of private business odd he wrote this after
the financial crisis, and that a substantial number of recent Nobel Memorial
Prize winners in Economics would disagree.
Political liberalization by which the text actually means market liberalization,
or neo-liberalism, which is again highly disputed post 2008.
Environmental stewardship which I hope, for the sake of the planet, we all
agree is VERY IMPORTANT. (Chapter on that issue coming soon!)
Advances in IT

Well, whether these trends all are really undisputed or not, it remains important that if
we reject the Friedman model, we want to think carefully about this alternative, the
stakeholder model.

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 Freeman points out one reason, on 71 if management looks to shareholders interests
only, concerns of customers and employees are often traded off and under conditions
of uncertainty, these trade-offs usually have unpredictable, negative consequences, and
he cites legal and PR problems Walmart has had.
Friedman would say that Walmart, if it were REALLY smart and wanted to serve
shareholders, would have avoided these problems because they hurt shareholders at the
end of the day.
end of the day?
Freeman asserts (but does not argue) that it is a fallacy (define!) to believe that business
decisions are separate from ethical decisions (72). He calls this the separation fallacy.
What arguments do we have to support that assertion?
VW, DeBeers, Business Ethics Club, Secret Society

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 If a firm is not attending to [the interests of a particular set of
stakeholders,} it only makes sense that [these] stakeholders
will defect and take their resources elsewhere. Rather than
focusing on a zero-sum game where value is to be divided
among stakeholders and oppositional trade-offs among them
are the norm, managers should focus on how cooperation
among stakehoders allows (and is necessary) for the expansion
of value for all. Freeman, 74.

Here he is talking about such groups as customers, suppliers,

employees, financiers, local community.

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 Business can be understood as a set of relationships among
groups that have a stake (i.e., VESTED INTEREST) in the
activities that make up the business. (74).
Or an organization of any sort is a set of relationships among
those with a stake in the activities for which the organization
exists.
Accordingly, if we pay attention to only one of these
relationships, we will fail to build a sustainable business.

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 The Open Questions, for Freeman:
If this decision is made, for whom is value created and destroyed?
Whom does this decision harm, and whom does it benefit?
(Consequentialist)
Whose rights are enabled, whose values realized (and whose
adversely affected)? (Deontological)
How does this decision help define the kind of person I am (the
kind of organization we are)? (Virtue ethics).

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 On page 77:
The Stakeholder Approach is not Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR):
CSR is about firms contributing to the problems and issues of society. [I hope he meant
to say, contributing to the solution of those problems.] The Stakeholder Approach
foregrounds the interconnection between business and social issues. [That seems to
say it should make you aware of the need for CSR]. According to the Stakeholder Theory,
the responsibility of firms is to coordinate the long-term interests of their stakeholders,
rather that tackle the problems of society as a whole.
What is wrong with this, apart from the unfortunate use of the term coordinate, which
suggests the firm has supervisory power over their stakeholders?
If we accept that society as a whole is a stakeholder..? Doesnt Freeman himself call
the community a stakeholder?
Moreover, there is a bit of a straw man argument there. [Define straw man argument!]
Who thought any person, real or corporate, is supposed to be morally responsible for
doing everything for everyone?

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 P78
If we are to use this stakeholder approach to identify our moral
duties (or to identify where we can most effectively maximize the
good given our roles in social structures):
Identify your organization's goals beyond profit-- what values to
you hope to effectuate?
Identify your organization's best methods to coordinate and
cooperate with stakeholders.
Identify the values of the society as a whole.

Connect 3 and 1.

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 If you say-- my goal is to sell lots of widgets, you will act
differently than if you say your goal is to make it possible for
customers to have the widget they need and to provide your
widget-makers with a chance to find useful work that can
support their families.

BUT-- what Freemen et al. Ignore--

In the current environment, everyone does this on a verbal,
superficial level. It is almost a fad.

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 Tell me what you think about the examples on 79-81.
OK-- number 2-- what are principles of stakeholder
cooperation in practice?
Let's look at Freeman's e-Bay examples, page 82

NOW-- let's apply all this for Volkswagen.

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 What are the ways available to us to evaluate their moral
behavior?

LETs LOOK AT THE TYPES OF MORAL THEORIES, BUT

REMEMBER----
ITS A CONVERSATION, NOT A CONFLICT

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55

Consequentialism (results based)

Deontological theories (constraint based)
Virtue theories(Character based)
 56

* I would like to acknowledge some of those people whose work has been a
key influence on this work: Dgen Zenji, R. M. Hare, Shelly Kagan, Derek
Parfit, John Rawls, Amartya Sen, Peter Singer, and Ksh Uchiyama Roshi.
 Morality a very hard word to define; but here, we mean your beliefs about
what you should do, in the sense of what you should do that overrides matters
of taste and personal convenience.
One controversial definition would be that morality is a code [or set of
principles] of conduct that meets the following condition: all rational persons,
under certain specified conditions, would endorse it. Stanford Encylopedia
of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-
definition/#NormDefiMora.
Ethics the philosophical study of morality.
Moral acting according to a moral point of view.
Immoral acting against that moral point of view.
Amoral actions that are neither moral nor immoral; actions that do not need
to take moral considerations into account.
Moral theory that theory that explains and justifies our own set of principles.

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 First, of course, this is a term and a concept made famous by
John Rawls, in many of his writings.
I start this way:
When we talk about morality, we are talking about what we should
do. We tell stories, and in those stories draw the morals; what we
think is the best way for people in the story to act.
Our stories, told fairly and honestly, lead us to intuitions.
Intuitons are our strongly-held, considered judgments, which we
strive to reach after noticing and correcting for distorting factors
like matters of cultivated taste, or excessive emotion.
We then look for a set of principles that give a clear, consistent and
coherent account of those intutions. This is a theory.

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 A good theory is clear, it is coherent, it is consistent, and it does two
more things:
It helps predict (or determine) what will happen (or what to do) in
new situations.
It has explanatory power. We understand not just what our
principles are, but why these are the principles we adopt.
That is, a good theory is not just a list of rules or principles.
Finally, a good theory is not arbitrary.

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 There is a balancing, back and forth, between our intuitions and
our theory.
The theory must explain and fit our intuitions. But sometimes,

The theory highlights that some of our intuitions are out of place with
the others; we might even recognize them as actually what could be
called unreasoned prejudices.

On the other hand,

Sometimes, our core intuitions reveal a problem with the theory, a need
for revision there.

When we reach a balance between theory and intuition, then we maybe

can answer the question:

60
 Let me quote something from a book called The Transmission of
the Lamp:

Bai Juyi asked a Master: What is the essence of [living properly]?

The Master answered: Do no harm; do what is good.
Bai Juyi said: Is that all there is to it? Even a child of three realizes
that!"
The Master replied: "True, a child of three may realize it, but it is not
certain that even a man of eighty can practice it!"

It is not easy to practice it not just because we are not always

such good people, but there also is a lot more to that simple
compound sentence than meets the eye.

61
 The simplest view (maybe the best view, or maybe not?!) We should do what
produces the most good. Judging our actions by the results, or at least, the
intended results. We are doing the right thing if we are trying to produce the
best results.
There are MANY different consequentialist approaches, because what we must
do next is answer the questions, Well, then, what is good? and good for
whom?
Starting with the second question good for everyone, equally is the most
widely accepted answer. There seems to be a strong intuition favoring this
answer.
It is possible to have plural goods G.E. Moore, famous British philosopher of
the early 20th century, seemed to be arguing that lots of things are intrinsically
good. Beauty, truth, etc.
Most find this too much like a simple, unexplained, unprincipled list, and try to
find a singular good (or at least, some singular principle to identify intrinsic
goods.
The most common candidate for good is something like well-being or
welfare.*
Most consequentialists, then, can be called welfare universalist
consequentialists.

62
 In the Western traditions, the dominant form of consequentialism has been
utilitarianism an ugly name derived from the fact that this is a school of
thought that identified the vague term good with the equally vague term
utility, under the apparent belief they were getting somewhere.
Early versions pleasure. Seems very specific, measurable, but too limited.
Well, how about happiness? Whoa, that is totally wide open and vague.
Contemporary variant preferences, and satisfying them. Peter Singer is a
preference utilitarian.
Not all welfare consequentialism has to be grounded in these internal states,
though.
Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum argue for capabilities the abilities to
achieve things we have reason to value; I do not why the word utility could
not be applied reasonably to that sort of thing too; being able to do things I
value is certainly useful.

63
64
 At first glance, this may appear to be saying the same thing as
do good. But they are really quite a bit different.
(Of course, it also requires a theory of what counts as harm
often viewed simply as the mirror image of what is good.)
What if the best way to help (do good to) a dozen people is to
harm one innocent person?
We have intuitions that such actions are wrong, even if outcome
seems to be better than any other possible one.
If so, we may decide that what Shelly Kagan and many others
call constraints will be necessary; something like a rule
against doing harm, even if it would seem to be otherwise a
good thing to do that action.
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 It may not be just be about not doing harm, but about not lying
(even if we cannot identify any particular harm done by the lie) or
about having special obligations (to friends, to family) so that we
cannot do good for others without first preferring them, or helping
them, or something like that.

Maybe we think these are just rules of thumb, to help us achieve

the good (a consequentialist outlook), but maybe we think of them
more like laws and then we can say we are being
deontological.

We may then start thinking of what these laws creates as rights

that create matching duties.

66
 There are things you cannot do you are morally prohibited from doing things.
There are things you must do (at least in some views)you are morally
required to do certain things.
Then, there is the big area of free choice in there.
This is where the notion of superogatory actions come in Mother Teresa.

It is also what makes some people flinch at Peter Singers argument that
charity until we are nearly as poor as those we help is morally obligatory.
It might be a bad idea for a consequentialist to talk about moral obligations in
this legal metaphor.
Instead, consequentialism focuses not on the perfect but on getting better, so
why use words like must and mandatory?

67
Here, we have a consequentialist
picture we grow the good from
the ground up. The green tree of
life here represents the good we
do. Doing the right thing is
creating this good.

68
Here, the dark gray are those areas constraints
keep us away from, which allow the green of life
to grow the right way.

69
 VIRTUE is a term that means something like your excellence,
what makes you special.
VIRTUES are those good character traits we admire.
Some emphasize that the way forward cannot depend on rules
because they do not always have the best results.
Yet the way forward also cannot depend on calculations of the
best results, since we can never have enough information to
make the calculations correctly
AND
What will motivate us to do all these things?
Maybe, the focus should be on who we are, not what we do on
our VIRTUES.

70
 We can view the life of virtue as one that flourishes or is fulfilled or lives up to the goals of
human life.
This can be viewed, probably mistakenly, as very self-centered, and
It also can be viewed as very dependent on a view of the universe that holds all things
have a purpose, that life has a meaning given to us by our nature.

Virtue might be seen quite differently, as the expression of selfless balance:

The highest virtue is to act without a sense of self
The highest kindness is to give without a condition
The highest justice is to see without a preference
When Tao is lost one must learn the rules of virtue
When virtue is lost, the rules of kindness
When kindness is lost, the rules of justice
When justice is lost, the rules of conduct.

Dao De Jing, verse 38 (Jonathan Starr, Tr.).

I will argue that virtue ethics can be seen as a valuable supplement to, for example, some
forms of consequentialism, and can be part of a coherent consequentialist theory.

71
 As Derek Parfit said, when disputing that there are deep disagreements
among Kantians, contractualists [kind of deontological thinkers], and
consequentialists. We should think of [ t]hese people are climbing the
same mountain on different sides.
Parfit, Derek (2011-05-26). On What Matters: Two-volume set (The
Berkeley Tanner Lectures) (p. 419). OUP Oxford. Kindle Edition.
All sincere folks are climbing this mountain. They can supplement each
other.
For example, if you are the kind of consequentialist who recognizes our
lack of information makes it hard to always choose the best results, you
will adopt a provisional form of rule thinking adopting certain
constraints as good rules to follow, ALMOST always and then recognize
that virtue will be what helps you trust that your intuition that a rule has
failed in a particular, unusual circumstance, and help you know this is not
self-centered rationalization at work.

72
73

CONSEQUENTIALISM
 John Rawls, a major figure well deserving of respect, wrote that consequentialist theories
are those in which the good is defined independently of the right, and then the right is
defined as that which maximizes the good. (Justice as Fairness).
That is a very traditional division consequentialists start with the good, and
deontological thinkers start with the right.
This means the good to achieve, or the right thing to do.
I used to teach that myself.
I no longer think it is a fair or accurate way to make the distinction. So I will say
consequentialism starts with doing good and deontological thinking starts with do no
harm.
I hope to justify my choice as we go along here.

74
 To quote Derek Parfit, a major contemporary philosopher, in his two-
volume masterpiece On What Matters, a book that is WELL WORTH
READING, though sometimes he is a bit tedious:
it is a mistake to think that there are deep disagreements among the
leading ethical theorists. Instead, [ t]hese people are climbing the
same mountain on different sides (419).
Remind me to come back to him, maybe in a couple of weeks.

