Ethics Systems Rights and JusticeChapter 2222-1Co.docx

Ethics Systems: Rights and Justice
Chapter 22
22-1
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as
Prentice Hall
1
Topics Covered
Introduction
Classification of ethics systems
Classes of rights
Kantian maxims or moral rules
Applied rights analysis
Conflicts among rights
Equal employment opportunity
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Topics Covered
Paternalism

Neoclassical liberalism
Categories of justice theories
Rawls’s theory of justice
Higher order standards for evaluating ethics systems
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Introduction
Consequentialist ethics systems such as utilitarianism focus on:
The good and evaluate the good in terms of individuals’
preferences for consequences
Rights established under a consequentialist system are
instrumental
Their justification is in terms of the consequences they yield
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Classification of Ethics Systems
Teleological - Define the rightness of an action in terms of the
good its consequences yield
Also called consequentialist systems
Deontological - Holds that moral right takes precedence over
the good
Can be evaluated by considerations independent of, or in
addition to, consequences

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Teleological and Deontological Ethics Systems
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Rights
May be derived from moral principles
May be established through political choice
These often reflect moral principles
Established through legislation
Established through private agreements
Established by implicit contracts
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Negative and Positive Rights
Negative rights impose duties on people and the state not to
interfere with the actions of a person
For example, freedom of speech and assembly

Positive rights impose affirmative duties on others to take
particular action
For example, right to public education
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An important difference between rights established by the state
and those based on moral principles is that the former can be
publicly enforced, whereas for moral rights there is no
enforcement mechanism other than individual sanction.
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Kantian Maxims or Moral Rules
Categorical imperative - A fundamental axiom on which Kant’s
system is based on
Serves two basic functions
Provides a basis for determining maxims and moral rules
Prescribes that individuals are to act in accord with those rules
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For Kant, freedom and rationality are the foundations of a
theory of morality.
The strength of Kant’s conception of morality is that it focuses
on motives or reasons for acting that are universal—apply to

everyone—and thus are reversible—apply to oneself.
The categorical imperative thus embodies two standards for the
evaluation of maxims—universalizability and reversibility.
Universalizability may be thought of as “Would I want everyone
to behave according to that rule?” Reversibility may be thought
of as “Would I want that rule applied to me?”
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The Relationship between Maxims and Rights
Kant’s system is expressed in terms of maxims:
Which individuals have a moral duty to respect
That duty establishes moral rights
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Those moral rights are intrinsic, since they are derived from the
categorical imperative and not from other considerations such
as consequences.
Maxims
“A firm must sell its product to anyone who wants it, regardless
of the price they are willing to pay.”
“A firm must sell its product to anyone who is willing to pay
the price set by the firm.”
“A firm must sell its product to anyone who is willing to pay
the cost of producing it.”
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Instrumental Rights

To be respected because they contribute to achieving better
consequences, by, for example, enabling individuals to pursue
their interests
Intrinsic Rights
To be respected in and of themselves and do not require any
justification in terms of consequences or other considerations
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Instrumental Rights and Consequences
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Intrinsic Rights and Consequences
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Criticisms of Kantian Rights
Include:
Those that pertain to deontological systems in general

Those specific to his system
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The fundamental criticism of deontological systems is that they
fail to explain why a principle or right should be respected.
More specific criticisms of rights-based ethics systems are that
they may not:
Identify sufficiently precisely where the corresponding duty
lies.
Indicate priority when one right conflicts with another.
Indicate when—if ever—it would be acceptable to violate a
right.
In spite of these criticisms, individual rights are a fundamental
component of our ethical intuition.
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Applied Rights Analysis
In managerial decision making, rights have two effects:
They rule out certain alternatives, such as those that would
violate moral principles or legally protected rights
A right may impose an affirmative duty that requires a firm to
take particular actions
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Granted Right
Established by moral consensus or by government and is
accompanied by a clear assignment of the corresponding duty
Claimed Right
When the duty has not been clearly assigned, moral consensus is
absent, or government has not spoken
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Individuals claim rights and make demands on others by
asserting moral justifications, but others may view those claims
as morally unjustified.
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Rights and Moral Standing
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Ethics pertains to the moral standing of claims.
Politics involves efforts to turn claimed rights into granted
rights or vise versa.
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A Methodology for Rights Analysis
Identify the rights claimed and their claimed moral bases
Determine which claimed rights satisfy moral standards
If a claim is not morally justified, check whether it is

established by government
If it is, it is granted and is to be respected
If not, the claim need not be respected
Identify the actions consistent with the protection or promotion
of any morally justified rights
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Rights analysis has two principal components.
The first is determining whether a claimed right has moral
standing.
The second is determining how conflicts among rights are to be
resolved.
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A Methodology for Rights Analysis
Identify conflicts among rights
If there are none, those claimed rights with moral standing are
to be respected
If there are conflicts among rights with moral standing:
Investigate the importance of the interests those rights are
intended to protect or promote
Prioritize the rights based on the importance of those interests
and determine the extent to which each is constrained by the
others
Choose the action that does best in terms of the priorities
established
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Conflicts Among Rights
Rights and interests
Prioritization
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When the set of rights is expanded to include instrumental
rights and granted rights established by government through
politics, however, rights can be in conflict.
Those conflicts may mean that there is no action that respects
all rights.
Rights and interests
In the case of moral rights, or rights more generally, one
approach to reasoning about, if not resolving, conflicts is to
assess the importance of the rights by considering the interests
they are intended to promote or protect.
Prioritization
The framework for analyzing conflicts among rights begins with
an identification of a right, an assessment of whether it is
claimed or granted, and its bases.
The possible bases for a right are moral and legal, where the
latter includes the Constitution, statutes, court precedents, and
contracts.
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Applied Rights Analysis: Integrity Tests
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The figure presents a framework for prioritizing conflicting
rights and illustrates the integrity tests issue.
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Equal Employment Opportunity
A principle supported by virtually all ethics systems
Its importance is supported by legal grants that provide for its
public enforcement
Its legal manifestation is Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of
1964:
Which prohibits discrimination on the basis of “race, color, sex,
religion, or national origin”
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Complex issues involving equal opportunity and discrimination
continue to arise in the employment relationship.
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Paternalism
Actions taken to benefit a person without that person’s consent
Is a moral wrong
Is objectionable from a consequentialist perspective because:

It denies individuals the opportunity to make choices that would
further their interests
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In any ethics system emphasizing individual autonomy and
liberty, consent is essential for an action or a rule to have moral
standing.
One is acting paternalistically toward a person if and only if:
One’s action benefits that person.
One’s action involves violating a moral rule with regard to that
person.
One’s action does not have that person’s past, present, or
immediately forthcoming consent.
That person is competent to give consent (simple or valid) to
the violation.
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Neoclassical Liberalism
Emphasizes the liberty of individuals
Concerned with the relationships between liberty and morality
and between liberty and the state
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Categories of Justice Theories
Distributive

Compensatory
Retributive
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Distributive justice
Concerned with the distribution of the rewards and burdens of
social interactions.
Necessarily comparative, since it identifies how those rewards
and burdens are assigned to individuals with particular
attributes or in particular situations.
The basic comparative principle of distributive justice is that
“Equals should be treated equally and unequals, unequally.”
Compensatory justice
Concerned with whether and how a person should be
compensated for an injustice.
Has fairness and restitution as its goals.
If a person is injured, the institutions of society may be
designed to compensate the person.
Compensation serves two objectives.
First, it provides restitution for the injury.
Second, it provides incentives to reduce injuries and their social
costs by imposing the burden on the parties best placed to avoid
accidents.
Retributive justice
Concerned with punishment for actions that are contrary to a
moral rule or societal well-being.
May be used to justify deterring harmful actions.
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Distributive Justice: Utilitarianism, Egalitarianism, and
Rawlsian Justice
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Injustice
A general principle advanced in conceptions of justice is that:
An injustice is morally tolerated only if it is necessary to avoid
a greater injustice
Requires an ordering of injustices
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Rawls’s Contractarian Framework
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Rawls argues that individuals would adopt two principles as a
basis for justice as fairness:
Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive

basic liberty compatible with similar liberty for others.
Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they
are both:
To the greatest benefit of the least advantaged.
Attached to positions and offices open to all under conditions of
fair equality of opportunity.
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Difference Principle, Utilitarianism, Egalitarianism
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The role of incentives and the comparison between the
utilitarian, egalitarian, and Rawlsian systems are illustrated in
the figure, where the utility possibility set corresponds to
societal institutions that satisfy the equal liberty and fair
equality of opportunity principles.
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Criticisms of Rawls’s Theory
One form of criticism centers on whether all individuals in the
original position would choose the same principles:
If so, whether they would choose Rawls’s principles rather than
some other principles
Another criticism centers on Rawls’s conclusion that:
In the original position, once liberties and equal opportunity
have been assured, society would choose institutions that
provide the maximum benefit to the least advantaged

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Methodology for Applying the Principles of Justice
Identify the liberties and rights involved
The principle of equal liberty
The principle of fair equality of opportunity
For the remaining alternatives, evaluate their fairness
implications for the pursuit of opportunities by those affected
Choose among the remaining policies based on the difference
principle
Identify which parties have which duties
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In this methodology a departure from equal liberty cannot be
justified by an advantage in social or economic matters for any
individual, including the least advantaged.
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Higher Order Standards for Evaluating Ethics Systems
The ethics systems based on utilitarian, rights, and justice
considerations use two general standards for determining which
principles or rules have moral standing:
Universalizability (which implies reversibility)
Unanimous impartial choice as in Rawls’s original position
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Kantian maxims meet both standards.
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Cases - Genetic Testing in the Workplace
Determines susceptibility to certain hazards can be done from a
sample of blood or other bodily fluid
Can be used for either screening or monitoring purposes
Can also be used to monitor groups of employees over time
To determine if they experience chromosome damage due to
exposure in the workplace
In 2008, Congress enacted and the president signed the Genetic
Information Nondiscrimination Act
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Cases - Chipotle Mexican Grill and Undocumented Workers
Despite the success of the company in the marketplace, the
management team faced:
A difficult challenge in its nonmarket environment
In 2010 ICE conducted an investigation of Chipotle restaurants
leading to the firing of 400 workers
The chair of the immigration subcommittee of the House
Judiciary Committee, Elton Gallegly (R-CA), argued that the
use of E-Verify should be mandatory
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce reported that its members had
mixed reactions to making E-Verify mandatory

Advocates for undocumented workers argued that firing the
workers would simply drive them into the underground economy
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Cases - Environmental Injustice?
Addresses two aspects
Explanation for the empirical finding
Centers on whether the situation is unjust
Explanations for the finding that minorities and those in poverty
are disproportionately located proximate hazardous waste
facilities
Firms that construct and operate plants with toxic emissions and
hazardous waste facilities:
Seek to impose harm on the poor and minorities
Locations for such facilities are chosen on an economic basis
Locations for toxic emissions and hazardous waste facilities are
chosen based on economic considerations and with the intent of
avoiding posing a risk to people
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Cases - Environmental Injustice?
The bulk of the empirical studies examining the socio-economic
characteristics of people who might be exposed to the hazards
analyze:
The data at a point in time at which both the toxic emission site
and the people are present

Ann Wolverton, an economist at the EPA, conducted an
empirical study on Environmental Injustice
Supports the third explanation and not the first or second
explanations
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