This multimedia product and its contents are protected under copyright law. The following are prohibited by law: • any public performance or display, including transmission of any image over a network; • preparation of any derivative work, including the extraction, in whole or in part, of any images; • any rental, lease, or lending of the program. Chapter Three: Justice and Economic Distribution * * OverviewChapter Three examines the following topics:The concepts of justice and business decisionsFairness, equality, rights, what people deserve, and some rival principles of distributionThe utilitarian approach to justice in general and economic distribution in particularThe libertarian theory with its emphasis on liberty and free exchangeJohn Rawls’s contractualist and egalitarian theory Moral Issues in Business Chapter 3 * IntroductionEconomic justice concerns a network of moral issues in our society. These issues are raised by society’s norms about distribution of wealth, income, status, and power. Should CEOs give themselves enormous salaries at the expense of stockholder profits and employee salaries? Should expensive medical procedures be available only to those who can afford them? Moral Issues in Business Chapter 3 * (1) The Nature of JusticeDefinitions of justice: Justice is related to morality as part to a whole, and is often specified in connection with concepts such as fairness, equality, desert or rights.It is one important aspect of morality.Talk of justice generally involves related notions of fairness, equality, desert, and rights. Moral Issues in Business Chapter 3 * (2) The Nature of JusticeAristotle on justice as fairness: Treat similar cases alike except where there is some relevant differenceMill on justice as a moral right: Justice implies something that is not only right to do, and wrong not to do, but something that an individual can claim from us as a moral right Moral Issues in Business Chapter 3 * (3) The Nature of JusticeFive rival principles of distribution: Each an equal share Each according to individual need Each according to personal effort Each according to social contribution Each according to merit Moral Issues in Business Chapter 3 * (4) The Nature of JusticeReconciling rival principles of distribution: Some philosophers argue that principles are applicable in some circumstances and not in others – but it is not always clear how to reconcile two or more rival principles in the same circumstances.Michael Walzer’s approach: The idea that different distribution principles depend on implicit social norms. Moral Issues in Business Chapter 3 * “The Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia housed domestic guru Martha Stewart... is the type of institution that has come to be known as a “country-club prison.” How is this sort of description likely to affect some people’s notion of just desert and equality of justice?” * (1 ...

1. This multimedia product and its contents are protected under
copyright law. The following are prohibited by law:
• any public performance or display, including transmission of
any image over a network;
• preparation of any derivative work, including the extraction,
in whole or in part, of any images;
• any rental, lease, or lending of the program.
Chapter Three:
Justice and Economic Distribution
*
*
OverviewChapter Three examines the following topics:The
concepts of justice and business decisionsFairness, equality,
rights, what people deserve, and some rival principles of
distributionThe utilitarian approach to justice in general and
economic distribution in particularThe libertarian theory with
its emphasis on liberty and free exchangeJohn Rawls’s
contractualist and egalitarian theory
Moral Issues in Business
Chapter 3

2. *
IntroductionEconomic justice concerns a network of moral
issues in our society. These issues are raised by society’s norms
about distribution of wealth, income, status, and power. Should
CEOs give themselves enormous salaries at the expense of
stockholder profits and employee salaries? Should expensive
medical procedures be available only to those who can afford
them?
Moral Issues in Business
Chapter 3
*
(1) The Nature of JusticeDefinitions of justice: Justice is related
to morality as part to a whole, and is often specified in
connection with concepts such as fairness, equality, desert or
rights.It is one important aspect of morality.Talk of justice
generally involves related notions of fairness, equality, desert,
and rights.
Moral Issues in Business
Chapter 3
*

3. (2) The Nature of JusticeAristotle on justice as fairness: Treat
similar cases alike except where there is some relevant
differenceMill on justice as a moral right: Justice implies
something that is not only right to do, and wrong not to do, but
something that an individual can claim from us as a moral right
Moral Issues in Business
Chapter 3
*
(3) The Nature of JusticeFive rival principles of distribution:
Each an equal share Each according to individual need Each
according to personal effort Each according to social
contribution Each according to merit
Moral Issues in Business
Chapter 3
*
(4) The Nature of JusticeReconciling rival principles of