75
Also, lets remember what Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize winning economist
and pretty famous moral philosopher, who is from India but who was
educated in England and teaches in England and the US, wrote:
In confining attention almost exclusively to Western literature, the
contemporary-and largely Western- pursuit of political [I would add, moral]
philosophy and of the demands of justice in particular has been limited
and to some extent parochial..
It is my claim, rather, that similar-or closely linked-ideas of justice, fairness,
responsibility, duty, goodness and rightness have been pursued in many
different parts of the world, which can expand the reach of arguments that
have been considered in Western literature and that the global presence of
such reasoning is often overlooked or marginalized in the dominant
traditions of contemporary Western discourse. Idea of Justice at xiv.
He mentions both Siddhartha Gautama (i.e., Shakyamuni, the Buddha), the
agnostic champion of the path of knowledge as being a comfortable fit
with many European Enlightenment figures, and mentions the Indian
notions of justice as niti a deontological emphasis of process and rules and
justice as nyaya a more consequentialist focus on outcomes.

76
 This is CONSEQUENTIALISM.

The dominant Western version has been utilitarianism, a universalist welfare consequentialism.

Utilitarianism is a broad umbrella which includes act and rule utilitarianism, and all different
sort so ways of defining welfare for example, happiness, satisfaction of desire, pleasure,
fulfillment of preferences..
Famous names Adam Smith, David Hume, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Henry Sidgwick,
Lord Bertrand Russell, Karl Popper, John Harsanyi, R.M. Hare, Shelly Kagan, Yew Kwan Ng (
) dont you know him? Look him up!-- and, of course, Peter Singer.
But there are other versions of consequentialism, too Mo Zi and Mohism; arguably, to some
extent, the Confucianism of Meng Zi and beyond; also, at least in the eyes of many, Mahayana
Buddhist ethical teaching.
And, by the way, lots of non-utilitarian thinkers in the West have been consequentialist, too e.g.,
St. Thomas Aquinas. For him, the good is prior to the right. Whether an act is right is less
important than whether it achieves or is some good. We all know intuitively what
constitutes the good: It includes life, knowledge, procreation, society and reasonable conduct.
Raymond Wacks (2014), Philosophy of Law: A Very Short Introduction, New York and London:
Oxford University Press, at p. 5.

77
 Lets start with 1) a contemporary utilitarian, Peter Singer, and
2) a respectful but firm critic of utilitarianism, Bernard Williams.
We will use Singer, not to discuss consequentialism itself, but
his view of what any morality consequentialist or not must be.
Lets see what Singer has to say about what morality* isand is
not. (Singer, Chapter 1, Practical Ethics):
1) Morality cannot consist of a system of short and simple rules,
because in unusual but not impossible situations, simple rules
conflict.
Do we lie to the Nazis?
1a) This leads Singer to note that consequentialism does not start
with rules but goals.

78
 Singer points this out if you have thought about a difficult moral question, you know that you do not
arrive at an answer by taking a scientific survey of your own cultures attitudes.

[T]he beliefs and customs we were brought up with may exercise great influence on us, but once we
start to reflect on them, we can decide whether to act in accordance with them or go against them.

If all morality is relative, then, saying slavery is wrong can only mean my society disapproves of
slavery. In that case, a person who argues slavery is wrong is making a sociological error, and has
failed to take a good survey! But that is absurd.

If I argue slavery is wrong, there has to be some ground for the argument to stand on other than my
society and culture say it is wrong.

It sure cannot be the case that all we are arguing about is a matter of taste.

MORAL REASONING AND MORAL ARGUMENT ARE POSSIBLE IN FACT, WE DO IT ALL THE TIME.

We have to have, therefore, reasons for our moral judgments.

These reasons, Singer will suggest, are that certain actions produce better outcomes.

79
 Singers basic view of morality is that it is about justifying how we choose to
act.
These justifications must be of a particular kind he uses Macbeths murder of
King Duncan as his example ethics [i.e., morality] carries with it the idea of
something bigger than the individual. If I am to defend my conduct on ethical
grounds, I cannot point only to the benefits it brings me.
From ancient times, philosophers and moralists have expressed the idea that
ethical conduct is acceptable from a point of view that is somehow universal.
Kantact only on the maxim that could be a universal law
Universal natural law
Impartial spectator
etc., etc.

80
 In accepting that [moral] judgments must be made from the a universal
point of view, I am accepting that my own needs, wants and desires,
simply because they are my preferences, count no more than the wants,
needs and desires of anyone else.
Unless there are some other [morally] relevant considerations, this will
lead me to weigh all those preferences and adopt the course of action
most likely to maximize the preferences of those affected. Thus, at least
at some level in my moral reasoning, ethics points towards the course of
action that has the best consequences, on balance, for all affected.
This is a core notion for morality.
Kng Zs reciprocity principle, the Bibles Golden Rule.
Kant: Act as if you were following a rule that you could will be a universal
rule.
Bentham: Everyone counts for one, and no one counts for more than one.
Adam Smith: The impartial but sympathetic spectator.

81
 First: The answer to the question, what should I do? Is whatever
produces the best consequences overall. Whatever produces the
most GOOD.
Second, and this one is very big: The best consequences are those
that maximizes the satisfaction of the preferences of those affected.
The GOOD, then, for Singer, is the satisfaction of preferences.
This is not the only way to define GOOD.
The question Is satisfying our preferences the best outcome?
makes sense. So the connection is not true by definition.
It also makes sense to ask, Wouldnt it be better if we had BETTER
preferences?
So, now, lets listen to Bernard Williams for a while.

82
 Bernard Williams talks about well-being excellences of
character, or virtues. Not everyone wants to have these virtues,
or sees them as excellences to have.
This leads him to recognize that there could be a difference in
what is really good for us and what we want but if so, how
could we determine what those really good things are?
For that matter, even if we only talk about real preferences, what
if we make the effort to develop, or change, our preferences
do we change what is good?
Maybe, then, the answer is not to be quite so subjective, and not
rely so much on what we happen to think we want right now.

83
 To set out the problem: We should produce the most good. If
we say what is good is what people want, what happens when
people want things that seem very bad?
Racist thugs; or too much sugar.

How can we define these things as bad? If good equals

satisfaction of a preference and this satisfies a preference,
where are we free to call things bad?

One obvious answer is to try to come up with an objective list

of good things that we believe all will accept as good things,
and say the best outcome is that which maximizes the things on
this list.

84
 M Zi () (in the old way of writing Chinese in the alphabet, Mo Tzu), lived
from 470 B.C. to 391 B.C., during the Warring States period, a time of turmoil
and war.
He was the founder of a rather significant school, famous for a variety of
things, including developing logical theory in China, and being experts at
DEFENSIVE (not aggressive) warfare tactics.
The school itself was crushed by political events during the reign of the first
emperor, but it had a notable impact that has lasted.
For example, : Mng Z (), who in the West is called Mencius, and who has
come to be seen as the main interpreter of Kng Z (), who in the West is
called Confucius, wrote much of what he wrote as a reaction to Mohism.
Though the Mencius criticized Mohism, it clearly absorbed some of it as well.

85
 How do these [bad] things come to pass? They all arise from
the want of mutual love.
..universal mutual love throughout the country will lead to its
happy order.
The core virtue, or attitude, is therefore benevolence (and thus,
for Mng Z, became the dominant virtue and interpretation of
the Confucian term, ren, sometimes translated as humanity.)
If we have benevolence to all, what will we do?
Be impartial in seeking to promote the good for all.
So what is the good for all? Mohism does not answer with
such things as happiness.
Instead, it relies on an objective list.

86
 M Zi 's conception of benefit is very concrete and relatively narrow,
lacking in any psychological dimension such as happiness. To promote
benefits is to relieve poverty, increase the population, and promote
stability and order.
Enough to eat but not necessarily more than enough
Warm clothes to wear but not necessarily luxury
A decent house but not necessarily a mansion
Long life
Peace
Order
Population growing (at a time when there were often massive
depopulations).

87
 But such theoretical justification for the list of goods could be developed.
Any such justification might start with a definition of the best outcome much like the one Derek Parfit provided
recently, in On What Matters:
When we are comparing different possible outcomes, and we claim that some outcome would be impersonally
best in the impartial-reason-implying sense, we mean that this is the outcome that, from an impartial point of
view, everyone would have most reason to want, or to hope will come about.
Parfit, Derek (2011-05-26). On What Matters: Two-volume set (The Berkeley Tanner Lectures) (p. 372). OUP Oxford.
Kindle Edition.
Notice that Parfit is not saying what everyone would want but what everyone would have the most reason to
want. We have to decide, though, what we have reason to want, or to hope for.
See the BIG difference, and how it takes the good out of subjectivity into objectivity?
In the capabilities approach of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, we examine what objectively is needed for
humans to be capable of doing what they must do to live, and what they would like to do to pursue their ends
whatever those might be.

88
 It is certainly the case that, at least in the last couple of hundred
of years, whenever someone talks about what is the good to
achieve, they are likely to be talking about welfare or utility.
So we need to focus for a while on that.
Lets look at utilitarianism. Now, oddly enough, one of the best
short, and FAIR, explanations of utilitarianism available comes
from a NON-utilitiarian, John Rawls.
We have a chapter from his book, Justice as Fairness, and that
chapter is entitled Classical Utilitarianism.

89
 The main idea is that society is rightly ordered, and therefore just, when its major institutions are
arranged so as to achieve the greatest net balance of satisfaction summed over all the individuals
belonging to it.
Rawls, in Justice as Fairness.

Rawls entire focus was on justice, and in particular, just social orderings (that is, how governments,
social institutions, should be set up) not on the broader question of how we should act, generally.
So his language can be restated to be a more general definition:

The main idea is that we act morally when we try to achieve the greatest net balance of satisfaction
summed over all the individuals belonging to it.
What does summed over mean?

S + S + S + S + S + S + S + S +S + S + S + S

Number of individuals

90
 But the historical fact is that utilitarians share with Rawls a commitment to
the rational man as that terms is defined by orthodox market economists;
to be rational is to maximize personal interests, here defined as
satisfaction.
So if it is rational to maximize my satisfaction, and we take morality to be
about making universal, impartial statements, then it makes sense that the
moral thing to do is maximize overall satisfaction.
As Rawls says, this is a teleological theory, in which the good is defined
independently of the right, and then the right is defined as that which
maximizes the good.
This sort of theory must define what is good without reference to what is
right or else it becomes circular or incomplete.
As Rawls puts it the most natural way to arrive at utilitarianism [or rather,
the most predictable way, given that the utilitarians arose at the same time
as orthodox market economic theory] is to adopt for society as a whole the
principle of rational choice for one man.

91
 Note that this is a matter of aggregation or of adding up totals. Each person counts
equally, but as Rawls notes, for classical utilitarians that means that anyones utility units
(happiness, pleasure, preferences being satisfied) count that same as everyone elses
units.
This leaves out issues of distribution who gets what. If the total is greater, then it does
not matter who has that total.
Rawls says as soon as you add in distribution questions,-- not just how much happiness
there is, but how fairly is it spread around? you introduce questions of right and are
not purely teleological anymore.
But by being universalist, arent we already admitting at least one principle of the right
way to act? There is no such thing as maximizing the good there is only maximizing
the good for XXXX. We decide it is right to maximize the good for everyone.
It is historically accurate that utilitarians had a hard time figuring out how to deal with
issues of fair distribution, but not all agree that consequentialist or teleological
approaches must always have this problem unless they stop being fully consequentialist.

92
 Lets set up the problem. There are ten people, and ten utility units. Dont we get the same aggregate result if
one person gets all ten, than if all ten get one?
Diminishing marginal utility and the disutility of having nothing are traditional answers from utilitarians. There is
also the disutility of differences in power; if you have something that confers power, it can diminish my power
simply because you have it. If you get more money, in a pure market situation that means my money is worth
less, even if the amount I have is unchanged.

Imagine that you have two people, poor man Paul and rich man Richard. In the village in which Paul and Richard
live, Paul receives $10,000 a year, while Richard receives $90,000 out of a $100,000 output pool. What the people
who criticize utilitarianism for justifying inequality seem to believe, is that the aggregate happiness of the society
is smaller if you pay Paul $20,000 per year and Richard $80,000, even though that results in a 100% income gain
for Paul and a mere 11% drop for Richard. Richard may very well be less happy in the latter scenario, but Paul is
much, much happier. Richard may even end up happier tooperhaps previously, Paul felt a sense of injustice and
was hostile to Richard, stole from him, or was less sociable with him. Giving a poor man a little more makes a big
difference to his quality of life and well-being. Giving a rich man a little less does not.
http://benjaminstudebaker.com/2012/09/17/utilitarianism-and-equality/
But these solutions are dependent on mathematical calculations which could change.
Is that the only way for a consequentialist who values welfare or well-being of some sort to answer the
challenge of equality? (Note, that most contemporary utilitarian thinkers are also tend to be very egalitarian).
That is, some way for utilitarians and other consequentialists to directly value equality, to say it always is a factor
to be considered?

93
 One possibility is to remember that we are not talking about
some free-floating welfare in the abstract.
It is the welfare of people (or other sentient beings) the
wellbeing of beings.
We cannot just add up utilities, but the utilities of actual beings;
the number of people to get the value of the utility must count,
somehow.
Not the greatest happiness for the greatest number but the old
common sense saying Try to make everybody as happy as
possible.
That common sense saying has two axes aggregatative and
distributive.

94
 Another way to look at this point is to remember what Derek
Parfit wrote:
When we are comparing different possible outcomes, and we
claim that some outcome would be impersonally best in the
impartial-reason-implying sense, we mean that this is the
outcome that, from an impartial point of view, everyone would
have most reason to want, or to hope will come about.
Parfit, Derek (2011-05-26). On What Matters: Two-volume set (The
Berkeley Tanner Lectures) (p. 372). OUP Oxford. Kindle Edition.

