The evolution of economic altruism is one of the most vigorous areas of study at the intersection of biology, economics, and philosophy. The basic problem is easily understood. Biological organisms, be they people or paramecia, have ample opportunity to confer benefits on others at relatively low cost to themselves. If conferring such benefits becomes common, the overall productivity of the population in which it occurs is increased. Presumably, there is no advantage to refusing such benefits, but it is also (...) the case that there is considerable advantage to pursuing a strategy according to which such benefits are accepted, but not conferred. In populations where individuals interact at random with others and when individuals play pure strategies (i.e., they always confer or do not confer benefits), the inevitable outcome is that altruistic behavior is driven to extinction. (Axelrod 1984) Nonetheless, there is ample evidence that self-sacrificing behavior is common in nature. (Sober and Wilson 1998) Consequently, individuals must not be interacting at random. The pressing question is then: what patterns of non-random interaction are responsible for the prevalence of altruistic behavior, and more theoretically, what sorts of plausible mechanisms exist that could generate the right kind of non- 1 The research reported here was supported by Canada ????? grant # ????? and the Centre for Applied Ethics at the University of British Columbia. (shrink)

In legal decisions standpoints can be supported by formal and also by substantive interpretative arguments. Formal arguments consist of reasons the weight or force of which is essentially dependent on the authoritativeness that the reasons may also have: In this connection one may think of linguistic and systemic arguments. On the other hand, substantive arguments are not backed up by authority, but consist of a direct invocation of moral, political, economic, or other social considerations. Formal arguments can be analyzed (...) as exclusionary reasons: The authoritative character excludes—in principle—substantial counterarguments. Formal arguments are sometimes used to conceal value judgements based on substantial arguments. This paper deals with reconstructing problems regarding this strategic use of formal arguments in legal decisions, with a focus on linguistic argumentation. (shrink)

One core question in contemporary political economy is whether economic liberties should be constitutionally protected as basic rights. In this article I do not provide a positive argument for the view that economic liberties are basic rights. Rather, I seek to provide a reason for not embracing the opposing view, i.e. that economic liberties should not be constitutionally protected as basic rights. Based on Hayek’s theory of price as signal, I argue that price control, a view usually (...) associated with high liberals, and sometimes endorsed by moderate welfarists, is environmentally sub-optimal. (shrink)

The social democratic state pursued interventionism for positive political freedom, making markets adapt to the needs of a fair democratic society, with the provision of social rights. The Robbins’ Report, which inaugurated the expansion of state-funded higher education in the 1960s, held that access to higher education was a social right and that the ‘cultivation’ produced by higher education was a good in itself and the epistemic basis for a social democratic society. Despite rhetorical appeals to negative political freedom, the (...) neoliberal state is interventionist, but with interventionism to promote the economic freedom of corporations. The state adapts the market to corporate needs and seeks to force individuals to adapt to this market. The current Conservative Government is seeking to re-engineer English higher education to make it adapt more fully to enhancing the economic freedom of corporations, using audit culture and changes to the Research Councils, with the former being presented as neutral-technocratic proxies for market signals. Using Gadamer, and his Humboldtian conception of higher education, which is similar to that argued for in the Robbins Report, it is argued that such changes cause objective harm to our ‘Being’, with this inaugurating an authoritarian technocratic approach to English higher education. (shrink)

There is a long-standing debate in philosophy about whether it is morally permissible to harm one person in order to prevent a greater harm to others and, if not, what is the moral principle underlying the prohibition. Hypothetical moral dilemmas are used in order to probe moral intuitions. Philosophers use them to achieve a reflective equilibrium between intuitions and principles, psychologists to investigate moral decision-making processes. In the dilemmas, the harms that are traded off are almost always deaths. (...) However, the moral principles and psychological processes are supposed to be broader than this, encompassing harms other than death. Further, if the standard pattern of intuitions is preserved in the domain of economic harm, then that would open up the possibility of studying behavior in trolley problems using the tools of experimental economics. We report the results of two studies designed to test whether the standard patterns of intuitions are preserved when the domain and severity of harm are varied. Our findings show that the difference in moral intuitions between bystander and footbridge scenarios is replicated across different domains and levels of physical and non-physical harm, including economic harms. (shrink)

Distant Harms, Distant Markets looks at moral complicity in markets, employing resources from sociology, early Christian history, feminism, legal theory, and Catholic moral theology today. The authors skillfully explore the causal and moral responsibilities which consumers bear for the harms that markets cause to distant others.

