Mosser, K. (2013). Ethics and social responsibility (2nd ed.) [Ele.docx

Mosser, K. (2013). Ethics and social responsibility (2nd ed.)
[Electronic version]. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/
CHAPTER 4 Introduction
In various occupations, workers may be prohibited from
exercising certain rights that, outside the workplace, cannot (or,
perhaps, should not) be restricted. At the same time, it has been
argued that some behaviors may be restricted by some
employers, even when the worker is not at work, or their off-
duty activity or conduct. This can lead to difficult conflicts
between employer and employee, as well as among employees.
Here we will look at some restrictions that may be imposed to
investigate to which rights restrictions employees can and
cannot object. We will begin this discussion by looking at a
real-life incident involving employee activity outside of the
workplace.
In September 2012, a number of paramedics were placed on
administrative leave by their employer for working for another
company. The company, American Medical Response
Incorporated (AMR) of Connecticut, provides emergency
medical care (ambulances, paramedic services, etc.). The
suspended paramedics were working for another company,
Valley Emergency Medical Service (VEMS).
AMR argued that suspension was appropriate because the other
company was a competitor, both companies having bid on a
service contract. The paramedics, in response, argued that being
suspended was a violation of their rights, and began preliminary
work toward a lawsuit under Connecticut’s Unfair Trade
Practices Act.
What can and cannot any company control about what their
employees do when they are not actually at work? AMR argued
that the paramedics were aware that they could not work for a
competitor; the paramedics claimed that AMR could not legally
prevent them from doing so outside of the work they did for
AMR.

4.1 The Issue: Restricting Employees’ Rights as a Condition of
Employment
The case involving the AMR employees is one example of the
kind of conflict that arises in the workplace. Those who are in
positions of management and those who work for management
often have very different views of what is justified, in terms of
what one can do with one’s time off the job. As is so often the
case in ethical disputes, few if any would accept the extremes
here. For instance, probably no one would argue that salaried
employees must do everything their bosses tell them; that would
amount to something along the lines of one’s boss dictating that
worker’s life. At the same time, just as few would argue that
salaried employees can do whatever they wish, regardless of the
effect on the company for which they work. It is in between
these extremes that tensions arise, and where the rights of the
employers must be weighed against the rights of the employees.
At-Will Employment
Workers are said to be at-will employees, meaning an employer
does not need to show cause for terminating the worker in
question, when they are not protected by union contracts, civil
service law, or other such provisions. They can be fired for any
reason that does not conflict with the law, and the employer is
not obligated to show why the employee was fired.
There are some restrictions on at-will employment: employees
cannot be fired for their race, religion, or sex/gender. They
cannot be fired for informing on a company’s illegal activity
(“whistleblowing”), or for exercising certain rights such as
taking maternity leave, voting, jury duty, or serving in the
military.
In general, the burden is on the employee to show that the
termination was unjustified, given the standard assumption that,
unless made explicit at the time of hire, the worker is an at-will
employee.
Conflicts of Commitment and Interest
The story about the paramedics raises a specific question of
whether an employer can prevent employees from working other

jobs (sometimes called moonlighting.) Often, companies
develop policies that restrict outside employment, and these
policies commonly focus on whether or not the outside
employment generates a conflict of commitment, or a conflict of
interest. Outside work that generates either type of conflict (or,
obviously, both) would be prevented. While this language is
often seen in university policies for faculty, the basic idea is
applicable to many other contexts.
Conflict of commitment refers to outside work that, for one
reason or another, prevents an employee from doing his or her
job as it should be done. For instance, if a full-time teacher has
another part-time job that prevents him from getting work
returned to students on time, creates an increase in absences
from the full-time job, or harms other aspects of the job, a
conflict of commitment is present. The presumption here is that
the employee’s main job takes priority and should not suffer
due to other work. If it does, that generates a conflict of
commitment. Many universities impose strict policies regarding
how many hours one can commit to outside work.
Conflict of interest refers to outside work that is for a company
in competition with a person’s employer. Imagine someone
doing research for drug company A who is doing similar
research for drug company B. Any discoveries or advances that
the researcher makes for company A might be given to company
B. This clearly indicates the researcher potentially has a
significant conflict of interest; again, many universities and
other research organizations, for this very reason, have strict
policies against work that may even possibly lead to a conflict
of interest.
The fundamental question to consider here is what rights an
employer has to restrict what employees do in their free time, or
when “off-duty.” Consider the following examples; which do
you think are legitimate policies for an employer to impose on
an employee?
No employee can contribute to Facebook pages that criticize the
company.

Any employee who is determined to have a drinking problem
will be terminated.
No employee can publish material without the company’s
approval.
Any employee determined to be committing adultery will be
terminated.
No employee can run for political office.
Any employee who uses a product sold by a competitor will be
terminated.
No employee is allowed to purchase or view pornography.
As we saw, many employees fall under the category of “at-will
employees,” employees who may be terminated without cause.
The details of this vary by state; in general, employees are “at-
will” if they are not working under a written contract; this
excludes union members, federal government employees, and
any other situation in which an explicit contract is in force.
Clearly, it is in the employer’s interest to have the company’s
workers happy, satisfied, and productive; a situation that
employees perceive as unfair can interfere with that job
satisfaction. At the same time, employees cannot insist on
things that either violate the conditions of employment or
prevent the company from operating smoothly and profitably.
Consider, for example, an employee named Jim who published
several articles in the local newspaper that were sharply critical
of the things done by the company for which he worked; he then
reproduced these articles on his website. There may have been
some merit to Jim’s complaints, but airing those complaints in
the way Jim did not only damaged the company’s reputation and
its standing in the community but also provided a weapon for its
competitors to use against it. For both reasons, the company’s
profits fell, and Jim was fired. Were his rights violated?
On the one hand, Jim was an at-will employee, so the company
wasn’t obligated to justify his termination. But even if it were
so obligated, it is clear that Jim did not have the right to do the
damage to the company he did, nor to do it in the way he did.
Preventing him from further harming the company clearly

outweighed whatever rights he might claim to free speech: His
rights do not allow him to infringe upon the right of the
company to be profitable, and thus harm not just the company as
a whole, but also those who continue to work there. Here is a
situation where one’s right to free speech clearly can be
restricted, and in the workplace, many such restrictions are
legitimate and justified in order to protect the company’s
reputation, its profitability, and its responsibility to its
stockholders.
States have worked hard to carefully describe what employees
may legitimately do when not at work and what kinds of things
may be prevented. Some states have extensive statements that
indicate precisely what can and cannot be stipulated by an
employer as permissible off-duty conduct; other states have
considerably less detailed policies and legislation. Because the
kinds of conflicts involved are relatively common, state
legislatures continue to develop these policies, and what is and
is not permitted has continued to change. Some states that did
not have explicit policies now have them, while other states
have made significant additions to the policies they already
have. Some states do not have such policies.
Conduct Codes
Employers often provide employees with conduct codes—codes
that stipulate clear guidelines and expectations of employees
regarding how the employer expects employees to conduct
themselves and do business. One notable and widespread
example concerns drug testing.
Increasingly, companies have required employees to be tested
for drug use. Many companies argue that this is a requirement
for having responsible, productive employees; other companies
insist that because of the nature of the job, safety requirements
demand a clean and sober workforce. Furthermore, companies
that provide services to the public that potentially carry some
degree of risk have demanded drug-free employees to minimize
that risk.
Some employees, however, have argued that this is a violation

of their rights. If a person does his or her job well, is there any
reason to impose drug tests on this employee? Is this an
invasion of privacy? Indeed, some have suggested that
company-wide drug testing may be a violation of the Fourth
Amendment. That amendment states
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses,
papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,
shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon
probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and
particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons
or things to be seized. (U.S. Const. amend. IV)
It is not entirely clear that a mandatory drug-testing policy
involves such “searches,” or if they do, whether they are
reasonable in the context of this amendment, particularly
without a warrant.
The questions become still more complex when one considers
whether the drugs used are legal or not. For instance, in
Colorado, it is legal, for those 21 and older, to possess one
ounce or less of marijuana. If an employee smokes marijuana at
home over the weekend, can that employee be fired for using a
substance that is legal? If so, would that justify firing an
employee who smoked cigarettes, clearly a hazardous substance,
yet legal for adults to purchase and consume? Another issue
may arise when considering who offers services to the public
that potentially poses risks to that public: It may be clear in the
case of airplane pilots or cabdrivers, but should heart surgeons
and firefighters be drug tested? Should elementary school
teachers or parking lot attendants be drug tested? Is there a
“slippery slope” here, indicating that if some part of society
should be tested, then perhaps everyone should be? One might
then ask if a society in which all its members are subject to
drug testing would be a society that is consistent with the
Fourth Amendment or, more generally, with American values.
The Argument for Drug Testing
The standard argument for drug testing relies on several
premises, mentioned above:

Employers have a right to get fair value from their workers.
Drug usage leads to higher workplace absenteeism, increased
medicalcosts, higher turnover, and less productive workers.
Drug users have a higher accident rate and thus pose a risk to
the public.
THEREFORE
Drug use drives up costs for the employee, in addition to the
increased risk to the public.
Employers are obligated to minimize costs and risks to the
public whenever possible.
To minimize these costs and risks, employers must be able to
identifydrug users.
THEREFORE
Employers must have the ability to test employees for drug
usage.
Of course, we might point out, in response to this argument,
that many—if not all—of these things are also the result of
alcohol abuse. We might take this to justify testing for alcohol
use (and abuse), or we might see this as allowing employers too
much leeway into investigating the habits of their employees.
We might ask whether most people would be happy with
employers (or politicians) setting standards for reasonable
consumption of alcohol and determining when that standard has
been exceeded through random, mandatory alcohol testing.
The Argument Against Drug Testing
The standard argument against drug testing relies on several
premises, also mentioned above:
Employees have a basic right to privacy.
Mandatory drug tests do not indicate reasonable suspicion or
cause.
Random, mandatory drug tests are not “reasonable searches” in
the sense of that term in the Fourth Amendment.
Drug tests indicate presence of a drug, not impairment.
Drug tests have a history of unreliability.
Drug tests are humiliating and invasive.
Tests that invade a person’s privacy without probable cause are

not sufficiently reliable, are ineffective, and are humiliating,
and should not be permitted.
Mandatory drug tests do all of these things.
THEREFORE
Employers should not have the right to perform mandatory
random drug tests.
Naturally, proponents of drug testing do not accept this
argument, responding that the potential risk to the public far
outweighs any small inconvenience to an individual employee.
Furthermore, one indication of current drug use is past use, and
it is clear that drug use can generate substantial costs to a
business. Of course, one who objects to such drug testing might
argue that an employee’s rights are not really subject to a cost–
benefit analysis; if there is a presumed right to privacy, then
that right cannot be abridged even if it leads to higher costs.
Ethical Questions
As we might expect, employers and employees have sought to
resolve disputes over workforce drug testing by seeking a
compromise on the basic question. For instance, a company
might propose to decrease the penalty for failing a drug test; a
first-time violation might lead to a warning, or mandatory drug
counseling, a second-time violation might lead to a suspension
from work. Only for a third violation would the employee be
terminated. Similarly, employees, whether through a union or
some other mechanism, might accept drug testing but require
some degree of cause, fewer tests, or more rigorous testing
procedures to avoid false positives.
We might think there is a fairly sharp contrast between a
utilitarian and a deontologist on this issue, particularly if we
focus on the conflict between the right to privacy and the
obligation to minimize the risk to the public. Thus, a utilitarian
could argue that we may wish to respect the individual’s right to
privacy, but that right is outweighed by the much greater benefit
provided by decreasing the risk to which the public is subject.
Thus, an air traffic controller’s right to privacy is outweighed,
for the utilitarian, by the much greater need to make sure the

flying public—and anyone else put at risk by an unstable
controller—is as safe as possible. The deontologist might
respond that such rights—again, assuming there is some
inviolable sense of privacy—cannot be abridged due to some
general, potential threat to the public, and certainly not without
due cause for abridging that person’s rights.
But this dispute may seem more clear-cut than it really is. After
all, could a utilitarian argue that all of us have a right to
privacy, and thus that violating that right for one group of
people could potentially violate the rights of all? If so, then we
must determine where the greatest benefit lies: in protecting the
public’s safety, or the rights of the individuals who make up
that public? We might ask, finally: What could a deontologist
argue in order to defend mandatory, random drug testing?
Morality Clauses
All of us have moral principles and our standards of ethics;
some of these may be informed by our religious values, our
cultural and ethnic traditions, our political views, and our
exposure to moral philosophy, among many other influences.
Employees have, and try to live by, these moral principles, as
do employers. As may be obvious, the values involved may
come into conflict. If an employer has a strong set of moral
principles, by which he or she lives, can that employer ask
employees to conform to those principles, or at least not do
things that would violate them?
Consider Susan, who lives in a relatively small town, where
jobs are hard to come by. She is interviewed for a job by a local
nonprofit agency that lobbies government officials to impose
very strict controls on the possession of weapons. Susan enjoys
hunting with her husband and children and owns several
shotguns. The agency offers her a job on the condition that she
not own any guns, and that she get rid of any that she already
owns. The agency insists that it would violate the image it seeks
to project were its employees to own and use the same weapons
it wishes to restrict. Can it demand that Susan agree to this
condition? She was faced with either not taking the job and thus

being put in considerable economic insecurity, or taking the job
and seeing what she regards as her constitutional rights
violated. The agency realizes that the community has a high
unemployment rate, and thus there is considerable pressure on
Susan to accept this condition. Susan could, of course, take the
position and then, if fired, sue the agency. But that strategy
would require hiring a lawyer and dealing with a lawsuit, which
is both time consuming and expensive. Susan, of course, doesn’t
have to take the job; that decision would preserve her rights—at
the cost of being unemployed or making a great deal less
money.
Here we see what might be a plausible reason for an employer
to want to restrict the rights of its employees, and to extend
those restrictions outside of the workplace. It might be argued
that without these restrictions, employees may act in ways that
are detrimental to the employer and the company. But there also
seems to be a considerable worry here that such conditions of
employment go beyond what the company can legitimately
demand and cannot be shown to lead, necessarily, to putting the
company at a disadvantage in seeking to do what it wishes and
needs to do. In short, these restrictions are unfair and cannot be
appropriately required as a condition of employment.
Further concerns are raised here in the context of a tight job
market, where economic insecurity and financial need may lead
employees, and job candidates, to accept conditions for work
that would otherwise be unfair. This may lead to a situation in
which employers have the potential to restrict rights even
further, with the knowledge that it is difficult to leave a job
and/or find another equivalent-paying job. This may lead not
only to the potential abuse of employees’ legitimate rights but
also to a situation in which workers are unhappy due to that
abuse but are unable to leave because of significant restraints
on employment opportunities. Employees should not be put in a
position where they are faced with trading their legitimate
rights for financial security, and thus any restrictions so
imposed must meet a very high standard, showing that they are

absolutely necessary for the company to function effectively.
Similar issues have arisen in cases where employees’ religious
views conflict with those of their employees. Such cases raise,
again, important ethical questions about whether an employer
has the right to insist that a worker act in certain ways away
from the job site. Can a manager who objects to homosexuality
fire an employee he or she finds out is gay or lesbian? Can an
employer who objects to interracial marriage terminate someone
he or she discovers is married to someone from another race? At
what point do constitutional rights override the rights of
employers to make free choices about who works for, and
represents, their companies? The courts have ruled that in some
cases, a person cannot be fired for such characteristics as race,
religion, or gender, but even in these cases, suits have been
brought to challenge these limitations. Some of these suits have
been successful, when, for instance, a religious institution is
seen as fulfilling its appropriate mission by maintaining
prohibitions on hiring certain workers
Case Study (continued)
The church also noted that Ms. Perich was a commissioned
Lutheran minister; to deny its right to fire her was tantamount
to allowing an outside authority, such as the government, to fire
and hire its ministers, which would be a clear violation of the
First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.
Among the many interesting issues here:
Can any organization fire a worker for threatening a lawsuit?
If some companies cannot do this, but a church can, what is the
fundamental difference between the two as employers?
Can a church fire someone even if it may violate that person’s
constitutional rights?
Exercise
How would you have decided this case? What do you think is
the crucial issue between the church and Ms. Perich that needs
to be determined?

A good story about this case, summarizing its details, can be
found here:
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/school_law/2012/01/supreme_c
ourt_backs_church_in.html.
The Supreme Court ruling itself is available as a PDF at:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/10-553.pdf.
Can Employee Behavior Be Dictated by a Company Mission?
Imagine you have been unemployed for several months and are
desperate to find a job. You’ve been offered the job of being the
representative of a local animal rights group. This group works
to prohibit the wearing of fur; advocates vegetarianism; and
seeks to ban the use of animals for the testing of perfumes,
pharmaceuticals, and other products. The job is a very good
one, but as a condition of employment the group requires that
you not eat meat. After all, if you are seen shopping for steaks
and pork chops, it would indicate the animal rights group is a
bit hypocritical, in that you are paying for those steaks and
chops with money the group provides. Yet you really like your
occasional cheeseburger and barbecue.
Consider:
Do you take the job?
Is this a fair condition of employment to impose upon you?
Are there limits to what an employer can require of employees,
other than those that would require you to do something illegal?
Here the question arises as to whether an employer can impose
certain restrictions on the behavior and lifestyle of employees
because of a corporation’s mission. Most corporations have
mission statements: If an employee’s private behavior conflicts
with his or her employer’s mission statement, does the company
have the right to fire that employee, or at least demand he or
she change the behavior in question? If so, are there limits to
what the company can demand?
As in many of the cases we have seen, the tension between what
an employer can demand and what rights the employee retains
can generate a difficult balancing act. Again, few if any are
suggesting that employers have the right—even if they wanted