95
 Further reading on the solving this problem:
R.M. Hare, Ethical Theory and Utilitarianism, in Amartya Sen & Bernard Williams, eds.,
Utilitarianism and Beyond, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1982).

My criticism is that Hare, like most, underestimates diminishing marginal utility. Most
writers focus on the person who has more, and the diminishing marginal utility of the
extra units. I would emphasize that four many resources that lead to utility (though not,
perhaps, utility itself), that for the person who has less, the others increased resources
increasingly diminish the lesser persons utility.

96
 Remember what Rawls said? The most natural way to arrive at utilitarianism is to adopt
for society as a whole the principle of rational choice for one man.
But it isnt really a theory for society as a whole, but a theory for all of us to live out, one
at a time. And a recent great utilitarian an economist at Berkeley named John Harsanyi
did not talk about arriving there by adopting the economic rational man model at all.
According to utilitarian theory, the fundamental basis of all our moral commitments to
other people is a general goodwill and human sympathy [cf. benevolence or ren]. But
no amount of goodwill to individual X can impose the moral obligation on me to help him
in hurting a third person, individual Y, out of sheer sadism, ill will, or malice. Utilitarian
ethics makes all of us members of the same moral community. A person displaying ill
will toward others does remain a member of this community, but not with his whole
personality. That part of his personality that harbours these hostile antisocial feelings
must be excluded from membership, and no claim for a hearing when it comes to
defining our concept of social utility.
John C. Harsanyi, Morality and the theory of rational behavior, Social Research, Winter
1977, vol. 44, no 4.

97
 For example, in Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Harvard
University Press, 1985), Bernard Williams writes, on page 76,
Utilitarianism looks in a different directionThis conception
appeals to one moral motivation, benevolence.
Later, on page 81, he writes,
I said earlier that for utilitarianism the characteristic moral
motive was benevolence.
There have to be some minimum principles of right adopted,
then for doing good. Doing good to whom? Everyone, as that
is the benevolent thing to do.

98
 Some argue, I think convincingly, that at least a dominant strand of thought in Buddhist
ethical philosophy is consequentialist.
There are these four persons in the world. What four? He who is bent neither on his own
welfare nor on the welfare of others. He who is bent on the welfare of others but not his
own. He who is bent on his own welfare but not of others, and he who is bent on the
welfare of oneself as well as of others. He of these fours persons [is] the chief and best,
topmost, highest and supreme. Shakyamuni (the Buddha).
Right actions are, therefore, those which are instrumental in bringing about the ultimate
good of one and all. Since happiness is one of the characteristics of this ultimate good,
right actions are those which tend to promote happiness of oneself as well as of others.
But this happiness is not to be considered in isolation from moral perfection, realization
or knowledge regarding the nature of things, emancipation of mind, perfect mental
health, etc. Ethics in Buddhist Perspective, by K.N. Jayatilleke, Buddhist Publication
Society, Kandy, Sri Lanka, 1972.
Thus, Charles Goodman calls his text on Mahayana Buddhist ethics, Consequences of
Compassion, and suggests Western thought could do well to engage in a dialogue with
that particular Asian philosophical school of thought.
Charles Goodman. Consequences of Compassion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2009.

99
 The problem of evil desires.
The problem of harming the few to help the many.
Goodmans book gives several examples of the latter type of problem; we will use one of
them here.
But first, we need to take a detour to discuss something that may seem, at first, unrelated;
the apparent distinction between act utilitarianism (or more generally speaking, direct
consequentialism) and rule utilitarianism (again, more generally, indirect
consequentialism).
By the way, for one utilitarians answers to these issues, I strongly recommend chapter 8
(pages 130 to 146) of R. M. Hares Moral Justice. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981.

100
 Act utilitarianism (direct consequentialism) picks the act that would produce the best outcome.

Rule utilitarianism (indirect consequentialism) evaluates what rules are, if generally followed, likely to
produce the best outcomes, and then follows those rules.
The distinction might be overstated.

See R.M. Hare, Moral Thinking, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981, for example. He distinguishes two levels of
thinking, intuitive and critical. I will state them in a general way that fits all consequentialist approaches,
not just utilitarianism.
We teach our children well, and they learn to have intuitive responses to common situations, that make
them feel certain things are the right thing to do and others are the wrong things to do and this is a good
thing. These intuitions hopefully reflect earlier, critical thought about what generally will produce the best
outcomes. These need to be deeply instilled, to help us avoid too readily rationalizing away selfish desires
to ignore those rules, when we claim that they do not really produce the best outcomes here.
But there are times, and situations, where we must do critical thinking, rather than rely on intuition, and in
those times, we cannot fall back on intuitions. There, we must simply decide what really produces the best
outcome. But these are rare occasions and we must always be careful about special pleading.
Now, this is not rule utilitarianism that simply says, find the best rule and always follow it, but it also
recognizes that we cannot and should not simply try to start from the beginning deciding what to do. We
need what Hare (following Ross)* called prima facie principles.
* W. D. Ross, 1930. The Right and the Good. Reprinted with an introduction by Philip Stratton-Lake. 2002.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Prima facie means it is taken as true and binding unless definitely disproven.

101
 The first issue are what I call the virgin in the volcano stories
stories made up to create a choice involving harming one
person to do good to many more.
Goodman tells one, let me paraphrase it.
A man pulls a dogsled into a remote medical clinic in the wilds
of backwoods Alaska. The sled has five dying people on it. The
doctor at the clinic realizes he can do nothing to save the five
unless he kills the man pulling the sled, and uses him for
transplant parts.
Aha! Some say. This surely violates your intuitions about what
is right and wrong? How can you deny it?

102
 First, of course our intuition says it is wrong to kill the healthy man. It is very much for the best that we
have a general, strongly held rule, that killing someone is wrong, even in a good cause.*
It is also for the best that this rule is instilled in us deeply, and that we feel very strongly about it. Even
if we decide to break the rule in some extreme situation it remains good that we would FEEL BAD
doing it.
But if we are convinced that this is the time to engage in critical thinking to decide which rules to
adopt, and which intuitions to inculcate then we no longer can appeal to intuitions. Those are the very
things we are trying to justify and explain.
Remember, there have been people whose intuitions told them that slavery was acceptable, that
killing girl children was acceptable, etc.
So, is this the time? Do we have the time to engage in critical thinking in the calm, careful manner we
should?
Do we really have enough information? Do you KNOW that killing this one man will save the others?
What if they die anyway?
Do you KNOW that, even if you kill this man, it will never affect anyone elses decision to be a hero like
him? (If people thought doing what he did would get them murdered, maybe they would stop being
heroes).
Do you really KNOW there is no other treatment?

* Though I would note that we seem to lose that intuition in times of war. We seem to feel it is OK to kill a
whole lot of people who just happen to have been born in the wrong country at the wrong time, all to achieve
the good result.

103
 [O]ur intuitions, if we have been well brought up, are
schooled to deal with the sorts of cases we are likely to meet
in real life, and may well give answers in unusual cases which
conflict with what [someone with perfect knowledge, perfect
motivation, and perfect critical analysis skills] would decide.
However, we would normally be acting rationally if we
followed the intuitions, because of the dangers inherent in our
human situation: our lack of information and our proneness to
self-deception.
Hare, Moral Thinking, at p. 147.

104
 This is the idea that people might enjoy others pain.
Example: watching gladiators fighting and dying in the
Roman Coliseum; racists who enjoy hurting people of
different racial backgrounds from themselves, etc.
Dont 10,000 people enjoying the spectacle outweigh a few
gladiators?
Well, though non-consequentialists think this is quite a
problem, few consequentialists think I it is really a problem at
all.

105
 According to utilitarian theory, the fundamental basis of all our moral commitments to
other people is a general goodwill and human sympathy [cf. benevolence or ren]. But
no amount of goodwill to individual X can impose the moral obligation on me to help him
in hurting a third person, individual Y, out of sheer sadism, ill will, or malice. Utilitarian
ethics makes all of us members of the same moral community. A person displaying ill
will toward others does remain a member of this community, but not with his whole
personality. That part of his personality that harbours these hostile antisocial feelings
must be excluded from membership, and no claim for a hearing when it comes to
defining our concept of social utility.
John C. Harsanyi, Morality and the theory of rational behavior, Social Research, Winter
1977, vol. 44, no 4.
But in general critical thinking will result in prima facie principles which discriminate
quite sharply between good and evil desires, and between higher and lower pleasures,
even though at the critical level no discrimination is allowed on grounds of content. This
is because, in the world as it is, the encouragement of good desires and higher pleasures
will maximize preference-satisfaction as a whole in the long term, even when preference-
satisfaction is assessed in an impartial and content-indifferent way.
Hare, p. 146.

106
 Our constraints, you may think, are not just prima facie duties.
Or maybe you agree that they are prima facie duties that can
be outweighed in extreme situations but in any case, we must
take these constraints seriously.
So now, lets talk about CONSTRAINTS.
Lets discuss

DO NO HARM
107
108

DEONTOLOGICAL OR CONSTRAINT BASED

VIEWS
 At least, that is what Shelly Kagan (a consequentialist) says, and I
believe he is correct.
Just as we used the deontological John Rawls to explain
utilitarianism, I will use the consequentialist Kagan to explain the
transition to deontological thinking, and its emphasis on
constraints.
I will focus on the notion that do no harm is a prohibition, a
limitation, rather than a principle of maximization. If your only
moral principle is do no harm, as your theory defines harm, then
you do not really have to worry too much about what happens in
the world as long as you do not yourself do it.
This approach is called deontological because deontic means
related to duty this approach tends to be very focused on
rules and duties. Deontological thinkers feel quite comfortable
talking about the moral law.

109
 A very common way to distinguish consequentialist thinking is to say consequentialists focus
on producing the good, and define the right thing to do as producing the most good; while
deontological thinking gives priority of the right over the good.
We saw Rawls do that already, where he defined consequentialism as a theory where the good
is defined independently of the right, and then the right is defined as that which maximizes the
good. (Justice as Fairness).
I taught it that way myself, but it is wrong. First, of course, there are principles of right in
consequentialism beyond defining the good; the universalist consequentialist has at least the
principle of impartiality and universality; that everyone counts for one, and none for more than
one.
Second, of course, deontological thinkers do not ignore the good. As, again, John Rawls wrote:

By definition, then, [my theory] is a deontological theory... one that does not interpret the
right as maximizing the good. [HOWEVER] It should be noted that deontological theories are
defined as non-teleological ones, not as views that characterize the rightness of institutions and
acts independently from the consequences. All ethical doctrines worth our attention take
consequences into account in judging rightness. One which did not would simply be irrational,
crazy.
John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Original Edition). 1971. Cambridge, Mass: The Belknap Press
of the Harvard University Press, at p. 30.
Moreover, deontological thinkers do not define the good using their concept of what is right
to do, typically.
Or to put it another way; nearly everyone is a bit of a consequentialist, but some feel
consequentialism is not complete.
110
 Deontological thinkers are those who believe in additional
normative factors [beyond maximizing the good] that generate
constraints. Kagan, Normative Ethics, p. 71.
CONSTRAINT: something that limits or restricts someone or
something; a control that limits or restricts someone's actions or
behavior. Merriam-Webster Dictionary (online).
How do we get there?
[V]irtually no one denies that goodness of outcomes is one of the
intrinsically relevant factors; but most people believe that
sometimes, a given act might be morally forbidden even though it
has the best results. Kagan, Normative Ethics, pp. 70-71.
After looking at a version of the dogsled hero murder case, Kagan
notes that [i]ntuitively,* at least, most of us have little doubt that it is
morally forbidden to chop up an innocent person, even if this is the
only way to save five other innocent people from death.

* Remember what Hare had to say about intuitions! Remember how he answers this
criticism, too.

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 Because of the constraints, which we consider morally required, it is more
important to avoid doing harm [yourself] that it is to save people who need
our help. Kagan, p. 72.
This is not a rule that avoiding harm takes precedence over achieving
good.
Remember the trolley story? (I can save five innocent people if I throw the
big man in front of the runaway trolley). Putting aside how silly that story
is, etc. etc., when we fail to throw the big man in front, we are not avoiding
harm but allowing five times as much of it to happen.
All we are avoiding is doing the harm ourselves.
We are forbidden to do harm [ourselves], even if this is the only way to
bring about the best results overall. We can express this point by saying
that commonsense morality [and the deontological view] recognizes a
constraint against doing harm. Kagan, p. 72.
These constraints erect moral barriers to the promotion of the good.
Kagan, p. 73.

112
 Sometimes the deontological view can be expressed in rather
extreme terms, suggesting consequences do not matter at all.
FIAT JUSTITIA RUAT CAELUM which is Latin for let justice
done though the heavens fall.
Now, that is pretty extreme.
A personal anecdote: When I was young, I was part of a group
or organization that felt that all that matters was that you lived
by the code no matter what the result, or hardship, you
lived by the code.
To borrow Rawls observation, this sort of extreme position is,
well, crazy.

113
 Suppose, for example, that killing an innocent persons was
necessary not merely to save five lives but a million! (We
actually seem to think this way during war a lot; when we bomb
a city, we kill women and children but call it necessary.)
Some people find themselves still inclined to embrace the
constraint.. .they are absolutists.
Many other people, however, believe that the constraint has
a threshold.
These constraints, of course, are closely related to ideas of
rights. I have a right to something or to do something. You
cannot take it from me, even if you think it will produce a better
outcome for the world overall. Some people view rights as
absolute, but many will accept that sometimes they can be
outweighed.