There is a long-standing debate in philosophy about whether it is morally permissible to harm one person in order to prevent a greater harm to others and, if not, what is the moral principle underlying the prohibition. Hypothetical moral dilemmas are used in order to probe moral intuitions. Philosophers use them to achieve a reflective equilibrium between intuitions and principles, psychologists to investigate moral decision-making processes. In the dilemmas, the harms that are traded off are almost always deaths. (...) However, the moral principles and psychological processes are supposed to be broader than this, encompassing harms other than death. Further, if the standard pattern of intuitions is preserved in the domain of economic harm, then that would open up the possibility of studying behaviour in trolley problems using the tools of experimental economics. We report the results of two studies designed to test whether the standard patterns of intuitions are preserved when the domain and severity of harm are varied. Our findings show that the difference in moral intuitions between bystander and footbridge scenarios is replicated across different domains and levels of physical and non-physical harm, including economic harms. (shrink)

Many political theorists think about how to make societies more just. In recent years, with interests shifting from principles to their institutional realization, there has been much debate about feasibility and the role it should play in theorizing. What has been underexplored, however, is how feasibility depends on the attitudes and perceptions of individuals, not only with regard to their own behaviour, but also with regard to the behaviour of others. This can create coordination problems, which can be described as (...) “feasibility gridlocks”. These problems are interesting from a normative perspective, not only because they arguably play an important role for the feasibility of institutions, but also because they contain a normative element themselves: individual might be willing to cooperate in order change the “feasibility frontier” Political ideals and the feasibility frontier. Econ Philos), but only if others are also willing to do their bit, which contains a judgment about the fair distribution of burdens. Beliefs about the selfish nature of human beings, however, can make feasibility gridlocks more likely. This is why what I call, for the sake of brevity, “economic ideology”, i.e. an account of human nature as fundamentally self-interested, can be harmful. Finding a way out of such equilibriums therefore is an important task for political theorists and social reformers. (shrink)

A long-standing theoretical tradition in clinical psychology and psychiatry sees deliberate self-harm , such as wrist-cutting, as “functional”—a means to avoid painful emotions, for example, or to elicit attention from others. There is substantial evidence that DSH serves these functions. Yet the specific links between self-harm and such functions remain obscure. Why don’t self-harmers use less destructive behaviors to blunt painful emotions or elicit attention? Economists and biologists have used game theory to show that, under certain circumstances, self-harmful (...) behaviors by economic agents and animals serve important strategic goals. In particular, “costly signals” can credibly reveal a “private state” in situations where verbal claims and other “cheap” signals might be disbelieved. Here, DSH is scrutinized using signaling theory, and a variant, the theory of bargaining with private information. The social contexts and associated features of DSH suggest that it might be a costly, and therefore credible, signal of need that compels social partners to respond. (shrink)

In these writings by one of our most creative legal philosophers, Meir Dan-Cohen explores the nature of the self and its response to legal commands and mounts a challenge to some prevailing tenets of legal theory and the neighboring moral, political, and economic thought. The result is an insider's critique of liberalism that extends contemporary liberalism's Kantian strand, combining it with postmodernist ideas about the contingent and socially constructed self to build a thoroughly original perspective on some of the (...) most vital concerns of legal and moral theory.Dan-Cohen looks first at the ubiquity of legal coercion and considers its decisive impact on the nature of legal discourse and communication, on law's normative aspirations and claim to obedience, and on the ideal of the rule of law. He moves on to discuss basic values, stressing the preeminence of individual identity and human dignity over the more traditional liberal preoccupations with preference-based choice and experiential harm. Dan-Cohen then focuses more directly on the normative ramifications of the socially constructed self. Fundamental concepts such as responsibility and ownership are reinterpreted to take account of the constitutive role that social practices--particularly law and morality--play in the formation of the self.Throughout, Dan-Cohen draws on a uniquely productive mix of philosophical traditions and subjects, blending the methods of analytic philosophy with the concerns of Continental philosophers to reconceive the self and its relation to ethics and the law. (shrink)

Philosophy & Public Affairs, Volume 50, Issue 2, Page 202-238, Spring 2022.