it—to dictate to their employees what they do at all times
outside the workplace, no more than anyone seems to be arguing
that employees can do anything at all outside the workplace,
regardless of effects on the company. But determining where
one draws the line is not particularly easy.
As we saw earlier, ethical theories may help us clarify and make
more rigorous the arguments involved, but they don’t offer
some kind of recipe to follow that will result in the appropriate
ethical choice in every situation. There are advantages to having
the issues made clearer, and advantages to drawing on the
arguments that have been developed over centuries to deal with
moral conflicts. But to expect theory to resolve these conflicts
is probably being a bit naïve.
As we mentioned earlier, most corporations have mission
statements. Walmart’s, for instance, is succinct: “We save
people money so they can live better” (http://stock.walmart
.com/investor-faqs). Exxon-Mobil’s is a bit more expansive:
“Exxon Mobil Corporation is committed to being the world’s
premier petroleum and petrochemical company. To that end, we
must continuously achieve superior financial and operating
results while simultaneously adhering to high ethical standards”
(ExxonMobil, n.d., para. 1). These may seem fairly obvious, but
corporations frequently revert to the mission statement to make
sure new company policies are in compliance with it. At the
same time, the statements leave a great deal of room for
interpretation: For instance, what does Walmart mean by “living
better”? What are the “high ethical standards” to which Exxon-
Mobil aspires? Would most of us agree on how to characterize
either of these important parts of these corporate mission
statements?
The conflicts that arise tend to do so out of actual
implementation of policies that some may regard as wholly
consistent with a mission statement, while others regard the
same acts as in fundamental conflict with it. For instance,
imagine a clothing company—Just Clothes—that uses labor in
impoverished countries where unemployment is extremely high

and wages are quite low. One could well argue that Just Clothes
is doing exactly what it should be doing: keeping production
costs low, passing on those lower costs by offering lower-priced
products, and providing a good return to its investors. Just
Clothes could also argue that if it did not employ as many
people as it did in low-income countries, unemployment would
be even higher. Thus, their workers may not make a lot of
money, but they are better off than they would be otherwise.
Now imagine Samantha, whose church has been very active in
the area of workers’ rights in Third World countries. Samantha
has written letters to the newspaper, organized demonstrations
and panels criticizing the practice of employing low-cost
workers, and attended several conferences on behalf of her
church. She is, in short, very critical of what she calls
“sweatshops,” objecting not just to low wages, but to
substandard housing, dangerous and unhealthful work
conditions, and mistreatment of workers, particularly women
and children.
Samantha, however, works for Just Clothes. The management of
Just Clothes is not, understandably, very happy with Samantha’s
activities. They regard her criticism of sweatshops as a pointed
criticism of Just Clothes, which damages the company’s
reputation and, potentially, could lead to lower sales and lower
returns to its investors. Samantha is called into her boss’s office
for a discussion of this, and she points to Just Clothes’s mission
statement, which states, “Our goal is to sell a quality product
while having a positive impact on the lives of all those we
touch.” Samantha points out that the workers that produce their
clothes might well disagree that their lives have been positively
affected by Just Clothes, and that actual corporate policy
contradicts its own mission statement.
The company is tempted to fire Samantha. She is an at-will
employee, but she could well argue in a court that she has been
terminated for participating in constitutionally protected
activity (both in terms of her right to free speech and her right
to practice her religion). At the same time, the company may

regard that risk as one worth taking; after all, they have
considerably more resources than Samantha, and may simply be
able to fight in court longer than Samantha can afford to.
Applying the Theories
Here we see how ethical theory can help clarify some of these
issues by focusing on the specific aspects involved in this
dispute. For instance, a utilitarian might attempt to determine
the benefits for the company, its domestic workers (including
Samantha), and its low-income employees. Trying to see how
one could establish these benefits may well help establish the
difficulties in balancing the utilities involved, which include
not just the bottom line of Just Clothes and the return to
investors, but the well-being of all if its employees. One could,
of course, simply determine that what should be done is to
follow a rule, such as “implement those policies that return the
greatest short-term profit without harming long-term
expectations.” But that rule itself may be criticized by
Samantha, her church, and many others who might see
determining one’s behavior solely on the basis of profit as
obviously unethical.
Technology in the Workplace
We are surrounded by social media; for many, checking their
Facebook page, tweeting, and looking at the Instagram pages of
their friends are a frequent occurrence. Indeed, some may feel
left out at a party if they do not use Facebook; often the
assumption is made that virtually everyone participates in this
particular form of social media. (For good reason: As of January
2013, Facebook reported that over one billion people qualified
as “active users.” [Tam, 2013]).
Social Networking
The phenomenon of social media has raised difficult questions
for the workplace, and for potential job candidates. Perhaps you
have complained at a social media site about a boss, a co-
worker, or your company: Is that a sufficient reason for you to
be fired? Do you have the right, in other words, to say what you
wish online without risking losing your job? Should a job

candidate expect a potential employer to look at his or her
Facebook page? Is it justified for a hiring decision to be made
on the basis of something embarrassing (or worse) that has been
posted on a social media site?
In the movie The Social Network, a dramatic portrayal of the
founding of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook’s CEO) is
shown having a bit too much to drink, and posting unpleasant
and vulgar remarks about his former girlfriend. When she
confronts him about it, she points out that things written on the
Internet are “written in ink, not in pencil”; in other words, once
something is circulated online, it may be there forever. A
picture or a comment could resurface many years later to
damage to a person’s reputation, and there is not a lot that
person can do about once it has been posted.
We often hear that the easiest way to avoid this is simply not to
post anything that could ever, conceivably, raise such a
problem. This might lead to less interesting comments and
photographs being posted, but it is also difficult to always know
what could or could not, potentially, do damage. (Some cases,
admittedly, are clear.) But the ethical and legal questions that
arise focus more on whether someone’s privacy is violated by
potential employers looking at Facebook pages or other social
media sites, and whether it is fair to base hiring, promotion, and
termination decisions on what might well seem to be a simple
exercise of our right to free speech.
With the various issues that have arisen in the context of social
media, policies and legislative responses are also in the process
of being developed. However, an important decision was made
in early 2013 by the National Labor Relations Board; The New
York Times described it like this:
Employers often seek to discourage comments that paint them in
a negative light. Don’t discuss company matters publicly, a
typical social media policy will say, and don’t disparage
managers, co-workers or the company itself. Violations can be a
firing offense.
But in a series of recent rulings and advisories, labor regulators

have declared many such blanket restrictions illegal. The
National Labor Relations Board says workers have a right to
discuss work conditions freely and without fear of retribution,
whether the discussion takes place at the office or on Facebook.
(Greenhouse, 2013, para. 1–2)
Another issue concerning social media is the question of what a
potential employer can ask job candidates about, regarding their
various social media networks. Reports have surfaced of job
candidates being asked for their Facebook passwords, for
instance, thus giving the employer access to candidates’ pages.
Obviously enough, a job candidate may refuse such a request,
but one seeking a job may not feel comfortable in doing so, and
may have good reason to think that such a refusal will harm his
or her chance at being hired. Some employers have defended the
practice, arguing that it is one way to make sure that a person
being considered for a job does not exhibit characteristics the
employer would not otherwise know about. In response, the
practice has been decried as an invasion of privacy, and may
also be a way of determining factors—age, race, religion,
among others— that are illegal to consider in many hiring
decisions. The question thus arises as to whether the risk a
company assumes in such a hiring decision makes this
information sufficiently valuable that it outweighs the right of
the job candidate to keep that information private.
Employee Privacy
A final issue that should at least be mentioned is what, if any,
right to privacy employees retain while on the workplace. A
person who works for corporation A may, as part of his or her
job, use the phone, the computer, and the Internet; does the
employer have a right to look at any or all of these things, to
see if the worker is doing what is supposed to be done? Can an
employer, for instance, monitor telephone calls, or is that an
invasion of privacy? Does an employer have the right to access
the “clickstream” on a worker’s computer, to be able to see
what sites that worker is looking at while at work? Should an
employer be able to read an employee’s emails that are sent

from the workplace? For that matter, if an employee also works
from home—whether due to “flextime” or taking extra work
home—should the employer be able to see what sites that
worker is visiting? In short, if the employer is paying a
worker’s salary, does that give the employer legitimate access
to any and all of the forms of communication engaged in by the
employee while being paid?
4.2 The Issue: Employers’ Rights
The issue of workplace rights is typically associated with
employees—those individuals without whose participation a
company or organization could not operate. But there is another
side to the rights in the workplace debate: the rights of the
employer itself. The question of just what constitutes
employers’ rights touches on many aspects of business, but we
will restrict our discussion to one example: whether employer-
provided health care should be mandatory.
Few issues have generated controversy as intense as the
Affordable Care Act (ACA), often called Obamacare. Many
employers have objected to it as increasing their cost of doing
business; they, and many politicians as well, have objected to
various mandates of the act that they regard as not falling
within the legitimate scope of government. Others have argued
that the ACA seeks to lower costs, or at least lower the rate at
which costs increase, and that it addresses a number of issues
that polling indicates are popular with the American public,
such as being able to purchase insurance with a preexisting
condition, children staying on their parents’ insurance until age
26, and no lifetime caps on medical expenses. In general, its
supporters argue that the ACA will provide health insurance to
many who have been unable to get it.
The situation is made more complex by the fact that
historically, many Americans’ health insurance was tied to their
employer’s health care plans. (For those who are retired,
unemployed, or in poverty, other plans are designed to offer
coverage, such as Medicare and Medicaid.) It is not clear that
this is an ideal, or even efficient way to offer health care.