114
 Remember, they cannot come from the fact that, overall, they
produce the best outcomes; because the deontological position
is that these principles control even if they do not produce the
best outcomes.
So where do they come from?
Historically, these often came from:
Divine commands (but then, the Euthypro dilemma arose)
Some irreducible moral instinct or natural moral property
Some sort of principles that reason alone will provide.

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 In the last few centuries, some sort of contractarian view has been pretty
popular.
The idea is that we get the rules from some sort of imaginary agreement.
We all would agree, as rational creatures, to abide by certain rules
because these are the rules that make life work best.
Note, consequences do matter, certainly, in that we agree to principles
that we think would produce the best rules for living.
Note, too, that no one argues there ever was such an agreement made,
only that we all should act as if it were made.
The underlying metaphor seems to be that of keeping your promises.
There are dozens of these approaches; I will describe two.

116
 Ronald Dworkin pointed out some deontological approaches
begin with notions of moral rights, and obligations are simply
what we have because we must respect the rights of others.
But others begin with notions of our moral obligations (Kant fits
this description).

BUTboth view morality as something like law they

comfortably can talk about the moral law or some such
similar phrase.

117
 All deontological thinkers take some inspiration from Kant, and
even great consequentialists like R. M. Hare often claim to be
inspired by his work though rarely do any of these folks agree
with all of what Kant said.
Kant, who lived from 1724 to 1804 CE, was of course not the first
person to base ethical theories on the notion of duty the
deontological approach.
The most common deontological approach has, historically,
been some sort of divine command theory.
Kant tried to ground his duty on reason alone, not divine
commands or moral intuitions.

118
 Kants theory is completely deontologicalit focuses on duty, and doing what is
right, rather than consequences of actions and what produces the most good.

He wanted to argue for a moral theory based on the logical consequences of

first principles. Those first principles themselves must be purely moral, purely
rational, not emotional or accidental.
Kant himself was very careful to make every effort to ground his theory in what
he considered to be the demands of reason alone.

Since moral reasoning is about actions we take, it must be a rational first

principle about how we should act.

He decided that the only rational first principle about how we should act is that
we should act in a way that we would want everyone to act. That is the only rule
that can be turned into a rational, general principle for morality.

119
 He began with this observation, that we praise some people's
actions and blame them for other actions. He asked, how
can we blame them or praise them unless they had free
choice?
Morality was, to Kant, meaningless without the notion of the
free, autonomous reason able to make free, independent
decisions about how to act.
By autonomous, he meant undetermined by forces beyond
our control, outside or inside, including our own inclinations
and desires.
So a moral act, one based on free, autonomous reason, is not a
decision we make because of what we want, but because of
what reason tells us to choose, based on good reasons for
acting.
And from there, we can talk about the imperatives.

120
 Morality is about imperatives statements about what we
should do. Kant distinguished between two kinds of
imperatives: hypothetical imperatives and categorical
imperatives.
Hypothetical imperatives are amoral. That is, they are not
statements that, in and of themselves, have any moral value,
positive or negative.

121
 The hypothetical imperatives goes like this:
If you want to drink coffee, you should go to the Social Dogs.

But that is not a moral imperative. The moral imperative must

be one that reason tells us we must follow, if we are to respect
reason, not because we want something but because it is the
only rational choice.
You should tell the truth. there is no IF.

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 Hypothetical Imperatives: these imperatives
command conditionally on your having a
relevant desire. E.g. If you want to go to
medical school, study biology in college. If you
dont want to go to medical school, this
command doesnt apply to you. Another
example, your father says, "if you are hungry,
then go eat something!" - if you aren't hungry,
then you are free to ignore the command.
Categorical Imperatives: These command
unconditionally. E.g. Dont cheat on your
exam. Even if you want to cheat and doing so
would serve your interests, you may not cheat.

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 Kant argued that morality must be based on the categorical
imperative because morality is such that you are commanded
by it, and is such that you cannot opt out of it or claim that it
does not apply to you.

The categorical imperatives are not given to us by our desires,

but by reason by having good reasons to do them, based on
the respect for reason itself. Our reason leads us to create, for
ourselves, a moral law based on reason respecting my own
reason and respecting yours as well.
That moral law is always the same for all of us reason gives
only one answer but still, we make it for ourselves.

124
 1) First formulation (The Formula of Universal Law): "Act only on
that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it
should become a universal law [of nature].

2) Which is the same, more or less, as: Act so that through your
maxims you could be a LEGISLATOR of universal laws.

3) Here is the one that sound pretty different, but Kant says is
the same thing: Never act in such a way as to treat humanity, in
yourself or in others, as a means wholly, rather than also as an
end in itself.

125
 : Never act in such a way as to treat humanity, in yourself or in others, as a means wholly,
rather than also as an end in itself.

"What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others."

Zi Gong asked: "Is there any one word that could guide a person throughout life? The Master
replied: "How about 'reciprocity'! Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself."
Analects XV.24, tr. David Hinton

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Gospel of Luke 6:31

Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.

Udanavarga 5:18

126
 So we balance consequences and
rules and maybe we need something
in the background a sense of personal
balance.

127
 Look at how Derek Parfit finds principles grounded in the best outcomes:
I shall now sum up these conclusions. Moral principles could be universal laws by being
either universally accepted or universally followed. Kantians, I have claimed, can argue:
KC: Everyone ought to follow the principles that everyone could rationally will to be
universal laws.
(J) There are certain principles whose being universal laws would make things go best.
(K) These are the only principles that everyone could rationally will to be universal laws.
Therefore
RC: Everyone ought to follow these optimific principles.
KC and RC are the most general statements of Kantian Contractualism and Rule
Consequentialism. We are supposing that (J) is true. I have, I believe, successfully defended
(K). So Kantian Contractualism implies Rule Consequentialism. Since that is true, these
theories can be combined. According to what we can call Kantian Rule Consequentialism:
Everyone ought to follow the optimific principles, because these are the only principles
that everyone could rationally will to be universal laws.
optimific means producing the maximum good consequences.

Parfit, Derek (2011-05-26). On What Matters: Two-volume set (The Berkeley Tanner
Lectures) (pp. 410-411). OUP Oxford. Kindle Edition.

128
 When we are comparing different possible outcomes, and we
claim that some outcome would be impersonally best in the
impartial-reason-implying sense, we mean that this is the outcome
that, from an impartial point of view, everyone would have most
reason to want, or to hope will come about.
Parfit, Derek (2011-05-26). On What Matters: Two-volume set (The
Berkeley Tanner Lectures) (p. 372). OUP Oxford. Kindle Edition.
This is very close to consequentialism. I think Professor Parfit would
reject the utility or accuracy of the consequentialist and
deontological labels.
Notice, though, for him the good is what people have reason to
want. His views on what it means for people have reasons to want
or hope for is, well, pretty controversial, to say the least.

129
They say we should focus not on
the act, or its results, but on the
actor.

130
131

LIVING THE LIFE OF VIRTUE

 Maybe we need to find out who we are and who we should be.
This is the perspective we call VIRTUE THEORY.
I will be honest, I have never been able to see how virtue
theory can stand on its own to explain what we should do, but it
could be a useful supplemental perspective for other theories.
But here is what the virtue theorist will say sometimes the
rules seem not to be enough, or to conflict with no easy way to
resolve the conflict; sometimes, our goals to reach the best
outcome are hard to visualize because we do not see all
consequences; but maybe we should not focus on these things
but on who we are, and what we can be.

132
 The virtue of my French press is that it makes it easy to make cold-
brewed coffee.
The virtue of my earphones is that they are light.
What is YOUR virtue your excellence?
Virtue theories say we should become excellent, showing the
virtues.

BUT, my first problem always has been, first, which character traits
count as virtues?
Is benevolence a virtue? Is fearlessness or courage a virtue? Is
ruthlessness a virtue?
Dont we need a theory to define what is a good character trait to
have, and what is not?

133
 I first want to address my OTHER big problem; virtue theory
seems to get things backwards.
Example, Philippa Foots article attacking consequentialism,
Utilitarianism and the Virtues. After making an extensive
argument attacking the very idea of an impartial perspective,
she admits that many people find themselves drawn to
consequentialism because they feel there must be states of
affairs that are better or worse from a moral point of view
(which she apparently denies!!!)

134
Tracing the assumption back in my own mind I find that what
seems preposterous is to deny that there are some things that a
moral person must want and to aim at in so far as he is a moral
person and he will count it a good thing when these things happen
when things are disposed in their favour. For surely he must want
others to be happy. To deny this would be to deny that
benevolence is a virtue and who wants to deny that?
. accepting without any reservation that benevolence is a virtue
and that a benevolent person must often aim at the good of others
and call it a good thing when for instance a far-away disaster turns
out to have been less serious than was feared. But, she argues,
other virtues might sometime outweigh this one.

Well, not to be subtle, I find her views problematic. Lets go to the

next slide.

135
Tracing the assumption back in my own mind I find that what seems
preposterous is to deny that there are some things that a moral person must
want and to aim at in so far as he is a moral person and he will count it a good
thing when these things happen when things are disposed in their favour. For
surely he must want others to be happy. To deny this would be to deny that
benevolence is a virtue and who wants to deny that?
Frankly, that seems very self-focused. I dont care if you call benevolence
a virtue, or even notice that you have it; I care if you ACT
BENEVOLENTLY that is, you try to make others better off than before.
According to her, the only basis for her assumption that she should want to
make things good for others is that otherwise, she would not be feeling
virtuous. I dont care about her feelings, or her self-image, or her
character, I care what she does.
More basically, how does it even make sense that benevolence is a virtue if
we refuse to admit that we can judge what is a better overall outcome for
everyone?
. accepting without any reservation that benevolence is a virtue and that a
benevolent person must often aim at the good of others and call it a good thing
when for instance a far-away disaster turns out to have been less serious than
was feared. But, she argues, other virtues might sometime outweigh this one.
They must call it that or else not be benevolent? Again, who cares about
their self-image?
I dont think helping people is good because it expresses a virtue; IT is
only a virtue to help people because it is GOOD TO HELP PEOPLE. Her
thinking is totally backwards.
Sorry for the vehemence. Now, back to the first question what counts as a
virtue.
136
 In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle argued that the main goal in
life is to flourish or attain happiness. This is what he calls our
most final end or ultimate end, worth seeking for its own sake.
Aristotle argued that the highest form of happiness or flourishing
consists on being the best person we can be, fulfilling our human
nature.
So what is our human nature? How is it perfected?
Aristotle argued we need to develop these distinctly human
capacities:
(a) our ability to reason well because we are rational animals, and
(b) our ability to cooperate and socialize with others because we
are political animals.

137
 In Book II of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle wrote that virtue
lies in a mean because the right response to each situation is
neither too much nor too little.
Virtue is the appropriate response to different situations and
different agents.
The mean amount is neither too much nor too little and is sensitive
to the requirements of the person and the situation. This emphasis
on the mean is similar to the emphasis on balance in Daoism,
Confucianism and the Middle Way of Buddhism.
Though as expressed by people like Phillippa Foot, who started
the Aristotlean virtue revival, this approach seems too self-
focused and too dismissive of impartiality, it does have the virtue
(pun intended) of teaching flexibility in light of complex new
situations.

138
 Lets look at a famous verse from a famous text considered to
express a virtue ethic, the Dao De Jing.
The highest virtue is to act without a sense of self
The highest kindness is to give without a condition
The highest justice is to see without a preference
When Tao is lost one must learn the rules of virtue
When virtue is lost, the rules of kindness
When kindness is lost, the rules of justice
When justice is lost, the rules of conduct.

Dao De Jing, verse 38 (Jonathan Starr, Tr.).

139
 This can be seen as a hierarchy, or a ladder, of best ways to choose the right
thing. We rely on rules. The lowest rules are rules of justice what you
deserve.
Above that, rules of kindness.
Above the rules of virtue the rules of selflessness, since the highest virtue is
acting without a sense of self.
But better than rules is the predisposition to act out of a sense of justice,
kindness, selflessness to have the virtues themselves in your heart.
Cf. the Christian New Testament I will write the law on their hearts.
But there are principles of what count as justice, kindness, and virtue
Justice has no preferences (it is impartial); kindness gives without condition;
and the underlying virtue is selflessness.
In other words a virtue ethics, but one that supplements something more
basic a vision of the good found in a natural balance.

140
 It appears to be focused on moral psychology, to guide you to
act according to impartial principles of generosity and equal
treatment.
In turn, those principles can be seen as a form of universalist
welfare consequentialism.
At least, that is one possible view. Others exist as well.
Now, for my next magic trick:
One way to look at Confucian approach to morality, a way that
finds some consequentialism there, as well.

141
142

Kng Z lived in the 6th century BCE. His most famous later follower, Meng
Z l(known in the West as Mencius), lived at about the same time as
Aristotle.
Let me focus on the dominant, Mencian tradition of interpreting the
Confucian tradition.
 Ren (). Usually translated to English as benevolence, sometimes, humanity. from which
flows
Yi () Usually translated to English as righteousness, from which flows

Li () Usually translated to English as propriety.

Zhi ( ). Wisdom the ability to discriminate properly between right and wrong.