This paper discusses whether the collateral harm of imprisonment to the close family members and children of prison inmates may give rise to special moral obligations towards them. Several collateral harms, including decreased psychological wellbeing, financial costs, loss of economic opportunities, and intrusion and control over their private lives, are identified. Two competing perspectives in moral philosophy are then applied in order to assess whether the harms are permissible. The first is consequentialist and the second is deontological. It (...) is argued that both of them fails and therefore it is hard to defend the position that allowing for these harms would be morally permissible, even for the sake of the overall aims of incarceration. Instead, it is argued that these harms imply that imprisonment should only be used as a last resort. Where it is necessary, it should give rise to special moral obligations. Using the notion of residual obligation, these obligations are defended, categorized and clarified. (shrink)

While risk of harm is an important focus for whether clinical research on humans can and should proceed, there is uncertainty about what constitutes harm to a trial participant. In Phase I trials on healthy volunteers, the purpose of the research is to document and measure safety concerns associated with investigational drugs, and participants are financially compensated for their enrollment in these studies. In this article, we investigate how characterizations of harm are narrated by healthy volunteers in (...) the context of the adverse events they experience during clinical trials. Drawing upon qualitative research, we find that participants largely minimize, deny, or re-attribute the cause of these AEs. We illustrate how participants' interpretations of AEs may be shaped both by the clinical trial environment and their economic motivation to participate. While these narratives are emblematic of the larger ambiguity surrounding harm in the context of clinical trial participation, we argue that these interpretations also problematically maintain the narrative of the safety of clinical trials, the ethics of testing investigational drugs on healthy people, and the rigor of data collected in the specter of such ambiguity. (shrink)

In their fine paper, Evans et al. discuss the proposition that invasive non-native species are harmful. The question to ask is, “Harmful to whom?” Pathogens that make people sick and pests that damage their property—crops, for example—cause harms of kinds long understood in common law and recognized by public agencies. The concept of “ harm to the environment,” in contrast, has no standing in common law or legislation, no meaning for any empirical science, and no basis in a political (...) consensus other than might be drawn from the Endangered Species Act. As a generalization, the proposition that INS cause “environmental harm ”—since this concept is empty of legal, scientific, and political meaning—must rest on definition, diktat, or diatribe. As Evans et al. suggest, however, the idea of “ harm to the environment” is not always and certainly need not be arbitrary; it might gather significance in the context of a particular place through a political process that weighs economic concerns with cultural, religious, aesthetic, and other relevant beliefs, practices, and commitments that people who care about that place present. It is not clear, however, that adaptive management, which Evens et al. propose, will provide that democratic political process. (shrink)

The post-confinement phase of the COVID-19 pandemic will require that governments navigate more complex ethical questions than had occurred in the initial, ‘curve-flattening’ phase, and that will occur when the pandemic is in the past. By looking at the unavoidable harms involved in the confinement and quarantine methods employed during the initial phase of the pandemic, we can develop a harm reduction approach to managing the phase during which society will be gradually reopened in a context of managed risk. (...) The principles that are at the heart of such an approach include a reckoning with all of the harms involved in policy choice, including harms that might be given rise to by policy implementation itself; a focus on the harms to which already vulnerable populations are susceptible; and a strong preference for policies that economize on the use of prohibitions and of coercive state enforcement, and that instead emphasize the agency of citizens in realizing health-promoting behavior change. This framework is applied to a policy proposal that has been discussed in policy circles in a number of countries, that of immunity ‘passports’, and to policies that emphasize the creative use of space and time to achieve physical distancing goals. (shrink)