Because it is illegal for a hospital to turn away someone in need
of health care, many who are not insured receive their health
care at emergency rooms, which is the most expensive form of
treatment. In short, the American health care system is one of
the most expensive in the world, yet it achieves outcomes that
are regarded by many as substandard. (Thus, according to the
National Center for Health Statistics, the United States spends
twice as much on health care per capita [$7,129] as any other
country, yet ranks 30th in infant mortality and 50th in life
expectancy [http:// www.cdc.gov/nchs/]).
The details of the ACA are complex and fluid. Only last year
did the Supreme Court rule the ACA as passing constitutional
muster, and implementation of its various provisions is still
taking place. Hence, it is difficult to determine what the results
of this law will be for several more years. However, the ACA
and other attempts to provide health care raise a simple question
that itself is important, but controversial: Is health care a right?
In other words, is having access to decent, affordable health
care a right, similar to other rights enumerated in the
Constitution and Bill of Rights? Or is health care not a right,
but a product like any other that must be purchased by the
consumer?
The Argument That Health Care Is Not a Right
There are various ways of arguing that health care is not a right,
but we can focus on one of the more popular versions here.
Simply put, on this view, health care is not a right: While there
are certain, “inalienable” rights—life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness—that the Constitution does protect, health care is not
one of them. The right not to be harmed or killed, or not to have
our property seized, is what philosophers call a negative right.
Negative rights are justified and legitimate, and only require us
not to interfere with the rights similarly possessed by others.
But we do not have such a negative right to health care, beyond
the right to pursue our own health care and not be prevented
from doing so. Rather, the claim that health care is a right
introduces a different notion—a positive right. I do not have a

right to health care anymore than I have a “right” to food,
clothing, and shelter. If taxpayers are forced to pay for my
alleged right to health care, then they are being forced to spend
money, presumably against their will, which is, in fact, a
violation of their rights. Thus, forcing me to accept that others
have a right to health care, which I must pay for, assumes a
positive right—the right to health care—and violates my
negative right—the right not to be forced to pay for something
that I have no say in. The Constitution protects negative rights,
and thus it is a violation of my constitutional rights to force me
to pay for anyone’s health care (including my own). Since it
assumes a fictional positive right and violates my genuine
negative right, health care is not a right any more than it is a
right to own a car, a home, or a pair of cowboy boots.
The Argument That Health Care Is a Right
The argument that health care is a right also takes different
forms; some have been offered on the basis of obligatory
Christian charity, others in the name of economic efficiency,
and still others that appeal to the United Nations Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (for which the United States
voted). In simple terms, the argument is: Theoretical access to
health care is insufficient if fundamental obstacles prevent one
from actually obtaining that care. If life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness are protected rights, and the right to life requires
some minimal access to health care, then it follows that that
access is, itself, a right (and is, in that sense, a negative,
constitutionally protected right).
One of the effects of recognizing health care as a right is that it
means everyone will have access to health care (universal health
care); this is turn will lead to more effective health care
delivery through regular checkups and preventative care, rather
than very expensive emergency room treatment. Furthermore,
this will lead to better health care results and a more productive
economy, due to lower worker absentee rates and a better
general quality of life. Universal health care will also mean that
no one will have to choose between health care and some other

expenditure, or face bankruptcy due to exorbitant health care
costs.
Do Employers Have an Obligation to Pay for Employees’ Health
Care?
The purpose of the ACA was to guarantee access to health care
for as many Americans as possible. The goal was to provide this
greater access and, at the same time, continue to develop ways
of making health care cheaper in the United States. Health
coverage has traditionally been associated with a worker’s place
of employment, and the ACA continues to follow this tradition
by requiring employers to offer health care for their full-time
employees. There are certain technical distinctions made on the
basis
of the company in question; businesses employing fewer than 25
employees have different options than those employing, for
instance, more than 100. Those companies not providing health
care coverage directly have the option of participating in
“Affordable Insurance Exchanges,” which allows larger groups
to pool their numbers in order to lower insurance rates.
One can certainly see how a utilitarian might argue in defense
of the ACA; health care is presumably a benefit, or good;
having access to reasonably good, reasonably affordable health
care would seem to lead to the greatest good for the greatest
number relative to the other options that have been suggested.
Depending on how one sees health care—as a commodity or as a
right—this would strongly affect how one might regard the
ideas behind the ACA. If a commodity, it is not clear that a
deontologist would support one person being required to pay
for, or at least subsidize, another person’s commodity, good, or
service. After all, most of us would object to being taxed to
help pay for another person’s car. But if health care is a right,
then it seems more likely that the deontologist would conclude
that human dignity is not adequately respected without
guaranteeing people the minimum health care that would satisfy
the genuine exercise of that right.
4.3 Applying the Theories

Earlier we saw the conflict between American Medical
Response Incorporated and the paramedics that were suspended
for working for another company. This is one example of the
kind of ethical issues that can arise in the workplace. Most such
disputes, as we have seen, require a delicate balancing act that
protects the interests and the rights of all parties involved, an
act that can often be very difficult to do. Rarely are all parties
satisfied, although the results that does leave all parties
partially satisfied may often be indicative of a successful
resolution.
We have also seen how ethical theories may not offer recipes,
or algorithms, to follow in order to “solve” these ethical
disputes. Rather, ethical theory helps make clear what is stake
in these disputes, helps us focus on what is relevant (and
eliminate that which is irrelevant), and offers us the reflections
of many philosophers who have looked at these kinds of issues
and offered sophisticated and rigorous arguments to help
resolve them.
Finally, we have also seen that there is no guarantee that two
people who adopt a similar ethical theory will necessarily agree
on how that theory should be applied, and what the theory will
say is the moral thing to do. As we might see with the ACA, one
deontologist might argue that health care is a right that cannot
be abridged or violated, while another might not recognize it as
a right and may provide a much different analysis. Indeed, it
may turn out that their disagreement is not so much about
universal health care than its status as a right or a commodity.
Consequently, each specific issue must be looked at carefully,
and its details examined, before constructing the strongest
argument we can in support of our position. But it should come
as no surprise that two deontologists, or two utilitarians, may
disagree; after all, people may share a common viewpoint but
not agree on many things relative to that viewpoint. But to see
this, it might help to look a bit more at some of these theories
and how they can be applied.
Virtue Ethics

As a legal entity, the corporation is recognized as a “person”—
technically an “artificial person”—that possesses many of the
rights people possess under the law. Using this idea, we can
look at the corporation from the perspective of virtue ethics:
What does it mean for a corporation, in this context, to be
virtuous? Presumably, we want corporations to act morally and
as good, if artificial, “citizens”; virtue ethics seems to provide a
way of characterizing what is then required of such corporate
behavior.
The corporate “person” is under a number of constraints;
however, it must, above all, maintain profitability. But
recognizing that goal, it must also meet the legitimate needs of
its employees, stockholders, and others who provide various
kinds of support (financial and otherwise) to the company. This
includes the needs of the community in which it is found, not
just by providing employment, but also by playing the role of
good corporate citizen by supporting charities and perhaps other
philanthropic work. It can be a difficult job to balance all of
these obligations, while maintaining focus on the bottom line,
but virtue ethics emphasizes precisely that kind of balance that
may offer valuable guidance to the corporation.
For example, the company must seek a balance—a Golden
Mean—between maintaining employee satisfaction and not
distorting its fundamental mission. Thus, it must offer salaries
and benefits that are competitive. If the wage–benefit package
is too small, employees may desire to leave the corporation, and
it may be difficult to hire new workers. If the wage–benefit
package is too generous, it may take too much away from the
quarterly or annual profits. Just as this balance must be struck,
a balance relative to employee rights must be considered in the
larger corporate context. These rights cannot be restricted in a
way that is unfair to those workers, but legitimate restrictions
must be maintained for the corporation to meets its fundamental
goal: to be successful (specifically, in a for-profit company,
profitable). Situations can arise where an employee may insist
on a right that may well hinder the company in meeting its

goals. In that case, those rights must be balanced against the
needs of the corporation, and an appropriate balance must be
identified and maintained.
To examine a specific virtue, corporations should be honest, in
dealing with both their employees and the community in which
they are located. Obviously enough, there can be too little
honesty—whether defrauding customers, skimming profits,
lying on tax forms, or any number of the familiar examples of
corporate behavior that are immoral, illegal, or both. Yet there
can also be too much honesty, such as failing to protect
proprietary information essential to a company’s profits, or
revealing marketing strategies to employees and, potentially,
competitors—the distribution of which would put the company
at a disadvantage. Neither too little honesty nor too much
honesty is in the best interest of the company or, importantly, in
the best interest of its employees. Virtue ethics, then, provides a
way of seeing how to strike the balance here, whereby an
appropriate amount of corporate honesty leads to the best
results for the company, its employees, and its community.
Deontology
The deontologist recognizes that companies, whether for-profit
or not-for-profit, have a fundamental requirement: namely to
carry out their mission. Specifically in the case of for-profit
corporations, that mission is to make sufficient profit to stay in
business and, preferably, continue to grow. Yet the corporation,
even as an (artificial) person, must not violate certain rules: It
must treat its employees, its community, and even its
competitors with respect. It must not follow or develop
company policies that it would regard as fundamentally unfair
were another company to have those same policies. The
deontologist might explain this in terms of Kant’s
universalization test: If, for instance, company policy imposes
certain restrictions on speech or behavior for its employees,
could this policy be fairly imposed on all companies in the same
context? The deontologist might also appeal to the Golden Rule
here: If an employer were to impose a given set of restrictions

on employees, would he or she be willing to work under the
same set of restrictions?
We can look at how deontology can be applied here by looking
at drug testing—in this case, for airline pilots. The deontologist
might well conclude that instituting such drug tests is precisely
the kind of policy that could—even should—be put in place
universally and in all similar contexts. Certainly, someone who
imposes such drug tests may be quite confident that he or she
would be willing to work under such a condition as well; hence,
it seems to conform to the Golden Rule.
But there may be other situations where a company desires to
restrict an employee’s rights in ways that do not meet the
universalization test or don’t seem to satisfy the Golden Rule.
Perhaps as a condition of employment, employees are told that
they cannot join a union (or, in contrast, are told they must join
the union). Although legal issues complicate the story, when
observed from a moral standpoint, it is not clear that this
restriction could be universalized: that no one could ever join a
union (or that everyone must join a union) would seem to lead
to the result that the very notion of a union becomes
meaningless. And it seems quite possible that an employer who
tells employees that they cannot join a union—or must join a
union—might well be unwilling to work under those same
conditions, indicating a conflict with the Golden Rule.
Consequently, the corporate (artificial) citizen must, on the
deontological view, treat rules in precisely the same way as real
citizens must. Any restriction on employee rights that fails to
satisfy the universalization test, or conflicts with applying the
Golden Rule, thus risks the genuine possibility of being an
unfair, unjust, and immoral restriction.
Some Conclusions
In considering the fundamental goal of a for-profit company or
corporation, the virtue ethicist and the deontologist do not
really disagree. Both recognize that such a company must make
a profit to remain in business and must impose certain
conditions on its employees and potential employees to do so.