Now, lets look at the work of Mng Z, with this quotation from Chan Hansen (who teaches
philosophy at the University of Hong Kong, and who is NOT a fan of the Confucian tradition but
he has a good point here):
We noted earlier a familiar analogy that tempts us: Mencius plays the Plato to Confucius
Socrates. The parallel is apt in several ways. In both cases the disciple is so influential
that we have a hard time distinguishing between the original figure and the image the
follower passed on to us. The parallel is also apt in that both Plato and Mencius
synthesized an earlier and rather more sketchy, vague philosophical attitude. .
Confucius doctrines are chaotic and quite lacking in elaborative argument. This invites
the natural tendency to interpret him along the lines of his first systematically inclined
defender and elaborator.
Hansen, C. (1992). A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought. Oxford: Oxford University
Press; at p. 157.

143
 Mng Z argued that the heart has four seeds, which can develop into
virtues.
The first of the seeds is compassion. All humans naturally feel compassion
for other humans. The seed of compassion will naturally grow into the
virtue of ren (benevolence). The second seed is the seed of shame and
disgust, which will grow into yi (righteousness). The third seed is the seed
of deference, compliance, and respect for superiors, which will grow into
li, or internalized ritual behavior. The fourth is the seed of shifei, which will
grow into zhi, or wisdom.
Hansen, p. 164 (some changes to the quotation in terms of the translation
of Chinese terms).
Of course, we can can call these virtues.
Even Hansenwho is really NOT a fan of Confucianism in general and
Mng Z in particular, recognizes that benevolence is by the far the most
important, foundational of these virtues. The others serve it

144
 Mng Z opposed Mohism, vigorously remember, Mohism was the
consequentialist theory that advocated that impartial considerations of
something often translated at utility be applied to all moral questions.
Yet in opposing Mohism, Mng Z absorbed a lot of it as well.
Mozi advocates a morality of utility and Mencius advocates a morality of
benevolence.
Hansen,. at p. 159.

What is the difference?? Remember, Phillippa Foot claimed it was her

concern for the value of benevolence that made consequentialism look
attractive.

145
 Foot thought benevolence is a virtue, but that we cannot treat it as a principle,
utility for calculating right and wrong; it is an inclination that must be
balanced against other inclinations. Somehow. I am not sure how.
Mng Z expressed a similar concern with turning utility into a calculation
device; but for a very different reason than Foot. In Mencius, at 1A1, Mng Z
uses the word the Mohists used, which we normally translate utility, but it is
clear he sees it as meaning more like profit, and teaches that if those at top
talk about profit or utility for all, impartially, those down below will begin
to see it as MY profit comes first. That is, the impartiality will disappear and
the cold calculation will remain.
* This is that old problem utilitarians also often have, of being misunderstood
as being too calculating.
So Mng Z tries to avoid the calculating term to focus on the underlying
attitude, benevolence.

There was also a dispute over filial partiality that I think was and is totally confused and overblown,
and I will not waste time discussing it.

146
 Benevolence is the key and benevolence as a virtue makes
no sense unless you have a sense of the good, and that you want
the good to be shared, widely. The good for Mng Z is much
like Mohisms utility. In IIA5, the Mencius recommends a test
for the good to be shared, benevolently, to a ruler all the thing
the ruler treasures and enjoys, are the things the ruler should
try to share with his subjects.
So to be benevolent looks a lot like a form of preference
utilitarianism.
All the other virtues character inclinations serve this primary
one.

147
 Righteousness comes from a sense of shame this seems much like
the talk of intuitions that is so prevalent in the West now. R. M.
Hare (remember, the utilitarian) said we develop these intuitions,
and well we should, to reflect prima facie duties that exist because
history/past critical thinking has taught us that generally, nearly all
the time, following these duties serves the general good. BUT for
Mng Z as for Hare, righteousness is there to serve benevolence.
Propriety arises from respect and deference. This may be the most
controversial virtue but again, Mng Z suggests it exists to serve
benevolence.
Finally, we have wisdom the power to discriminate (as shown by
the characters used, shifei, or this/not this--.) Wisdom
serves benevolence, especially, perhaps, when righteousness (the
rules) does not provide definitive guidance, in selecting what path
best achieves the good.

148
Who should have what, and why? 149
 This is a big, big subset of the ethical question. Some might ask it this way;
What do I owe other people? or, more generally, how should benefits and
burdens be distributed?
This is the question of JUSTICE, at least in its primary, distributive sense.
We could say, what is the fair way to treat people? as in some languages
justice is actually a synonym for fairness.
Most of the moral questions we will discuss can be considered questions of
this particular, very large category of ethical question, is it just?
I assume that any reasonably complete ethical theory must include
principles for this fundamental problem [of distributing rights, duties and
benefits] and that these principles, whatever they are, constitute its doctrine of
justice.
John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Original Edition), (1971), The Belknap Press of
the Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Mass. and London, at page 10.

150
 Even when he was alone on his island, Robinson Crusoe faced
potential questions of personal morality. BUT.
There were no issues of JUSTICE until he was no longer alone,
and he shared the island with the man he called Friday.
By the way, Crusoe pretty promptly began to act quite unjustly
towards Friday.

151
 Making sure that the way people are treated is fair; that we get
what we deserve; that the benefits and burdens arising from
some event are fairly distributed.
Not primarily an issue of criminal law, though we often use the
word that way; justice is the essential question for any
organized human activity, and that is what businesses are,
organized human activities.

152
 Of course, economic systems are all about appropriating
resources, producing things we use, and distributing those
things.
So economic systems may be judged as either just or
unjust (or some degree of both, of course).
Many discussions of justice therefore relate, directly or
indirectly, to questions of what sort of economic system we
should have.
Such discussions range from what we conventionally call the far
right for example, Robert Nozick and his
libertarian/entitlement theories to the pretty far leftfor
example, G.A. Cohen, to various theories like those of John
Rawls somewhere in the middle.*

* The author of these slides is more in agreement, personally,

153
with Cohen than any of the others mentioned.
 BUT in Business Ethics, we take the economic system we are
given, and the ways of economic action that exist in that system,
and ask,
How can producers/distributors of goods and services be said
to act justly or unjustly given the constraints of the system of
which they are a part?

154
 One way to look at this is by saying, what rights to certain things do
various parties to business transactions have.
Well, then, what is a right?
a claim against someone [and
One definition: To have a right is to have
that claim is recognized as valid] by some set of governing rules [e.g., the
positive law] or moral principles.
Joel Feinberg, The Nature and Value of Rights. The Journal of Value
Inquiry 4, 1970, 243-251, at 251.
But here is another:
[T]here is an intimate connection between [moral and legal rights], and
this itself is a feature which distinguishes a moral right from other
fundamental moral concepts. It is not merely that as a matter of fact men
speak of their moral rights mainly when advocating their incorporation in
a legal system, but that the concept of a right belongs to that branch of
morality which is specifically concerned to determine when one
persons freedom may be limited by anothers and so to
determine what actions may appropriately be made the subject of
coercive legal rules.
H.L.A. Hart, Are There Any Natural Rights? Philosophical Review 64
(1955).

155
 John Stuart Mill, in his classic book from 1861, Utilitarianism,
explained his views this way:
To have a right, then, is, I conceive, to have something which
society ought to defend me in the possession of. If the objector
goes on to ask why it ought, I can give him no other reason than
general utility [an] extraordinarily important and impressive
kind of utility.

J.S. Mill, Utilitarianism, London: Longmans, Green, Reader &

Dyer, 1861, reprinted in Patrick Hayden, ed., Philosophy of
Human Rights, St. Paul: Paragon House, 2001, at 142.

156
 But
to get this matter clear we have now to distinguish between legal
and moral rights, and between the corresponding obligations.
A word should perhaps be said at this point about the concept of
natural rights, which is apt to create perplexities in this area. This
concept, like that of natural law, dates from a time when law and
morality were not distinguished so carefully as for clarity they should
be. Without detailed argument, for which there is no room here, I will
say baldly that everything which people have wished to express in
terms of natural law and natural rights (and many of these things are
worth saying) can be much more clearly expressed in terms of
morality, i.e. in terms of what the law morally ought to be. Appeals to
natural rights and the natural law are really appeals to what
legislators and courts ought to make the law and treat as law.
(Hare, pp.150-151).
Hare is talking about thisat a critical thinking level, we figure out
what produces the greatest utility overall. Then we adopt principles,
and make them prima facie duties, that we must inculcate in ourselves
and children and follow nearly all the time, until a real dilemma arises
which forces us to do critical thinking again. When we do such
thinking, we need to be very careful to recognize our limitations of
information, our tendency to rationalize results that are convenient or
selfishly pleasant, and the stress of emotion.

157
 In other words, Mill and Hare (and other consequentialists) will
say, we need to treat you in the way that is best, overall, for you
and the world as a whole. We CREATE rights when it is clear
that some ways of treating people are nearly always the right
way and should be presumed to be the right way to treat them.

Others say, forget about what is best for the world overall, as
people we have RIGHTS (claims) that must be respected.

Lets look at John Locke and his modern follower, Robert

Nozick.

158
 References: Nozick, R. (1974). Anarchy, State and Utopia. New York: Basic Books.

Nozicks entitlement theoryoften called a form of

libertarianism assumes certain strong natural rights. Nozick
believes that these rights are nearly absolute: they may not be
infringed except perhaps when necessary and effective in
avoiding a great social catastrophe. He does not really argue
for these rights, simply posits them. He argues, in other
words, from intuition.
The basic rights he assumes are bodily integrity and a right to
property. The second is very important, as Nozicks theory of
justice is based on property-rights based theorywe can
acquire full control over things (even actual pieces of the
earth), and no one can take this away from us.

159
 The centerpiece of justice for Nozick is that a state or other social
institution that imposes its will on others is to protect the natural
possessions self and acquired property from violence, fraud, and theft.
There is no place for redistribution for the sake of achieving more equal
distributions.
Nozicks view supports no legal involvement in market transactions except
to enforce contracts (why? I am not sure) and to stop outright fraud or
coercion.
Note this view is historical (not in the sense of accurate history, but in the
sense that it depends on past history). To know what is a just distribution
of benefits and burdens under this view, you have to look back into history.
It all starts with just acquisition. That being the case, it seems that
Nozicks system has no applicability to any world we recognize, as
historically we are quite aware that the acquisition chain of nearly all
productive resources in the world involved violence, fraud and, well, theft.
Nozick does not provide an alternative for justice in the world we actually
live in.

160
 Among people who like where this goes Its mine, you cant have
it as the core principle of fair distribution this view has been
pretty popular.
However, it never really proved very convincing to anyone outside
that circle, and has ceased to be influential in serious philosophical
circles.
It was not influential because it seemed to assume something
called just acquisition of something called property, without
every explaining exactly why that confers a right, and also fails
to explain how just transfers can take place, in the sense of what
makes them just.
It is difficult to study law and not realize that 1)property, as a concept,
is a social convention, in the form of law, that creates property rights,
and without law all talk of property is nonsense, and 2) these rights
are not unitary, but rather vary greatly depending on types of
property involved, types of legal protections given to different types
of property, etc.

161
 A much more influential, indeed probably the most influential,
recent Western thinker to discuss JUSTICE was John Rawls.
Rawls discussed RIGHTS, too, but they are not defined by some
intuitive appeal like Nozick, but are CONSTRUCTED by way of a
hypothetical idealized social contract.
We socially agree on what rights we have with the
understanding that everyone has them!

162
 That is Rawls own name for his theory, which many criticize as
pretty circular because, after all, justice and fairness are
often the same word in some languages.
Note, it is a theory of justice who deserves what and more
than that, a theory of just institutions.
Rawls was not talking about individual or small group
morality, but how to set up a just society, with social rules and
conventions (that is, things like laws, governments, etc.).
However, he thought, and others still think, this approach
could be extended to cover all areas of ethics generally.

163
 From John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Original Edition), (1971),
The Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press: Cambridge,
Mass. and London
30 By definition, then, [my theory] is a deontological theory...
one that does not interpret the right as maximizing the good. It
should be noted that deontological theories are defined as
non-teleological ones, not as views that characterize the
rightness of institutions and acts independently from the
consequences. All ethical doctrines worth our attention take
consequences into account in judging rightness. One which
did not would simply be irrational, crazy. He believes his
theory is very Kantian.

164
 Rawls theory can be compared to game theory.
Imagine if we were all to gather together in the original
position (purely an imaginary original position, not something
he argues ever existed).
Imagine they choose rules that serve their own self-interest, but
they are under the veil of ignorance they dont know what
their condition will be in society.
Here is MY analogy (not Rawls own): Imagine a bunch of
people gather together before they are all about to be born
into the world, and before they know who their parents will be
or who they will be when they are born.
What principles of fair distribution would they choose?

165
 There is a key fact about what Rawls believes any rational person would
choose (and remember, he accepts for this purpose that rather limited
version of rationality used by many economists that you are calmly,
rationally, trying to maximize your own self-interests and nothing else).
That key fact that you would be risk averse. A self-interest maximizer
would choose the difference principle stated as it is because he or she
would want to ensure that things are acceptable for the person at the
bottom who MIGHT BE HIM OR HER.
He thus adopts the maximin principle, which then leads to the
difference principle.
So what is the maximin principle?
Making, as a first priority, that the distributive order of society guaranteed
that those who are the very worst off, in terms of the identified social and
economic goods, are in a state of impoverishment that is the least bad that
it could be.

166
 Rawls argues that people would choose two basic principles:
1. Each person is to have an equal right to the most
extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a
similar system of liberty for all.
(liberty means freedom to do certain things; it does NOT mean the
right to own things; that is, he does not make liberty and property
mean the same thing, as Nozick did).