4. distribution: Some philosophers argue that principles are
applicable in some circumstances and not in others – but it is
not always clear how to reconcile two or more rival principles
in the same circumstances.Michael Walzer’s approach: The idea
that different distribution principles depend on implicit social
norms.
Moral Issues in Business
Chapter 3
*
“The Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia housed
domestic guru Martha Stewart... is the type of institution that
has come to be known as a “country-club prison.” How is this
sort of description likely to affect some people’s notion of just
desert and equality of justice?”
*
(1) The Utilitarian ViewReconciling rival principles of justice:
Mill argued that rival principles of justice can be reconciled
only on the basis of the principle of utility, such as through
considerations of general well-being.Utilitarianism does not tell
us which economic system will produce the most happiness.
Moral Issues in Business
Chapter 3

5. *
(2) The Utilitarian ViewDeciding which system will promote
most happiness depends on knowing:The type of economic
ownershipThe form of production and distributionThe type of
authority arrangementsThe range and character of material
incentivesThe nature and extent of social security and welfare
provisions
Moral Issues in Business
Chapter 3
*
(3) The Utilitarian ViewDistinctive utilitarian
application:Worker participation: In his Principles of Political
Economy (1848), Mill argued for the formation of labor and
capital partnerships promoting equality between workers and
industrialists.Greater equality of income: Utilitarians are more
likely to favor equal income distribution on the basis of the so-
called declining marginal utility of money.
Moral Issues in Business
Chapter 3
*

6. (1) The Libertarian ViewThe principle of liberty: Libertarians
refuse to restrict individual liberty even if doing so would
increase overall happiness.Nozick’s theory of justice: Nozick
developed an influential statement of the libertarian position in
his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia, based on the idea of
negative and natural rights borrowed from the writings of the
British philosopher John Locke (1632–1704).
Moral Issues in Business
Chapter 3
*
2) The Libertarian ViewThe idea of Lockean negative and
natural rights: The idea amounts to (1) non-interference with the
way others choose to live or act, and (2) the ownership of those
rights prior to any social and political institution.Nozick’s
entitlement theory: Nozick maintains that people are entitled to
their holdings (that is, goods, money, and property) as long as
they have acquired them fairly.
Moral Issues in Business
Chapter 3
*

7. (3) The Libertarian ViewPrinciples of Nozick’s entitlement
theory:A person who acquires a holding in accordance with the
principle of justice in acquisition is entitled to that holding. A
person who acquires a holding in accordance with the principle
of justice in transfer, from someone else entitled to the holding,
is entitled to the holding.No one is entitled to a holding except
by (repeated) applications of statements 1 and 2.
Moral Issues in Business
Chapter 3
*
(4) The Libertarian ViewNozick’s Wilt Chamberlain example:
The player of a team is guaranteed $5 from the price of each
ticket. He is a favorite player and eventually ends up with far
more than the average income. Nozick argues that Chamberlain
is entitled to his new wealth, and that any other theory of
economic justice would inevitably fail to defend his entitlement.
Moral Issues in Business
Chapter 3
*

8. (5) The Libertarian ViewDistinctive libertarian ideals:Liberty:
Libertarians support economic laissez-faire and oppose any
governmental economic activity that interferes with the
marketplace, even if the point is to enhance the performance of
the economy.Free markets: Libertarians don’t contend that
people morally deserve what they get in a free market, but only
that they are entitled to it. Moreover, justice does not
necessarily help those in need.
Moral Issues in Business
Chapter 3
*
(6) The Libertarian ViewProperty rights: For libertarians,
property rights exist prior to any social systems and legislative
acts, reflecting one’s initial appropriation of a product or
exchange between consenting adults.Criticisms of libertarian
property rights:Property includes more than material objects. It
also has many abstract forms.Property ownership is not a simple
right but involves a bundle of different rights.
Moral Issues in Business
Chapter 3
*

9. “According to the libertarian theory of justice, the people that
own the house in the background have no obligation to assist
the homeless. The wealth that they have acquired is theirs to
dispose of entirely as they wish.”
*
(1) Rawls’s Theory of JusticeMain features: John Rawls (1921–
2002), one of the most influential contemporary social and
political philosophers, suggests a social concept of justice in his
ground-breaking work A Theory of Justice. Two important
features of Rawls’s theory:The hypothetical-contract
approachThe principles of justice that Rawls derives through it
Moral Issues in Business
Chapter 3
*
(2) Rawls’s Theory of JusticeThe original position: Rawls
proposes a thought experiment – individuals are allowed to
choose the principles of justice that should govern them prior to
any existing political or social arrangement.The nature of the
choice: Each individual will choose the set of principles that
will be best for him/herself (and loved ones).
Moral Issues in Business