The tension comes not so much in applying the specific theories
as in determining where an employer’s rights to impose such
conditions are legitimate, and where they infringe on the rights
of employees. It may seem easier to strike an appropriate
balance between these two sets of rights in theory than it is in
practice.
Consider a company that receives much of its business from
contracts with the federal government. This company has spent
years developing a close relationship with Senator Smith, who
represents the state where the corporate headquarters are
located. The members of the company’s board of directors are
particularly close with Senator Smith, and he has made it one of
his highest priorities to see that the company receives favorable
attention in the awarding of federal contracts. The company
benefited by supporting Smith, and Smith benefited in turn.
Currently, Senator Smith is now running for reelection, and the
CEO of the company is the director of his campaign.
Ann is an employee of the company and a staunch opponent of
Senator Smith. She has worked long hours outside of work for
Senator Smith’s opponent, and has contributed both time and
money to Smith’s opponent.
The issue here is one of the limits to what the CEO of Ann’s
company can do, relative to Ann’s political views. Can he ask
her to remove a political sign from her office cubicle? Can he
ask her to remove a bumper sticker from her car, because she
parks in the company parking lot?
A fundraising picnic has been scheduled, organized by the CEO,
for Senator Smith. Admission is $25, and it has been made
abundantly clear to all employees that their attendance is
expected. Clearly enough, the company cannot require this
attendance, but Ann is convinced that her chances for promotion
and salary increases will be harmed if she does not attend.
Here we have what seem to be competing rights: the right of the
CEO to do what he thinks is in the best interest of the company
(and, he might argue, therefore in the best interest of Ann
herself), and Ann’s right to participate in politics in the way she

sees fit. Virtue ethics, deontology, or any of the other ethical
theories we have at our disposal may offer some insight into
how this conflict might be resolved, but none of the theories can
likely provide a solution that is satisfactory to all involved. As
we have seen before, ethics can offer a good bit of insight into
the problem, by identifying what is at stake, and how the
conflict itself might be most accurately characterized. Yet, as
we have also seen, we may be expecting too much from any
ethical theory if we think there is an easy procedure to follow
that will result in the one correct answer.
Where Do We Go From Here?
It is, generally, to the advantage of both the employer and the
employee that their company thrives: All are then better off. In
addition to maintaining its own economic well-being, a
successful corporation can offer the community a number of
things that will make it better off, such as support for the arts,
schools, and general culture of the community. Not to be
overlooked is what is also known as the “ripple” effect: A
successful company will pay its workers the kind of wages that
filter through the rest of the community. A well-paid worker
who takes her family out to dinner thus helps those who work in
the restaurant, and those workers in turn may have sufficient
disposable income to buy things that support still others.
But conflicts do arise, between what an employer thinks is the
right thing to do for the company, and what an employer thinks
is right for the employer. We’ve seen a number of examples of
this kind of conflict, and most of us are familiar with being
asked to do things at work that can, at least potentially,
generate these kinds of problems. The situation, of course, is
made worse when unemployment is high and jobs are difficult
to find. That situation makes most employees more reluctant to
register objections, even if legitimate; many will prefer being
employed to having their rights maintained while being
unemployed. As a result, the employer has just a bit more
leverage to impose conditions on employees, and on job
candidates, that can become increasingly unfair to those

employees.
Here we see the not-infrequent situation where real life
confronts what ethics may tell us is the correct, moral, or just
thing to do. At what point does one refuse to violate one’s
moral code? If we are being harmed, or being treated unfairly,
do we stand up for our moral principles, or do we simply take it,
realizing the importance of remaining employed? Does it
depend on how extreme the case is? Would we be willing to lie
to keep our job? Would we be willing to ignore certain legal
requirements to keep our job? Would we be willing to harm
others, or at least risk harming others, to keep our job? Again,
we find ourselves between two extremes: We may be willing to
overlook a relatively insignificant moral infraction to keep our
job, but we may be absolutely unwilling to commit a crime in
order to keep our job. Many issues in business ethics, as we
have already seen, arise from trying to find the appropriate
balance between these two extremes. Ethics may help up us find
it; however, it doesn’t guarantee that we will find it, or that
everyone will agree with our conception of the balance we do
strike.
Chapter Summary
In this chapter, we have seen a number of conflicts that can
arise in the workplace. While most companies have as their goal
to make a profit and provide a return to their investors, some
practices developed to achieve those goals can seem to invade
employees’ privacy. Other policies that corporations develop
may restrict what an employee can do, or even require
employees to act in ways that are in conflict with those
employees’ own values. While we have looked at a few of these
conflicts, there are, of course, many more.
Some of the issues looked at in this chapter include the
following:
How outside work can lead to a conflict of interest and/or
conflict of commitment;
What rights are involved in mandatory drug testing;
Whether an employer can ask an employee, or job candidate, for

a Facebook password;
Whether a corporate mission statement can infringe on a
worker’s right;
What a worker’s right to privacy includes, and does not include;
Whether a boss can monitor employees’ Internet usage;
If health care is a commodity or a right;
If health care is a right, whether an employer obligated to
provide it; and
Whether a company can impose specific moral values on an
employee by prohibiting certain activities.
Ethical theory offers extremely helpful tools to solve these
problems by clarifying the language involved, identifying what
is and isn’t relevant to the problem at hand, providing rigorous
arguments for specific ethical principles, and offering valuable
critiques of the shortcomings of competing views. As one might
imagine, just as with our own individual conflicts, workplace
conflicts are bound to arise. If ethical theory, and common
sense, can give us the tools to have a better chance of resolving
these conflicts, then we should avail ourselves of these tools to
help us do so.
Text
· Mosser, K. (2013). Ethics and social responsibility (2nd ed.)
· Chapter 4: Individual Rights in the Workplace
Articles
· After hours: How to regulate employees' off-duty behavior.
(2012). HR Specialist: Employment Law, 42(4), 4.
· The full-text version of this article can be accessed through
the EBSCOhost database in the Ashford University Library.
This article pertains to employment law and relates to the
Regulating Off-Duty Conduct—discussion about the ethics of
monitoring off-duty employee behavior.
· Perego, M. (2010, June). The two faces of social media. Public
Management, 92(5), 2-3.
· The full-text version of this article can be accessed through

the EBSCOhost database in the Ashford University Library. The
article pertains to the ethics of communication via social media.
Multimedia
· State Bar of Wisconsin. (2013, August 30). Regulating off-
duty conduct: Social media and legal issues for employers
[Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/O_fd1pm-PRg
· This video pertains to the ethics of workplace surveillance
and the Regulating Off-Duty Conduct—discussion this week.
This video has closed captioning and a transcript.
Accessibility StatementPrivacy Policy
Mosser, K. (2013). Ethics and social responsibility (2nd ed.)
2.1 Can Ethical Principles Conflict With the Law?
Laws, for a given society, are designed to guarantee those rights
recognized in a society, as well as guarantee the security of
those who live in it. Debate has raged for thousands of years
about what specific rights and responsibilities are involved
here. Some argue for a minimal state that does little but
guarantee contracts and protect the safety of citizens by
providing secure borders and such minimal services as police
and fire departments. Others argue for a much bigger role for
the state, insisting that the state function to provide health care,
education, parks, libraries, unemployment support, and many
other social services to support a well-functioning and
productive society. Of
course, there are also many positions in between these two.
Often individual or group ethical principles conflict with the
laws that govern the state in which the person or group lives. As
we know from history, one might be a member of areligious
minority in a society where virtually all the other members of
the society follow a distinct religious tradition, or even in a
country that has
an official state religion. But even in a society that is diverse