2. Social and economic inequalities must be justified as

follows:
a) they are attached to positions open to all under
conditions of fair equality of opportunity;
b) they are to be to the greatest expected benefit to the
least-advantaged members of society.

167
 Differences in wealth and power and other rewards must be
justified by showing how allowing one person to have such greater
benefit must be of benefit to the least well-off in society.
So if we can show giving incentives to some to work harder will
increase overall wealth, and this will include those least well off,
and they are better off than otherwise, we can allow it.
But always remember, inequity in and of itself can create losses of
utility. I can be better off in absolute terms under a system but be
worse off, in truth, because the comparative inequity is so great in
that system.
But in the next few slides, use this paraphrase of the difference
principle,
Unequal wealth/pay/income/power/assets are OK if the
inequality comes from work you do that makes the world better,
and in particular, improves things for the people at the bottom.
(Assuming this work is open to all to try to do).

168
 The difference principle is disputed both from the right and the
left.
The far right, including Nozick, would argue that Inequality is OK
if the inequality does not come from fraud or force.
Less extreme views, still more conservative than Rawls, would say
Inequality is OK if it was earned in a socially acceptable way.
Note, both these views more or less say, thatthe reason it is OK for
me to have greater wealth than you is that I have a right to it.
BUT RAWLS IS NOT SAYING THIS. You do not have a right to
unequal assets because you earned them or own them. Rather, we
allow you to have them in order to encourage a better world.
Simply earning your money is not enough to make it just for you
to be richer than me.

169
 Remember, Rawls is NOT saying you do not have a right to
unequal assets because you earned them or own them. Rather, we
allow you to have them in order to encourage a better world.
Simply earning your money is not enough to make it just for you
to be richer than me. The default distribution is equality, and
deviations from it must be justified.
So the criticism from the left is simply this: The difference
principle is not a principle of JUSTICE, since it assumes (as the left
also does) that equality is what justice normally requires. Rather,
the difference principle is a concession to the need for selfish
incentives to get people to make the world better for others,
especially the people at the bottom.
But IF we can talk people into limiting their ability to get
richer/more powerful ONLY to those cases where it is truly for a
better world, why cant we talk them into being even less selfish,
and simply do the right thing because it is the right thing?

170
 Cohen wrote powerful critiques of both Nozick and Rawls,
though he was much more sympathetic to Rawls.
Where he thought Rawls went wrong was in the difference
principle.
He said we might, if setting up a social system, choose the
difference principle as a practical concession to peoples
selfishness; that is, to give incentives to people to do valuable
work.
BUT that is not really justice, but simply what will work to get
us closer to justice (assuming we could get these selfish people
to even agree to the difference principle rather than something
even less just!)

171
 Not only equality of rights, but equality of power and
resources, wealth, are power.
The only inequality Cohen would say is JUST is that which
arises from informed, unforced choices.

172
 Clearly, Cohen is not a pure consequentialist. He is, like Rawls
and Nozick, a kind of deontological thinker.
The author of these slides is a consequentialist.
The author contends that justice means the best distribution of
benefits, not the one to which people have a right.
Rather, we define rights by what creates the best distribution.
The author contends that best is measured not only by
maximizing these goods and benefits (the aggregative
element) but also by equalizing them.
Further, he contends that we cannot separate these two axes on
the Cartesian graph.
BUT THAT IS A TOPIC FOR ANOTHER DAY.
173
 It is conventional wisdom that Confucian thought does not focus
much on rights but we have seen that a theory of justice
(e.g., a theory that justice is that which maximizes utility) can
generate specific rules about what people have a right to
claim from society and from each other, so if we can draw out a
theory of justice from Confucian theory, we can draw out a
theory of rights too.

174
 Certain principles of the task of government (the source of
distribution of resources) give rise to a view of what distributive
justice would be in Confucian thinking. Remember, the basic
virtue is what is translated into English as benevolence-- ren ().
Governments first task is to give priority to the worst off:
Old men without wives, old women without husbands, old people
without children, young children without fathers these four types of
people are the most destitute and have no one to turn to for help.
Whenever King Wen put benevolent measures into effect, he always
gave them first consideration.
Compare this to Rawls: inequalities are just only if they
result in compensating benefits for everyone, and in particular for
the least advantaged members of society. A Theory of Justice, pp.
14-15. * Joseph Chan, "Making Sense of Confucian Justice," Forum for Intercultural Philosophy 3
(2001).

175
 Government also has the basic task of promoting economic well
being of all
Government must promote meritocracy: public offices and
rewards are based on individual merit, to which all should have
access through
Access to universal education.
THUS distributive justice makes access to self-improvement and
opportunity available to all (equal opportunity). It does not
guarantee or even expect equal outcomes, but improvement for all
is the goal and improvement for the worst off an even more
pressing goal. The opportunity to rise higher in society is thus
justified by that person using the position to improve general
welfare and help the destitute.
Compare this to when Rawls would allow inequality of outcomes.
So, can we also draw out a theory of RIGHTS here?

176
177

CONDUCTING YOUR BUSINESS JUSTLY

 After all, we are part of THIS system.
If we want to change the system, great. But BUSINESS ETHICS
are ethics for businesses in THIS system. We want to discover,
now, not what a just world would be but how we, in this world,
going into the marketplace, can act JUSTLY IN THE
MARKETPLACE.
Is there a common ground in all these views on justice that we
can apply to our marketplace activities?
Lets see.

178
 Libertarians say , assuming the seller justly owns his goods and the
buyer justly holds his money, any transfer (any action in the
market) creates a just result if it arises from just stepsand just
steps are those that are fully voluntary and fully informed (no
force or fraud.)
Cohen would argue that fully just results are those that provide
equal resources and opportunities and power, except to the extent
the inequality results from informed choice uncoerced by
circumstances.
Rawls argues something complicated, of course, but he does claim
to be a Kantian, and that reminds us that the core insight of Kant is
to respect the humanity in othersand that is why he HATED lying.
To paraphrase, we must respect the autonomous decision making
power of others.
So what can we abstract from all this? The core principle in all
views that applies to a just marketplace actor is one who does what
is needed to allow all market actors to make autonomous
decisions, not manipulated by force or by inadequate information.

179
 But if there is one thing we must remember is that simply thinking
of ethics as a relationship between the buyer and seller, and
forgetting all the other affected parties out there, forgets that our
two-way transaction can affect everyone. This is the hidden
foundation of stakeholder theory.
So we must go beyond what is just in the transaction and ask what
is just and fair to the world as a whole.
We can abstract from the grand theories two questions. Some
might even say they are the same question, asked in two different
ways.

1. WHAT RIGHTS DO OTHER STAKEHOLDERS HAVE

THAT WE MUST HONOR?
2. WHAT WILL PRODUCE THE BEST OVERALL
RESULTS FOR OUR STAKEHOLDERS?

180
 Surely, no matter what our theory of justice we hold, we would
agree that it is not just to choose to create harm for others
rather than benefit to them.
Of course, we may not know what is truly to their benefit, but if
we respect them as autonomous decision makers, we can
respect that if they are fully informed and not coerced or
manipulated they can decide what is to their benefit.

181

Before looking at what we do in the market, lets look at
how what we do there affects the world in which the market
exists.
Then we can look at the market itself, and what we do
there.
Then we can look at the work we do to get to market and
what ethical behavior in the workplace would look like.

182
183
184

LETS START WITH BUSINESS AND NATURE, THE EARTH, THE

ENVIRONMENT
 So the next question what moral claim does the earth on which
we live have on us as individuals, and as businesses in any
form?

Two broad perspectives

1) a purely humanistic perspective, that holds that we must care
for the environment around us because if we do not, it will
endanger or damage people, and
2) one that would hold that the earth itself, and the other
species with whom we share the earth, have moral claims of
their own on us.

185
 Of the normative approaches we discussed, that presented by
philosophical Daoism seems to speak most directly to
environmental concerns.
Daoist ethics emphasizes appropriate responsiveness to the
broader world that shapes and enfolds the human social world.
Chinese Ethics at 29.
77th Verse of the Dao de jing :
Why is the way of Nature like pulling on a bow?
When the high end is lowered,
the low end is raised.
When something having a surplus is reduced,
something not having enough is increased.
The way of Nature is to take from a surplus and give to a deficit.
The way of people is not like that.
They exacerbate a deficit by giving to a surplus.
Who is able to have a surplus by giving to the world?
Only a person having the Dao.
Therefore, the wise man gives and does not take;
completes goals but does not direct;
he does not desire to be viewed as virtuous.
186
 The most common and dominant theories are very
anthropocentric. Look up that word.
Even talking about the environment is anthropocentric. Why?
But even anthropocentric ethical theories that focus only on
what is right for people to do to/for each other (deontological),
or what is good for people (consequentialist), have reason to
be concerned for the environment.

187
 The text discussed eco-systemsthe web of interrelated and
interdependent biological communities in which we live.
What does that have to do with business?
All human activities are part of eco-systems, affecting them
and being affected by them.
All businesses are human activities.
Therefore, all businesses are part of eco-systems.

188
 Is we dont always see, at first, what one part has to do with
the other. (Note example of wolves in Yellowstone Park).
What are the moral implications of taking actions that you know
might have unforeseen, very bad consequences?
What are the moral implications of not bothering to find out
what might happen?

189
 Bring back the wolves, reduce deer overpopulation.
Reduce deer overpopulation, save saplings.
Save saplings, cleaner, cooler streams.
Cleaner, cooler streams is good for trout!
But could you have seen all that in advance?

190
 On page 266 the text discusses business's traditional attitudes
toward the environment. (again, what attitude does that word
choice suggest?)
Note this language: Traditionally, business has considered the
environment to be a free, nearly limitless goodseen as
available for business to use as it saw fit. In other words, for
business to claim as property.
Remember that property is something the owner can dispose of
as he wishes, up to and including destroying it.

191
 What theory we have discussed does this attitude remind you
of?
HINT: (This was a theory discussing one subset of ethics, the
theory of distributive justice.
ANOTHER HINT: Remember this argument
Carl and Adam live on a tropical island. Carl works hard
harvesting coconuts from the trees, Adam does not. Doesnt Carl
have a property right, an entitlement, to those coconuts while
Adam does not? (p. 139 of the text).

192
 The traditional attitude the text discusses mirrors the attitude
expressed by Nozick and other libertarians.
If that attitude contributes to environmental degradation, is
that a criticism of the Nozickian attitude?
Is it possible to be a libertarian who respects the earth? Try to
construct the argument.

193
 The Grand Banks and The Perfect Storm
The problem is that we see the damage as an externality
not my cost to deal with, even though I caused it or helped to
cause it.
One part of ethical business practices is to try to construct
practices that encourage doing the right thing.
How can we encourage businesses to take responsibility for
externalities?
HINT what makes them externalities in the first place?

194
 The libertarian solution to the tragedy of the commons is to get rid of the commons
altogether, by way of privatization. I would like to point out the objections to that solution that
make it seem unlikely to work:
1. The example of a commons I gave in class was the Grand Banks fishing area on the North
Atlantic. How do we privatize the ocean? Who can sell it, and who could buy it?
As for the question of who could buy the ocean, it would have to be a very wealthy person or
group. This raises serious questions of equity, and whether a policy that makes the rich richer
and the poor poorer is a good idea.
2. The typical libertarian response is no one buys or sells this commons, which remember is
defined as a finite and exhaustible commonly held resource. Instead, libertarians often
advocate homesteadingthat is, to paraphrase John Locke, he who first works the land, owns
the land. This raises two different objections, one of equity and one of effectiveness as an
environmental protection device.
2a. As for equity, homesteading gives an advantage to those who get there first. Maybe they
are fasteror maybe they are born earlier. Is it fair that someone who is older than you, and
thus had the chance to claim a piece of the commons, owns it and you can never do so simply
because you were born later?
2b. As for effectiveness, it appears privatization leads to worsened environmental impact, not
improved environmental stewardship. In fact, homesteading was practiced in much of the
western United States, and its environmental effects were disastrous. The Great Plains
stateslike my home state of Oklahomawere settled by homesteaders. Instead of
environmental stewardship, this led to the devastation known as the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.
The timberlands of the Pacific Northwest were homesteaded, and this led to the devastation of
the forestssee the spotted owl story. The coal producing regions of the Appalachian
mountains are under private ownership; and this has led to the horror of tabletop mining.

195
 Some moral theorists have suggested a human right to a
livable environment.
Is that as far as any ethical theory can go?
Why is it only a human right? Why view it from only a human
perspective?
Is there an argument that if virtue is to act without a sense of
self and to fit into nature, then isnt there a duty to promote
those values, and do the least harm to all of nature including
but not limited to humans possible?
Just a question.

196
 Many ask that weigh costs and benefits.
Sometimes they ask what quality of environment we want?
Is that a morally sound way to ask that question?
Another question what about other sacrifices we must make to
achieve that quality?
Cost-benefit analysis can quickly get complicated. p. 269

197
 Hint what ethical theory says we have to carefully consider
and calculate the overall consequences of our decisions?
Another hint benefit is almost a synonym for good or
utility.
A pure cost-benefit analysis sounds a lot like this, doesnt it:
deciding what produces the most good on a case by case
basis.
So what approach is that?
And as always when we use that theory, it raises a few
questions, right? Like what counts as a benefit and what
counts as a cost.