10. Chapter 3
*
(3) Rawls’s Theory of JusticeThe veil of ignorance: To avoid
disagreement with others while pursuing one’s self-interest, all
circumstances and conditions that can influence one’s choice of
principles of justice (economic background, talents, privileges,
etc.) ought to be removed. Once the basis for bias is eliminated,
the groundwork for a choice of fair principles of justice is
established.
Moral Issues in Business
Chapter 3
*
(4) Rawls’s Theory of JusticeChoosing the principles:
Regardless of their particular interests, people in the original
position will want more, rather than less, of the so-called
primary social goods (income and wealth, rights, liberties,
opportunities, status, and self-respect).The maximin principle:
People in the original position will also choose conservatively,
by trying to maximize the minimum that they will receive. They
want to make sure that the worst that could happen to them is
the least bad of the alternatives.
Moral Issues in Business

11. Chapter 3
*
(4) Rawls’s Theory of JusticeThe two principles: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.Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy
two conditions: To be attached to positions open to all under
conditions of fair equality of opportunity, and to give the
greatest expected benefit to the least advantaged members of
society.
Moral Issues in Business
Chapter 3
*
(6) Rawls’s Theory of JusticeExplanation of the principles:The
first principle takes priority over the second – it guarantees as
much liberty to individuals as possible, compatible with others
having the same amount of liberty.The first part of the second
principle articulates the familiar ideal of equality of
opportunity. The second part of the principle – called the
difference principle – stipulates that inequalities are justifiable
only if they benefit the least advantaged members of society.
Moral Issues in Business

12. Chapter 3
*
(7) Rawls’s Theory of JusticeFairness and the basic structure:
Rawls rejects utilitarianism because it could permit an unfair
distribution of benefits and burdens. Contrary to Nozick, Rawls
believes that social justice concerns the basic structure of
society, not transactions between individuals.Benefits and
burdens: According to Rawls, justice requires that the social
and economic consequences of arbitrarily distributed assets
(natural characteristics and talents) be minimized.
Moral Issues in Business
Chapter 3
*
Crisis Summary Assignment
Objective: Summarize the crisis in “executive summary” format.
Begin with what happened (who, how, when, what, where, why,
how). Then explain why the events were a crisis. Conclude with
two bullet points:
· The first bullet highlights one reason why the company and/or
its executives acted appropriately in handling the crisis
· The second bullet highlights one reason why the company
and/or its executives acted inappropriately in handling the
crisis.
Length: Maximum 300 words (not including references).

13. Format: See attached example. Note that I highlighted the
example to help you understand the content requirements –
please do NOT highlight your paragraph.
Crisis Summary Paragraph Grading Rubric
· Content (10 points)
· Paragraph clearly explains to a reader unfamiliar with the
crisis exactly what happened
· Paragraph clearly explains why the incident is a crisis
· Bullets include appropriate/inappropriate claim, company
action and why that action was appropriate/inappropriate
· Paragraph explains any technical terms used
· Paragraph includes “References” in APA format
· Structure (10 points)
· Paragraph follows “Executive Summary Format” structure
· Begins with what happened (who, how, when, what, where,
why, how).
· Then explains why the events were a crisis.
· Concludes with two bullet points:
· The first bullet highlights one reason why the company and/or
its executives acted appropriately in handling the crisis
· The second bullet highlights one reason why the company
and/or its executives acted inappropriately in handling the
crisis.
· Language (10 points)
· Writing uses correct grammar and punctuation
· Writing is clear, precise and concise.
· Free of discriminatory or biased language
· Free of weasel words such as “generally,” ” some,” “various,”
”very,” “basically”
· Free of informal, unprofessional or overly conversational
language
· Free of jargon and clichés
· Free of long-windedness, redundancies, and weak openings
(“My point is that it is very important that people understand
the importance of…”)

14. · Confident, positive, and professional tone (No use of “I
believe” phrases.),
· Limits use of passive voice
· Free of “There are” or “It is” constructions
RESPOND TO THE “FOR FURTHER REFLECTION”
QUESTIONS FOUND IN THE GREY SHADED
STUDY CORNER SECTION AT THE END OF EACH
CHAPTER.
A MINIMUM OF 800 WORDS (12 pt type, 1.5
line spacing) OF Reflection RESPONSE TO
THE QUESTIONS IS NEEDED TO BE ELIGIBLE
FOR FULL CREDIT FOR THE ASSIGNMENT.
BE PREPARED TO SHARE YOUR VIEWS DURING
CLASS DISCUSSIONS.

15. MANAGEMENT ETHICS
BUMGT 235 – UW-STOUT