and places a high value on tolerance, this issue can arise.
Whenever a society enacts laws, there is the potential that those
laws will conflict with the views of some of the individuals in
that society. For instance, a state may outlaw a drug, or ritual,
that a group living in that state regards as sacred and
fundamental to its religious practice. In 2011, France outlawed
the wearing of full-face veils (the niqab) (Erlanger,
2011); many French Muslims (and others) objected to this as a
restriction of religious practice, while the French government
saw the law as fundamental to preserving traditional French
culture. Numerous such examples of this kind of conflict—
between a state and the values of those who live in that state—
can be found throughout the world. The issue this raises for
ethics is how one deals with the confrontation between one’s
morals and the laws of one’s state when the two conflict. A
state cannot survive if people choose to ignore its laws, but
does that mean a person must either leave the state—if that is
even possible—or accept laws that are fundamentally at odds
with his or her most profound ethical (and possibly religious)
views? Traditionally, in a democratic society, citizens have the
right to organize, express their opinions, and use the democratic
process to change, eliminate, or enact laws. But while that
seems to be a theory with many attractive features, it may be a
daunting thing to accomplish.Ethics helps us clarify our ethical
choices, but can it help us with having our ethical choices
respected? Can it show us how we can guarantee that our moral
views aren’t violated? And can it give us any guidance when
there is a harsh contradiction between one’s moral viewpoint
and the laws of one’s society? These are difficult questions that
arise within ethics, and particularly when ethics is combined
with an examination of the political process. They may be
difficult to answer, but they are good questions to keep in mind
when thinking about ethics and the moral
values one’s state chooses to enforce as its rules and its laws.
2.2 The Issue: Prayer in Public Schools
Prayer is a particularly personal topic, and thus the role of

prayer for an individual has led to some of the most divisive
arguments over religious practice, such as
prayer in public schools. Here, will we look at this debate, and
then apply the theory of utilitarianism in two different ways to
clarify the issues involved.
Let’s examine some of the arguments over whether organized
prayer should be allowed in public schools and try to clarify the
issues involved by distinguishing between “allowing”prayer and
“promoting” prayer, as well as noting the difference between an
individual praying privately and a group participating in an
organized, coordinated prayer.
The Argument for Prayer in Public Schools
The relationship between a person and God is the most precious
relationship of all. Society must respect that relationship, and,
recognizing this, the First Amendment to the Constitution of the
United States prohibits any interference with religion. Because
prayer can be considered the most sacred right a religious
person possesses, the government absolutely cannot, and should
not, interfere with that right by preventing someone from
praying. As the First Amendment states, “Congress shall make
no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof” (U.S. Const. amend. I). To prohibit
school
prayer is to prohibit the free exercise of one’s religion. Thus,
not only is eliminating prayer from public schools wrong, it is
also unconstitutional. Moral and legal reasons demonstrate that
prayer in public school should, therefore, be allowed. Clearly,
one’s right to prayer is protected by the Constitution; however,
there are many other benefits to allowing prayer in public
schools. Religious values, such as honesty, charity, and
nonviolent problem solving are important to a well-functioning
society. Few places are more important than public schools to
emphasize these values; indeed, public schools provide a tragic
example of how these values have been neglected. Teenage
pregnancy, STDs, gang violence, and drug and alcohol abuse are
common in many public schools. Reminding students that these

are wrong and that there are ways of avoiding them are valuable
moral lessons students need now more than ever.This is not an
argument for a specific religion’s view to be imposed on public
school students; that would, indeed, violate the language of the
First Amendment and what is known as the Establishment
Clause. Rather, the argument here is for voluntary prayer for
students who wish to participate. This allows these students to
exercise their religious rights and to promote important moral
values. Furthermore, most religions promote the same kinds of
moral values. The Golden Rule, for instance, can be found in
many different religions and in many different cultures. To
remind students to treat others as they would want to be treated
establishes no specific religion and reinforces a value
fundamental to a well-ordered and moral society. History and
current practice also support allowing prayer in school. From
the founding of the United States, and for almost 200 years,
public schools allowed voluntary prayer. Thomas Jefferson
refers to the unalienable rights of American citizens as having
been granted by their “Creator” in the Declaration of
Independence.Both the Senate and the House of Representatives
maintain a chaplain, who begins each
legislative session with a prayer; legal tender (money) in the
United States reads “In God We Trust”; the Pledge of
Allegiance includes the phrase “One nation under God”; and
presidents of both political parties frequently end speeches by
saying “God bless America.” Few people have seen these
practices as violations of the First Amendment. To prevent
students from the exercise of their religion is to require students
to obey the dictates of a nonreligious minority. A short prayer
at a commencement exercise, at a football game, or at a school
assembly not only reminds students of the importance of
religious and moral values but is generally regarded to reflect
the wishes of a large part of the student body in most public
schools. Thus, to prevent it violates the Constitution and
distorts the wishes of the students themselves, as well as their
parents. To deny one the right to have prayer in public schools,

therefore, is immoral and unconstitutional, prevents important
moral lessons from being made and reinforced for a large group
of students who may need those lessons, neglects the history of
the United States, and conflicts with the desires of the majority
of students and their parents. Therefore, prayer should be
allowed in public schools.
The Argument Against Prayer in Public Schools
The United States is a remarkably diverse country, particularly
in terms of its citizens’ religious affiliations. In addition to the
numerous Christian denominations, there are Jews, Muslims,
Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, Zoroastrians, Wiccans, Sikhs, and
Native Americans with their varied spiritual practices. There are
also many who do not identify with any religious affiliation,
including agnostics and atheists. All Americans have the right
to religious expression, or no expression, and to impose state-
sanctioned prayer on them is to violate their constitutional
rights. Parents have the right, as well, to have their views
respected, and a student whose religious views (or lack of
religious views) are at odds with those of a school prayer may
not only be offended, but that student’s constitutional rights are
also being violated.A prayer at a school assembly or football
game may seem innocent enough, but if one’s religious views
are fundamental to that person, then a prayer that specifies a
particular conception of God, or a particular relationship
between a person and God, may well make that student feel
singled out. On the other hand, if the prayer is so vague and
general that it really offers very little specific content, it is not
clear what purpose it serves; in addition, it will still impose a
religious viewpoint on those students who do not share that
viewpoint. A student can be required to attend certain school
functions; if a prayer is part of that function, the student is not
participating in that prayer voluntarily. In addition to having his
or her views possibly contradicted, the role of peer pressure and
embarrassment should not be underestimated. Many students
may prefer to stay in a setting where a prayer is being offered
instead of leaving and thus identifying themselves even further

as, somehow, not “belonging.” Combining a school-sanctioned
prayer with such peer pressure makes clear that such an activity
is not in any genuine sense voluntary. Furthermore, it is not the
role of public schools to impose specific religious values on
their students. Schools are quite free to teach about religion, its
history, and its role in society; schools are not permitted to do
anything that could be interpreted as endorsing a particular
religious viewpoint. Schools have important obligations to see
that their students receive a quality education in such subjects
as English, mathematics, natural sciences, history, and foreign
languages. Given the relatively low achievements in these areas,
relative to other countries in the developed world, public
schools clearly need to do a better job in carrying out their
educational mission. Spending such valuable time on prayer and
imposing specific religious viewpoints on students is neither
part of the mission of public schools, nor is it an efficient use of
time. Moreover, many parents prefer that specific religious and
moral teachings not be part of the school curriculum. For this
last reason, even many religious parents demand that religious
material be excluded from school curricula. These parents argue
that religious values are, indeed, extremely important. For that
very reason, they insist that the public schools should not
interfere with parents’ desire to teach these values at home, and
at places of worship: precisely those places where it is
appropriate to focus on religious teachings.The Constitution
does not allow public schools to promote any specific religion
or religious viewpoint. Any school-sanctioned prayer would
either violate this constitutional requirement or be so vague as
to be meaningless. Given a diverse student body, no prayer can
respect all the religious views of those students, particularly if
one considers that some of those students may have no religious
values or even reject religion entirely. Public schools have more
important things to devote their time to as part of their
legitimate mission. Many parents do not want the values they
teach their children contradicted in the public schools and
prefer that the religious and moral teachings be provided by

parents, not schools. School-sanctioned prayer, due to its
setting and to peer pressure, cannot be
regarded as voluntary. Therefore, due to both constitutional
issues and other compelling moral and social challenges, prayer
in public schools should be prohibited.
Morality and Civil Law
As we will see throughout this and later chapters, in a
community of any size, conflicts will arise between the laws
that community adopts and the personal morality of the
individuals in that community. Familiar controversies such as
abortion, euthanasia, and many others will display this conflict.
If one lives in a community that insists on a law that violates
one’s own moral principles, there are few options available:
working to change the law in question, ignoring it, changing
one’s behavior, or leaving the community. Each of these, of
course, has its problems: to leave one’s community is costly,
and many wouldn’t want to do so unless the laws involved were
especially onerous; changing a law is a timeconsuming and
expensive thing to do, and often not successful; to ignore a law
risks suffering the penalties involved (fines or even prison);
changing one’s behavior may require a person to do something
that violates an important, even sacred, principle.The tension
between civil law and morality is clearly expressed in the
question of school prayer in public schools. An individual has
the right to pray, but it has also been found by the courts that
official school prayer violates the Establishment Clause of the
First Amendment. In this case, a compromise has been sought,
allowing individuals to pray, and allowing groups to gather to
pray voluntarily—before school, during lunch, or after school—
on their own. This allows these individuals to express their own
religious views, and the school avoids seeming to endorse a
specific denomination, practice, or prayer by having prayers at
official school functions. Many involved in this dispute are
unhappy with this compromise: Some regard prohibiting prayers
at assemblies and graduation ceremonies as an infringement
upon their rights, while others see public schools as