198
 As the text points out, p. 270, ecological economics attempts
to pay attention to the wider, broader range of benefits the
earth provides us, but can we really know?
Is there an approach that can help us deal with this uncertainty?
HINT (Non-consequentialist theories often seem most useful
when we need to decide what is right or wrong apart from
trying to count the cost).

199
 In discussing justice (the notion of the fair distribution of
benefits, rights, and entitlements), only the utilitarians fully
accept a calculation of costs and benefits.
Libertarians would say some rights cannot be weighed in the
balance. Rawls, whose theory is the most influential in the West
right now, would agree, though not about what rights those are.
So what is the reason everyone seems to accept balancing costs
and benefits here? Is it that there are no rights involved? Do
you agree?

200
 Since everyone insists on talking of cost-benefit balancing in
environmental issues, lets turn to that tomorrow.

201
202

A tool often used in ethical and economic thinking

 It is built into many environmental analyses.
It is inherent in many analyses of product safety as well.
We tend to use this tool in many, many ways.

203
 Is environmental quality a good for US?
Does the environment/earth itself have a claim for some
goods?
Can we put this claim in terms of rights?

204
 Remember Hare, who said it is this sort of humility and
awareness of limitation that leads us to respect prima facie
duties?
One way to think of such duties is a duty to respect RIGHTS.
Many consequentialists will call rights claims that should be
respected because granting such claims leads to best
consequences by limiting us from casually interfering with
others
If we do not know all the consequences of interfering with
nature, it is all the more reason to act AS IF nature has rights.
It creates the very caution that Hare recommended.

205
 That approach is deeply ingrained in economics and cost-
benefit analysis.

Such analysis is deeply ingrained in international

environmental law, too.

206
 The text states we must consider a number of things, weighing
costs and benefits.
It asks, p. 269, what quality of environment we want?
Is that a morally sound way to ask that question?
Another question what about other sacrifices we must make to
achieve that quality?
Cost-benefit analysis can quickly get complicated. p. 269

207
 Hint what ethical theory says we have to carefully consider
and calculate the overall consequences of our decisions?
Another hint benefit is almost a synonym for good or
utility.
A pure cost-benefit analysis sounds a lot like this, doesnt it:
deciding what produces the most good on a case by case
basis.
So what approach is that?
And as always when we use that theory, it raises a few
questions, right? Like what counts as a benefit and what
counts as a cost.

208
 Uncertainty of results
Incommensurability

Thus might Hares approach help here?

209
 Here is another one:
PRODUCT SAFETY

210
211

PRODUCT SAFETY
 212

We discussed product liability in Business Law.

We know the law You are liable for selling or making a
product that is not reasonably safe for its intended/foreseeable
uses.
Wwhat is the ethical reasoning that supports the law; a law that
makes the manufacturer or seller responsible for the flaws of
his product?
What is the ethical rationale for STRICT responsibility even if
as careful as I can be, I am responsible if it is defective?
I know the economic justification; what is the ethical one?
Utilitarian (very much like the legal cost-sharing one)? How
about deontologically justifying this rule?
 213

Notice what it means to be reasonably safe not absolutely

safe
It means a cost benefit analysis.
So what are the costs?
What are the benefits?
 214

The text states

The increasing complexity of todays economy and the
multifaceted dependence of consumers on business for their
survival and enrichment have heightened businesss
responsibility to consumers. Consumers lack the expertise to
judge many of the sophisticated products they use. Being
human, they also make mistakes in handling the things they buy
mistakes that the manufacturers of those products can often
anticipate and make less likely.
(Page 213).
The complexity of an advanced economy and the necessary
dependence of consumers on business to satisfy their many
wants increase businesss responsibility for product safety.
 215

What is the argument?

That if someone depends on me, I am responsible to them?
Do you agree with that premise?
What if we changed it to If I encourage someone to depend on
me, I am responsible to them?
What about, If I profit from someone depending on me, I am
responsible to them?
What about, If I depend on someone depending on me, I am
responsible to them?
What sorts of arguments are these? Utilitarian? Deontological?
An expression of the proper virtues?
 216

Prioritize safety
Dont focus on the customers mistakes (product misuse) but what
you can do to anticipate and avoid the dangers that customers face.
Show care in the manufacturing process.
Be open and honest with consumers.
Dont sell your product the wrong way, a way that encourages
misuse.
Take complaints seriously, and address them in good faith.
217

HONESTY
 Product Quality
Product Pricing
Labeling, Packaging, Advertising

But first lets detour back to Immanuel Kant.

LETS TALK ABOUT HONESTY.

218
 Immanuel Kant wrote his short essay entitled On a Supposed Right to Lie from
Benevolent Motives as a reaction to Benjamin Constant, who wrote:
The moral principle that telling the truth is a duty, if taken as absolute and
isolated, would make any society impossible. What is a duty? The idea of duty
is inseparable from rights. Telling the truth is a duty towards those who are
entitled to the truth. But no man has a right to the truth that harms others.
Kant responded that lying is always morally wrong. First, he argued from his
familiar principle of a universalizable rule. He also added another argument,
that all people are born with an intrinsic value he calls human dignity. This
dignity comes from the fact that humans are rational agents, capable of taking
their own decisions independently.
Thus, according to Kant, lying is doubly wrong:
Lying corrupts the moral capacity of humans
It prevents others from acting rationally and freely, undermining the dignity of
others.
Virtue ethics also maintains that lying is morally wrong, but less stringently than
Kant. According to them, honesty is a virtue to be cultivated because it is a
foundation upon which man can support his moral development.
Most would argue there is some basis for lying in extreme situations, BUTdo
any of these apply to businesses that mislead consumers?

219
 In one way or another, all these have something to do with telling
the truth.

Lets start with product quality. The text argues that businesses
have a duty to provide quality to consumers; but what is the content
of that duty?
What about free choice? (Remember, we are now talking about
quality APART from safety issues, which we already discussed).
My choice to pay less for a lesser quality item?
I am not allowed to buy a cheap cotton shirt because it is possible
to buy one that is made of better material?
As for warranties, which the text discusses; of course, apart from
warranties related to safety, which are now absorbed into products
liability, dont we all remember that these warranties can be
waived, a fact the text ignores?

220
 What if we say, the key issue in quality in HONESTY as long as
the consumer understands what he or she is getting, isnt that
all that matters?
This means in terms of quality of product, and meaning of any
warranties and guarantees.
Or would you say there is more?

221
 The text begins its discussion of pricing with psychological
manipulation $4.98 instead of $5.00; or making different
vodkas premium prices.
Note vodka, distilled from potatoes; if not flavored with
something else) is chemically interchangeable.
Isnt this deceptive? What about all this talk some stores do
about discounts from original prices? (You see that all the
time in the US, what about here?)

Is this ethical? What would Kant say? Or any of our theorists?

Even a libertarian there is a difference between it is just to
force someone to do something and Should I do something?

222
 First, define some terms:
1) Horizontal price fixing: Illegal in US, EU, China (Chinas
Anti-Monopoly Law)
It means competitors setting prices together
2) Vertical price fixing: Illegal in EU, China, sometimes in US
It means suppliers tell dealers what prices to charge, or dealers
tell suppliers not to supply cheaper competitors.
It is easy to see why the dealer does that, but why would
suppliers tell dealers what to charge?

223
 Or is it unethical in some other way?
It certainly undercuts the theory of competition that justified
markets as a fair way to distribute goods and services.
So if distribution is what justice is about, price fixing is unjust.

224
 Lets examine the text:
From the moral point of view, prices, like wages, should be
just or fair.
Is that true? Justify that assertion.
Merchants cannot morally charge whatever they want or
whatever the market will bear
Why not?

225
 The text says, Some define it as charging what the market will
bear regardless of production costs. But that definition doesnt
take into account supply and demand. Because they are in short
supply, tickets for the World Series or houses in a popular
neighborhood may command an extremely high price, yet this
does not constitute price gouging.
WHY NOT?
Price gouging is better understood as a sellers exploiting a
short-term situation in which buyers have few purchase options for
a much-needed product by raising prices substantially, giving the
example of New York hotels after September 11, 2001.
WHY IS THIS A BETTER UNDERSTANDING? HOW IS IT DIFFERENT
FROM THE FIRST? (Hint: much-needed product.) Does this mean
makes of luxury products can never be accused of price-gouging?

226
 Do you agree with the text that whatever the market allows is
not necessarily a just price?
If so, then you reject laissez faire, at least in some
circumstances.
So how do we determine a just price?
What does a utilitarian say? What does Kant or Rawls say?
What would Kong Z say?

227
 The text winds up saying, well, at least part of price is
determined, in the market, by the consuming publics
judgment of the relative value of the article. Ideally, this
judgment is formed in the open market in a free interplay
between sellers and buyers. However, for this process to
function satisfactorily, buyers must be in a position to exercise
informed consent.

So we are back to telling truth. If we argue that market price is

a just price, then we need a just market; and a just market is one
where the truth is told, or at least readily discoverable.
Do you agree? Can a market be just if the buyers are
misinformed?

228
 Sometimes marketing people sound like their entire goal in life
is misleading consumers.
THAT IS NOT the case, of course, there is a lot of true legitimate
value to marketing, and it is NOT about lying to consumers;
BUT, some people in marketing act as if it were.
DECEPTIVE LABELING
DECEPTIVE PACKAGING
MISLEADING ADVERTISEMENT
The text asserts, Moral conduct in this area begins with a
determination to provide consumers with what the need to
know to make informed product choices.
229
 For example, the text (in my opinion, correctly) considers
concealment of material facts to be tantamount to lying but
What is material?
What counts as concealment.?
The text criticizes Kraft for stating its cream cheese has half the
calories of butter but not stating it is high in fat. But why is that
concealment? Butter is high in fat, cream cheese is high in fat
too; but the makers have another point to make. What is wrong
with that?
The text criticizes peanut butter makers for saying that peanut
butter is cholesterol free, without explaining only animal products
have cholesterol and without saying peanut butter is high in fat. So
what?
Look at the paragraph on page 237 about painkillers begins with
Likewise,

230
 Defenders of advertising see it as a necessary and desirable
aspect of competition in a free-market system, a protected form of
free speech, and a useful sponsor of the media, in particular
television. Critics challenge all three claims.
Defenders of advertising view its imaginative, symbolic, and
artistic content as answering real human needs. Critics maintain
that advertising manipulates those needs or even creates artificial
ones. John Kenneth Galbraith contends that today the same
process that produces products also produces the demand for
those products (the dependence effect). Galbraith argues,
controversially, that advertising encourages a preoccupation with
material goods and leads us to favor private consumption at the
expense of meaningful personal achievement.
Advertising to children is big business, but children are
particularly susceptible to manipulative and deceptive advertising.
Advertisers contend that parents still control what gets purchased
and what doesnt. However, critics doubt the fairness of selling to
parents by appealing to children
231
232

FIRST TWO KEY IDEAS

233

Kant and Kng Z

234
We consider honesty a duty to all; loyalty a duty to 235
particular persons and institutions.
Do they sometimes conflict? Do they work together?
 Immanuel Kant wrote his short essay entitled On a Supposed Right to Lie
from Benevolent Motives that lying is morally wrong because it shows the
greatest disrespect for humanity (rational, free choice).
First, he argued from his familiar principle of a universalizable rule.
He also added another argument, that all people are born with an
intrinsic value he calls human dignity. This dignity comes from the fact
that humans are rational agents, capable of taking their own decisions
independently.
Thus, according to Kant, lying prevents others from acting rationally and
freely, undermining the dignity of others.
Virtue ethicists also maintains that lying is morally wrong, but less
stringently than Kant. According to them, honesty is a virtue to be
cultivated because it is a foundation upon which man can support his
moral development.
Consequentialists will point out that the ability to trust each other, to
communicate, is highly desirable in producing the good.

236
The Confucian tradition also emphasizes the need for honesty.

237
How does this connect to being honest? 238
Why do we care, in BUSINESS ethics?
 Loyalty to friends
Loyalty to country
Loyalty to family
Loyalty to ideals
Loyalty to the company
Loyalty to your boss
Loyalty to your students

239
 Loyalty of all sorts (Chinese: , zhng) is often discussed in the
Confucian tradition.
The goal of Kng Zs moral philosophy is to construct a moral
structure for society. ... In this moral hierarchy, everyone is
assigned a moral role depending on how he or she is related to
others. Ones moral duties are defined in terms of the roles one
plays in the political/social hierarchy. For example, the duty of
an emperor is to behave in a kingly fashion and to take care of
the peoples basic needs. A ministers duty is to assist the
emperor in governing the people. The duty of an ordinary
citizen is to obey the superiors. In the family, parents have a
duty to love their children, while children have a duty to
exemplify filial piety toward their parents. The husbands duty
is to support the family, while the wifes duty is to manage
household affairs.

240
Ones moral duties shift as one adopts various roles in life, of which
there will always be several in accordance with ones various
relationships with different people. However, there is one moral
obligation that applies to all roles and all people: the virtue
of zhng (loyalty). Loyalty is not a devotion directed specifically
toward ones superior: rather, it is directed toward the role one plays
being loyal means doing ones best in whatever one does. In this
sense, loyalty can be defined as doing what one is supposed to do
or being loyal to ones role. In other words, a social role is not
simply a social assignment; it is also a moral assignment. ...
The notion of zhng, as applied in the Confucian moral hierarchy,
comprises a moral theory that focuses on moral duties or
obligations, rather than on rights or entitlements. It constitutes a
basic tenet of Confucianism, which is an ethics built on demands on
oneself rather than on others.

241
Particular duties arise from one's particular situation in relation
to others. The individual stands simultaneously in several
different relationships with different people: as a junior in
relation to parents and elders, and as a senior in relation to
younger siblings, students, and others. While juniors are
considered in Confucianism to owe their seniors reverence,
seniors also have duties of benevolence and concern toward
juniors. The same is true with the husband and wife relationship
where the husband needs to show benevolence towards his wife
and the wife needs to respect the husband in return. This theme
of mutuality still exists in East Asian cultures even to this day.
The Five Bonds are: ruler to ruled, father to son, husband to wife,
elder brother to younger brother, friend to friend. Specific duties
were prescribed to each of the participants in these sets of
relationships. Such duties are also extended to the dead, where
the living stand as sons to their deceased family. The only
relationship where respect for elders isn't stressed was the friend
to friend relationship, where mutual equal respect is emphasized
instead. In all other relationships, high reverence is usually held
for elders.
242
Social harmony results in part
from every individual knowing
his or her place in the natural
order, and playing his or her
part well
Good government consists in
the ruler being a ruler, the
minister being a minister, the
father being a father, and the son
being a son (Lunyu 12.11).

243
 Kng Z (Confucius) himself did not propose that "might makes
right", but rather that a superior should be obeyed because of
his moral rectitude. In addition, loyalty does not mean
subservience to authority. This is because reciprocity is
demanded from the superior as well. As Kng Z stated "a
prince should employ his minister according to the rules of
propriety; ministers should serve their prince with faithfulness
(loyalty) (Analects 3:19).

244
 In later ages, however, emphasis was often placed more on the
obligations of the ruled to the ruler, and less on the ruler's
obligations to the ruled. Like filial piety, loyalty was often
subverted by the autocratic regimes in China.
Nonetheless, throughout the ages, many Confucians continued
to fight against unrighteous superiors and rulers. Many of these
Confucians suffered and sometimes died because of their
conviction and action. During the Ming-Qing era, prominent
Confucians such as Wang Yangming promoted individuality and
independent thinking as a counterweight to subservience to
authority. The famous thinker Huang Zongxi also strongly
criticized the autocratic nature of the imperial system and
wanted to keep imperial power in check.

245
 Many Confucians also realized that loyalty and filial piety have
the potential of coming into conflict with one another. This can
be true especially in times of social chaos, such as during the
period of the Ming-Qing transition.

In the Analects 13.18, the Governor of She tells Kng Z of a

Straight Body who reported his father to the authorities for
stealing a sheep. Kng Z replies that in his village, uprightness
lies in fathers and sons covering up for each other.

246
 The texts associated with Mng Z (, best known in the West
under his Latinized name, Mencius, who lived in the 4th
century B.C.E.) and Xun Z (4th and 3rd centuries B.C.E.), the
most pivotal thinkers in the classical Confucian tradition after
Kng Z, both articulate the necessity to speak up when one
believes the ruler one is serving is on a wrong course of action
(e.g.,Mencius 1A3 and Xunzi 29.2)

247
 Mencius, chapter 11:8
Emperor Hsuan of ChI asked: Is it true that Emperor
Tang banished the tyrant Chieh, and Emperor Wu overthrew
tyrant Chou?
Yes, according to the histories, replied Mng Z.
So is the murder of a sovereign acceptable?
A thief of benevolence is called a thief, replied Mng
Z. A thief of duty is called a felon. Someone whos both a thief
and a felon is called a commoner. Ive heard of the commoner
Chous punishment, but Ive never heard of a sovereigns
murder.

248
 When the sage Shun wanted to marry, he knew that his father,
influenced by his stepmother, would not allow him to marry. In
this difficult situation, Shun decided to marry without telling his
father, even though he is renowned for his filial piety. Mng Z
defends the filiality of Shun's act. He observes that Shun knew
that he would not have been allowed to marry if he told his
father. This would have resulted in bitterness toward his parents,
and that is why he did not tell them.

249
250

Some examples
 Do we have a duty of loyalty to our employers?
The law of agency says you doa legal obligtaion to act loyally,
in good faith, carrying out lawful instructions.
Some deny such a duty, because we can only owe loyalty to
those to whom we have ties that demand self-sacrifice with no
expectation of reward. That would be family, friends but not
company.
Why is that the defining criteria, though?
Most argue we have a duty to be loyal to those we agree to
work for.

251
 More than that, when we join a company, we join with peers and
colleagues. Dont we owe them a duty too?
What is a Confucian perspective?

252
 What if we have conflicting duties duty of loyalty conflicting
with other moral duties?
We will return to that.

253
 Of course, our duty of loyalty also can conflict with self-interest
Conflicts of interest arise when employees have a personal
interest in a transaction that is substantial enough that it might
be expected to affect their judgment or cause them to act
against the interests of the organization.
How about this? I am in charge of stocking the vending
machine in my office, and I own Coca-Cola stock?
My college roommate is, in my honest opinion, the best vendor
for our company?

254
 For example, my wife runs a company that sells
office supplies. I am in charge of buying supplies
for my company. I know she sells good products at
the best price, so I buy from her, honestly believing
(and lets assume, accurately believing) it is the best
deal.
Is that a problem?
Appearance of impropriety
Disclosure

255
 When employees have financial investments in suppliers,
customers, or distributors with which the company does
business, there can be a conflict of interest.
Company policy may state the permissible limits of such
interests; but
Your ethical compass should guide you to, at least, always make
full disclosure.
Disclosure honesty and transparency keep coming up, dont
they? Maybe Kant had a point about lying.

256
257

Where does loyalty lead?

 What happens when the duty of loyalty conflicts with another moral
duty?
Employees who inform the public and/or authorities that their
employers are engaged in illegal or harmful activities
whisteblowers may face this conflict.

258
 Loyalty and personal interest may be on one side, and also, the
fact that they may not know the full story
On the other side, what are the moral demands that make them
blow the whistle?
What procedure do you think they should follow?

259
 You believe a fellow employee might have done something that
might hurt job performance. (example: drinks on the job)
What do you do?
What are the different moral demands?
What if you heard a rumor that an employee violated company
policy, what do you do?

260
 When we face conflicting moral demands, identify the relevant
obligations, separate them from your selfish rationalizations,
and try to think rationally about them, trying to reach
reflective equilibrium.
Ask yourself, would you be happy to read a story about how we
chose to act in a newspaper?
Also talk it over with someone you trust.

261
 We should work and forth between
1) our considered judgments about particular instances or cases,
2) the principles or rules that we believe govern them,
3) and the theoretical considerations that we believe bear on
accepting these considered judgments, principles, or rules.
We achieve reflective equilibrium when we arrive at an acceptable
coherence among these beliefs.
An acceptable coherence requires
1) that our beliefs be consistent with each other, and
2), some of these beliefs provide support or provide a best
explanation for others.
In the process we may not only modify prior beliefs but add new
beliefs as well.

262
263

What do you owe your employees, when you finally reach the
top of the ladder?
 Discipline and discharge
Wages
Privacy
Health and Safety

264
 The ethical way to treat employees begins with the basic
question that, for them, this is a very important part of their
lives.
If Kants view /Rawls view has any validity, we have to
remember our employees are not merely means to our ends,
our purposes; they are not simply another tool, or another form
of capital.
They are ends unto themselves, who deserve respect.

265
 If we treat all employees not just as capital but as
people, then we view them as members of a
community of ends.
The intuitive idea behind this formulation is that our
fundamental moral obligation is to act only on
principles which could earn acceptance by a
community of fully rational agents each of whom
have an equal share in legislating these principles
for their community.
The core principle is we dont lie to each other, we
dont fail to disclose key facts of common interest.
266
 Of course, the law sets the basic framework, a floor below
which we cannot drop.
As we mentioned in our Business Law class, in the common law
jurisdictions the traditional view was employment at will.
Employment at will means an employee may be discharged at
any time for no reason.
There are limits imposed on this basic rule, but it remains the
basic rule.

267
 Supposedly an equal right employees can quit at any time, too.
Corporate profits and efficient management are said to require
treating employees the way we do any machine throw it away
when we want to do so.
But if there is a good business reason to discharge an
employee, there is no need for this doctrine.
Justice means fair and it is FALSE to say corporate profits
and efficient management not compatible with a fair workplace
environment.

268
 In China, an employee can be
terminated without notice ONLY IF:
- during the probation period, if
the employee is determined to be
unfit for the position;
- employee materially breaches
employer's rules and regulations;
- employee engages in serious
dereliction of duty, graft or
corruption causing substantial
damages to the employer's
interests;
- employee has established an
employment relationship with
another employer and that
relationship affects the completion
of his tasks and he refuses to
appropriately remedy the situation
after employer notification;
- employee used fraud in
concluding the labor contract; or
- employee is subject to criminal
investigation.
In China, with 30 days notice, an
employer may terminate the
contract ONLY IF:
- the employee is unable to
perform his original duties or re-
assigned duties, after returning
from medical leave or non-work-
related injury;
- the employee is incompetent and
remains incompetent after training
or adjustment of position; or
- the occurrence of a major change
of objective circumstances which
were relied upon when signing the
labor contract, and the employee
and employer are unable to
agreed on modified terms of the
labor contract.
269
 Just cause and due process are essential to the fair handling of
disciplinary issues.
Due process means notice, fair hearing, and review of errors.
There is no reason for discipline to be harsher than necessary,
and no reason to denigrate an employees personhood and
offend their dignity even when discharging them.

270
 How do we set wages?
Is it a matter simply of the what the market will bear?
Is it important to treat like employees in like manner wages
and discipline?
If the law does not force the employer pay a living wage, should
you chose to do so?
Some argue that it is good business to pay adequately what if
it isnt, should you do it anyway?

271
 Returning to Kantian analysis employers, showing respect for
employees, need to disclose to the employees the true nature
of the work, and the true risks of the work.
Disclosure is a key concept in fair treatment under Kantian
analysis.
Respect for our employees demands honesty.

272
 If we ask people to do things for us, they need to give their
informed consent.
This means they need to be given full, accurate information.
This means they need to have a real choice.
They means they have to agree, after receiving that full,
accurate information, in an exercise of their real choice.

273
 Employers must respect employees personal integrity, dignity,
and privacy.
What does this mean in terms of knowing or interfering with
employees private lives?
Does an employer have a right to interfere with, or even know
about, employees marriages?
Families?
How about their religious beliefs?
Their hobbies?

274
 It seems a lot of our arguments about employee rights is
Kantian.
Can you make arguments from other points of view?

275
ACCA

276
277

ABOUT ACCA'S FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES

 Section 3.2 of the ACCA Rulebook contains the full text of these
principles.
These principles are based on standards from IFAC, the
International Federation of Accountants which apply to
accountants around the world.
What follows is an explanation of these principles.
You should be able to see how they fit comfortably with all that
we have said already in this class.

278
 What the rulebook says
You 'should be straightforward and honest in all professional
and business relationships.'
In other words
Do not lie and do not issue false or misleading information.

279
 What the rulebook says

You should not allow bias, conflicts of interest or undue

influence of others to override professional or business
judgements.

In other words

Your professional and business judgement should be based on

fact and on what is in the best interests of stakeholders or
others. Judgement should not be based on what is in your own
personal interest, or in the interests of those who have power or
influence over you.

280
 What the rulebook says

You have a continuing duty to maintain professional knowledge and skill

at a level required to ensure that a client or employer receives competent
professional service based on current developments in practice,
legislation and techniques.
and
Members should act diligently and in accordance with applicable
technical and professional standards when providing professional
services.
In other words
Only perform work if you are competent to do so. Keep up to date with
accounting matters. Do not forget that as an ACCA member, you will have
continuing professional development (CPD) responsibilities and you
must ensure that you are keeping up to date.

281

You should respect the confidentiality of information acquired as a
result of professional and business relationships and should not
disclose any such information to third parties without proper and
specific authority or unless there is a legal or professional right or
duty to disclose.
and
Confidential information acquired as a result of professional and
business relationships should not be used for the personal
advantage of members or third parties.
In other words
Do not talk about your clients, or use information that you have
learned about them for your personal gain or for the gain of others.
Maintain your silence even after the professional relationship with
the client ends.

282
 What the rulebook says

You should comply with relevant laws and regulations and

should avoid any action that discredits the profession.

In other words

Be courteous and considerate to people, and always behave so

that a reasonable and informed third party who knows all the
facts would also think you are acting professionally.

283
 The fundamental principles of integrity, objectivity,
professional competence and due care, confidentiality, and
professional behavior are international standards that
accountants who are members of IFAC professional bodies
agree to follow through implementation of the IFAC Code of
Ethics.

Adhearing to higher standards of behavior is something that

professionals do. And these are the standards that ACCA
accountants must follow. As a student, it is important for you to
become familiar with them and to know that they also apply to
you.

284
285
 We should work and forth between
1) our considered judgments about particular instances or cases,
2) the principles or rules that we believe govern them,
3) and the theoretical considerations that we believe bear on
accepting these considered judgments, principles, or rules.
We achieve reflective equilibrium when we arrive at an acceptable
coherence among these beliefs.
An acceptable coherence requires
1) that our beliefs be consistent with each other, and
2), some of these beliefs provide support or provide a best
explanation for others.
In the process we may not only modify prior beliefs but add new
beliefs as well.

286