religiousfree zones, and urge banning songs and holiday
references that include specific religious terms. In a society as
large and as diverse as the United States, with members of many
different religions, ethnicities, races, languages, and cultural
traditions, such compromises may be necessary. On the one
hand, it may be argued that the laws of a country should reflect
the values of the majority. On the other hand, if certain
freedoms are actually rights, presumably those rights should not
be subject to the endorsement or veto of the majority.
One of the difficulties in studying ethics is determining the
appropriate way to apply a given theory. The basic utilitarian
principle dictates to do that which will produce the greatest
good for the greatest number. But one of the difficulties with
applying utilitarianism is identifying the group in question: in
other words, “the greatest number of whom?” We will
demonstrate this problem by examining the arguments for and
against school prayer from the perspective of utilitarianism. As
we will see, different conclusions follow from how we describe
and apply our use of the utilitarian principle. This doesn’t mean
the principle is wrong, however. But it does mean that in
applying the principle, we need to be careful, and precise, in
that application. There’s an old saying, “As long as there are
math tests, there will be prayer in school.” The idea here, of
course, is that individual students cannot be prevented from
engaging in prayer on their own, as individuals. Such prayer is
voluntary and engaged in only by the individual. Furthermore,
the Supreme Court has ruled that students are allowed to
organize, voluntarily, religious clubs—which can include prayer
and Bible study—at public schools, just as they might any other
kind of club. As we noted earlier, it is important to differentiate
between allowing prayer and promoting it. The legal challenges
that have been brought have often objected to a school officially
endorsing a prayer at recognized school-wide events. On some
views, this moves from permitting individuals to pray—a
protected right—to endorsing prayer by officially recognizing

it, which may well violate a person’s rights.
Act Utilitarianism
A utilitarian might well argue that in a given school or school
district, or community, the majority (and even a vast majority)
of its members belongs to a specific faith tradition. The greatest
good for the greatest number, in this case, would seem to allow
that majority to pray and participate in religious activities in the
way they desire. This might include prayers at football games,
school assemblies, and graduation ceremonies. To prevent the
majority from expressing its religious views this way is to bend
to the dictates of a minority. But even if it could be shown that
the minority may maximize its utility by eliminating such
prayers, it is clear that allowing those prayers produces the
greatest good. Some might regard this as an application,
specifically, of act utilitarianism: The act of allowing
prayers for the majority of a given community creates the
greatest good for the greatest number; therefore, prayer should
be allowed.
Rule Utilitarianism
A contrasting approach to utilitarianism, which might be
regarded as rule utilitarianism, argues otherwise. Again
applying the principle of the “greatest good for the greatest
number,” the rule utilitarian will argue that allowing the
majority’s religious views to be imposed on a minority does not
create the greatest good for the greatest number. In addition to
the minority’s rights being ignored (which decreases the
happiness of those in the minority), many in the majority may
also recognize that ignoring legitimate rights of a minority is
harmful, both to those suffering the harm and to those doing the
harm. Participating in something that causes harm (harm, here,
to the rights of the minority) decreases the rule utilitarian will
see simply applying the “greatest good greatest number”
principle in a situation that ignores or violates the legitimate
rights of members of the community does not lead to allowing
prayer in school in general. Rather, it leads to preventing school
prayer in situations, such as school assemblies and graduation

ceremonies, that cannot be regarded as voluntary in any genuine
sense. Here, then, we see two distinct applications of the
utilitarian principle: one leading to the result that school prayer,
in a very general way, should be allowed, and the other leading
to the result that school prayer, in a very general way, should
not be allowed. What this seems to tell us is that the rights of
the individuals involved must be looked at very carefully, to
determine where one person’s rights begin to conflict with
another person’s. It also seems to indicate that when we look at
the happiness, or utility, of a given group, we need to be aware
that how we specify the community makes a difference. Within
a public school, is the community we are concerned with
everyone who attends the school? Those who are religious who
attend the school? Those members of the dominant religious
tradition,
if any, of those who attend the school? Do we include, for that
matter, those who might end up attending this school, or who
graduated from this school, and thus are part of its extended
community? These questions aren’t always easy to answer, but
the issues they raise need to be factored in when evaluating the
overall set of questions involved.
Some Conclusions
Religion is an extraordinarily personal experience for many
people and is often fundamental to a person’s understanding of
who he or she is. Because religion is such a basic part of a
person’s self-conception, someone may feel his or her right to
the free expression of religious beliefs is restricted by not being
allowed to state them when and where he or she wishes. At the
same time, two people’s religious views may conflict, whether
they are of distinct religious traditions or one is religious and
the other is not. It is unlikely that any ethical result will satisfy
everyone and that these conflicts will be resolved in a way that
makes everyone happy. But ethics can provide valuable insight
into clarifying these issues and offer very helpful ways of
thinking about such conflicts in a way that can address
them.With respect to both the legal results and a more general

way of regarding religion, increasing attention has been paid to
the idea of prayer in public schools being voluntary. An
individual cannot be prevented from praying in public school;
religious student organizations are permitted the same
opportunities as other student organizations. These activities are
regarded as voluntary. In contrast, school-sanctioned events,
whether football games or graduation exercises, tend to be
recognized by the courts as the kinds of events where it is
inappropriate to have prayer, in that a prayer at such an event
automatically brings with it an official or unofficial school
endorsement. Of course, attendance at a high school football
game isn’t something we regard as mandatory, but, as the courts
recognized, such a game is an official school function and also
may involve an element of peer pressure. Fundamentally, the
argument is that one should be able to attend the football games
of one’s public school without having to participate in a prayer
that contradicts one’s beliefs, whether one follows a different
religious faith or is not religious at all. And, as many religious
people have argued, to insist on a prayer that is so general that
it doesn’t conflict with another’s beliefs (religious or otherwise)
seems to make pointless the very notion of “prayer.”Of course,
exceptions to what an ethicist might argue, or what the courts
have ruled, can be found; often these cases receive a great deal
of publicity and seem to indicate either that a “war on religion”
is being waged by public schools, or that minorities are having
their own religious rights “violated and trampled.” It may be the
case that the publicity these instances receive implies that these
issues arise more frequently than they actually do. To be sure, a
teacher who prevents a Christian student from carrying the
Bible violates that student’s rights, just as a teacher violates the
rights of a Jewish student by insisting that he write an essay on
the topic “Why Jesus loves me.” (These are both actual cases.)
The goal of ethics not only allows us to see that these actions
violate an individual’s religious rights but also provides us with
a way of arguing why they violate them.
What Role Does Conscience Play?

People identify themselves in many different ways: through
their ethnicity, race, country of origin, class, gender, sexual
orientation, and religion, among many others. Often people
regard themselves as members of a relatively cohesive group
because of oneor more of these factors: thus, a person might
consider herself an African American Roman Catholic, while
another may consider himself a member of a Spanish-speaking
Protestant community. Belonging to such a community brings
certain commitments: Perhaps one insists on a particular
interpretation of “marriage” or “science”; perhaps one’s
religious or cultural community requires that women and men
act in specific and different ways, in terms of dress, occupation,
worship, and so on. Clearly enough, the values of these
communities may differ, and even sharply conflict. If the values
of your culture or community conflict too much with that of the
surrounding community, you are confronted with a difficult
problem. As a simple example, if one’s community accepts
polygyny (a husband having more than one wife), while the
larger community rejects it, how does one resolve this conflict?
These kinds of conflicts occur with some frequency, of course,
but most people learn to adjust: Perhaps they aren’t entirely
satisfied with the values of the larger community, but the
advantages of participating in that community make it more
practical to tolerate that dissatisfaction. For instance, a parent
may be suspicious about the science behind climate change but
otherwise be quite pleased with the education offered by the
school; the parent accepts it, and perhaps offers an alternative
view to that presented in the school. In the case of religion in
public school, some parents find it a better solution to send
their children to private, parochial, or religious schools, or to
home school their children. These parents, of course, don’t
withdraw from the community entirely; they simply leave part
of it.When more serious conflicts do arise, some find it
impossible to remain within the community.
Although these cases are relatively rare, they provide a way of
examining the role an individual’s conscience plays when

evaluating one’s membership in a larger community. If one’s
values compel one to reject the values of that larger community,
one has to confront the choice between somehow tolerating
something consistently offensive, or withdrawing entirely from
that community in order to live, in a different way, with people
who share those values. There may also be serious ethical
concerns relative to those shared values that conflict with those
of the larger community. Some have chosen to form separate
communities, in part, to avoid living among African Americans,
or Roman Catholics, or Jews, or members of other groups
defined as not sharing the values of that community.
Other separate communities have been formed on the basis of
economic complaints— specifically, tax laws—and on the basis
of specific religious values. An ethical investigation here might
ask whether the dictates of conscience, in this case, should be
respected, or critically scrutinized. Most of us live between the
two extremes of our values never being challenged by
something in society and our values being so consistently
violated that we decide to leave the community entirely. But
this raises a number of important ethical questions about living
in a community with others who may not share one’s values. At
what point should we object, when we find our values being
violated? How can we make sure our rights are respected? Can
our values be preserved without infringing on the rights of
others? In our desire to protect our own moral values, do we
forget to consider the moral values of others? Ethics offers
some insight into these questions, although, again, without
offering a solution that will be satisfactory to everyone. In a
society that is increasingly pluralistic and diverse, it is very
likely that conflicts among the values of the members of a
society will persist (if not increase), and we will continue to
need to address these questions.
Where Do We Go From Here?
As noted earlier, the United States is a diverse society and is
particularly diverse in terms of both the faith traditions
followed by Americans as well as an increasing number of

Americans who have no religion. Even though the diversity in
the United States has increased dramatically, Christianity has
been and continues to be the dominant faith tradition in the
United States. The implication of these characteristics seems to
indicate that we recognize how important
religious values are to many people. But that importance also
makes it compelling to recognize others’ religious beliefs, as
well as the beliefs of those who have no religion. It seems
likely that one result is that there will continue to be a good bit
of give and take over this issue, with some substantial conflicts
arising between those who don’t think religion in public schools
is given sufficient recognition and those who think otherwise.
Some will think a certain religious tradition is too specifically
identified, which may be unconstitutional; others may think any
mention of religion should be omitted entirely from the public
schools; still others may think that religion is too important to
allow the public schools to interfere with it at all. So perhaps
the implications of this debate are to recognize that diversity
can lead to such conflicts, and that those in the majority may
need to be particularly sensitive to the beliefs of others,
religious or otherwise. Such sensitivity is, of course, a two-way
street, and so this sensitivity may also increase the need for
tolerance. No solution will satisfy everyone, but insisting that
prayer in public school always be voluntary, and that religion be
treated in public schools in a way that recognizes a diversity of
beliefs and tolerance for those
beliefs, may go a long way toward minimizing these conflicts,
although it may be too much to ask for these conflicts to be
eliminated entirely.
2.3 A Historical Debate: A Woman’s Right to Vote
It is a good thing to remember that ethics can make a
difference; not all ethical arguments are abstract discussions of
hypothetical cases, but we can see that they have brought about
significant change. In this case, we will look at the arguments
over giving women the right to vote in the United States, known
as the question of “women’s suffrage.” As we will see,

something we may now take as obvious and “common sense”
wasn’t always regarded that way, and ethical considerations
were important in making it possible for women to vote. It is
probably worth noting that some of the arguments may sound
pretty dubious as this point, but when made they were found by
many to be extremely persuasive. Here we will look at the issue
from the perspective of virtue ethics and from the perspective of
deontology, as they might have been presented when this issue
was still a volatile topic of discussion. This issue of women’s
voting rights is a good example of how moral and ethical
arguments can both provide clarity to our understanding of the
issues and produce a genuine difference.
The Argument Against Women’s Suffrage
It is unquestionable that men and women are fundamentally
distinct. This is obviously the case in terms of biology; the very
differences can be immediately observed, and they are even
more obvious in reproduction, where men and women play
radically distinct roles. Because of the role women play in
carrying, delivering, and raising children, they have a specific
approach to things, in terms of their compassion, their abilities
to nurture, and their willingness to compromise and avoid
conflict. These differences, both physiological and
psychological, have long been noted. Aristotle, 400 years before
the birth of
Christ, noted that
The female is softer in disposition than the male, is more
mischievous, less
simple, more impulsive, and more attentive to the nurture of the
young;
the male, on the other hand, is more spirited than the female,
more savage,
more simple and less cunning. The traces of these differentiated
characteristics
are more or less visible everywhere, but they are especially
visible
where character is the more developed, and most of all in man.

(Aristotle,
2005)
This is also reflected in our very language: The word
“hysterical” comes from the Latin term referring to the womb,
and gives us the English word “uterus.” Perhaps less well
known is that the term “lady” originally comes from the Old
English term for “one who kneads, or makes, bread” and that
the very term “feminine” originates from a term for breast
feeding. Terms associated with women have, in English and in
other languages, always emphasized softness and delicacy, and
their importance as wives and mothers— the Bible reinforces
this; Delilah, Jezebel, and Salome represent women who behave
immorally (that is, in a treacherous or adulterous manner),
whereas Mary, whose humility and maternal aspects are
emphasized, represents the virtuous woman. It is clear from the
way the term “woman” developed in English that the virtues of
a woman are to be praised; for a well-functioning society,
women are indispensable to keep the home running well, to
ensure that children are raised appropriately, and to take care
of, efficiently and effectively, all those things that fall within a
woman’s many areas of expertise. But politics is an entirely
distinct realm, where women lack the temperament, the attitude,
the understanding, and the experience
to function effectively. Thus, women are not suited to
participate in politics, either as elected officials or as voters. In
addition to these somewhat abstract and philosophical reasons,
we can add a few specific points and summarize the position as
follows. Women have a crucial role in society—to take care of
the home; politics is a separate sphere and is really only
suitable for men. Only by keeping these spheres separate can
women play their important role in maintaining the values and
civility of society. The need for this separation is clearly seen
in the distinct physiological and psychological makeup of
women, as opposed to men. Women, by their very temperament,
are not suited to the unpleasant and sometimes violent
confrontations required by politics. In any case, many women

do not want the vote, believing it will dilute the very real power
they in fact have over their husbands already. Furthermore, it
will give the vote to an enormous number of people who have
neither the background nor the understanding to make good
political decisions. For all of these reasons, women neither
need, nor should they be given, the right to vote.
The Argument for Women’s Suffrage
Women are human beings. They are expected to care for
themselves, their families, their husbands, their children, and
their homes. As such, they have some of the most significant
responsibilities that can be entrusted to anyone. Yet, while
shouldering these responsibilities and others, a woman is
deprived of the fundamental right of political representation.
She works hard, often for no salary, and often harder than any
man, and helps make the society in which she lives function;
indeed, women make that society possible. Yet that same
society prevents her from the right any man has, simply by
accident of his being born a man: the right to vote. A woman’s
contributions to society are absolutely indispensable. In
addition to being a human being, with certain rights that cannot
morally be violated—such as the right to vote—women deserve
to have an equal say in how that society is organized and how
its politics should be structured. As Susan B. Anthony stated,
“There never will be complete equality until women themselves
help to make laws and elect lawmakers.”(Anthony, 1987, p.
901–908) If the Declaration of Independence indicates that all
people are created equal, this has clearly not been the case for
women. They are expected to fulfill all their responsibilities
while being denied one of their fundamental rights. If “no
taxation without representation” was justification for the
American Revolution, what does that tell women, who toil as
hard as men, have responsibilities equal or greater than those of
men, live with men under the same rules and laws of society,
yet have no representation? Depriving women of the right to
vote is both immoral, in that it denies women a fundamental
right, and unjust, by not allowing them what is due them: the

rights that coexist with responsibilities. If a woman is expected
to take on those responsibilities, then she must be accorded the
rights due her, and one of those rights is the right to vote.
Perhaps someone will suggest that husbands or fathers represent
women. Would any man be willing to switch positions in this
and regard it as fair were wives and daughters taken to represent
their views accruately? Is it sensible, or fair, for half the
population to hope that their views are represented by the other
half? Might there not be a perspective on important political
issues that women bring into consideration that would be
otherwise ignored? Wouldn’t political decisions be better
informed, and thus be better decisions, if such an important
perspective were taken into account? And who better to present
the political perspectives women have than women? The
argument, then, is simple. Women are human beings, with rights
and responsibilities. One of those rights, perhaps as
fundamental as any, is the right to vote. Having deprived
women of this right for so long doesn’t mean it is fair, or just; it
means that something unfair and unjust has gone on for far too
long. One of the fundamental principles of a free and fair
society is that its members deserve representation, and deserve
to represent themselves. The only correct result, therefore, as a
matter of the moral law and as a matter of justice, is to provide
women with what they are due: their right to vote.
Women’s suffrage may be firmly resolved in the United States,
but as we have seen, the issue still offers some insights into
how social questions are deliberated and finally established in
law. Now that we have considered two sides of the issue, we
will discuss the ways a virtue ethicist and a deontologist might
approach this debate.
Virtue Ethics
The extraordinary thing about women is their virtue: their
remarkable abilities to handle so many different things and to
handle them well. They are caring, generous, nurturing, and
practical; they are good friends, and, when their virtues are

present in the appropriate way, they make good sisters,
daughters, wives, and mothers. Virtue ethics sees these virtues
as precisely the things to emphasize for a virtuous woman:
never in their extremes, but always aiming at an appropriate and
moderate degree, a Golden Mean. The virtue ethicist might then
argue as follows: The virtues of a woman are best seen when
displayed in the proper place and in the proper and appropriate
way—in the home as a wife and mother, in the elementary
school as a teacher, in the hospital as a nurse. These are roles
women have excelled in for centuries, and society functions
most efficiently and most productively when they continue to do
so. On this same view, politics can often be contentious, ugly,
confrontational, and even violent. Women do not do well in this
kind of environment, and the virtues that women possess cannot
be developed and improved, therefore, by engaging in politics.
Women also lack the educational background and the general
temperament for participating in politics. Giving women the
vote will force them into an arena where their skills are
inadequate, and will simultaneously prevent them from spending
their time where they should be, and where their virtues are
most evident. Any decision that has such disastrous moral
results cannot be a good one, and thus the virtue ethicist would
have to conclude that giving a woman the right to vote would be
wrong, both for her and for her society.
Deontology
The deontologist, of course, disputes much of this
characterization of women, and may well reject the idea that
women have some set of “virtues” that are fundamentally
distinct from those of men. Men aren’t defined in terms of being
a husband, a brother, a father. Why are women characterized
solely in terms of their roles, rather than as free, independent,
and creative human beings? Women may well be good wives
and mothers, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be more than (or
something other than) wives and mothers. Women may well be
good teachers, but can’t they also be good college professors?
Women may well be good nurses, but can’t they also be good

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