At least since Athenian trade sanctions helped to spark the Peloponnesian War, economic coercion has been a prominent tool of foreign policy. In the modern era, sovereign states and multilateral institutions have imposed economic sanctions on dictatorial regimes or would-be nuclear powers as an alternative to waging war. They have conditioned offers of aid, loans, and debt relief on recipients’ willingness to implement market and governance reforms. Such methods interfere in freedom of trade and the internal affairs of (...) sovereign states, yet are widely used as a means to advance human rights. But are they morally justifiable? -/- Drawing on human rights theories, theories of justifiable harm, and examples such as IMF lending practices and international sanctions on Russia and North Korea, Fabre offers a defense of economic statecraft in some of its guises. An empirically attuned work of philosophy, Economic Statecraft lays out a normative framework for an important tool of diplomacy. (shrink)

Discussions of the non-identity problem presuppose a widely shared intuition that actions or policies that change who comes into existence don't, thereby, become morally unproblematic. We hypothesize that this intuition isn’t generally shared by the public, which could have widespread implications concerning how to generate support for large-scale, identity-affecting policies relating to matters like climate change. To test this, we ran a version of the well-known dictator game designed to mimic the public's behavior over identity-affecting choices. We found the public (...) does seem to behave more selfishly when making identity-affecting choices, which should be concerning. We further hypothesized that one possible mechanism is the notion of harm the public uses in their decision-making and find that substantial portions of the population seem to each employ distinct notions of harm in their normative thinking. These findings raise puzzling features about the public’s normative thinking that call out for further empirical examination. (shrink)

All economic models involve abstractions and idealisations. Economic theory itself does not tell which idealizations are truly fatal or harmful for the result and which are not. This is why much of what is seen as theoretical contribution in economics is constituted by deriving familiar results from different modelling assumptions. If a modelling result is robust with respect to particular modelling assumptions, the empirical falsity of these particular assumptions does not provide grounds for criticizing the result. In this (...) paper we demonstrate how derivational robustness analysis does carry epistemic weight and answer criticism concerning its non-empirical nature and the problematic form of the required independence of the ways of derivation. The epistemic rationale and importance of robustness analysis also challenge some common conceptions of the role of theory in economics. (shrink)

We claim that the process of theoretical model refinement in economics is best characterised as robustness analysis: the systematic examination of the robustness of modelling results with respect to particular modelling assumptions. We argue that this practise has epistemic value by extending William Wimsatt's account of robustness analysis as triangulation via independent means of determination. For economists robustness analysis is a crucial methodological strategy because their models are often based on idealisations and abstractions, and it is usually difficult to tell (...) which idealisations are truly harmful. (shrink)

Intrusive agricultural experimentspublished in New Zealand in the last five yearsare reviewed in terms of the degree of animalsuffering involved, and the necessity for thissuffering in relation to research findings.When measured against animal welfare criteriaof the Ministry of Agriculture, thirty-sixstudies inflicted ``severe'' or ``very severe''suffering. Many of these experiments hadquestionable short-term applications, had anapplication restricted to agriculturalproduction or economic growth, or could havebeen modified to prevent or reduce suffering.

Deeply rooted structures of racism, ableism, misogyny, ageism, and transphobia hurt great numbers of people, exposing them to intolerance, economic exclusion, and physical harm around the globe. Billions of land animals suffer and die annually in concentrated feeding operations and slaughterhouses. Our planet and all who live here are in perilous straights as the climate changes. In the face of such grievous problems, people who want to find positive ways to respond often grapple with difficult questions about how (...) to make a difference. Effective Altruism has arisen as an attempt to help answer these questions, encouraging people to give as much money as they can in the most effective ways to address human and animal suffering. But the Effective Altruists’ answers support some of the very social structures that cause suffering, undermining its efforts to “do the most good.” The Good It Promises, The Harm It Does is the first book-length critique of Effective Altruism. It brings together a diverse group of activists and scholars to explore Effective Altruism’s failure to meaningfully address forms of human and animal suffering. (shrink)

This paper contributes to the (re-)conceptualisation of responsible innovation by proposing an evolutionary economic approach that focuses on the role of consumers in the innovation process. After a discussion of the philosophical foundations and ethical implications of this approach, which bears an explanatory potential that has not been adequately considered in previous discussions of responsible innovation, we present a first step towards capturing the important but often neglected role of consumers in innovation processes (including responsible innovation): We propose an (...) agent-based model that incorporates a multidimensional space of characteristics in which new products or services are represented by more than the mere aspect of price and quality. Instead, innovations are denoted by a large set of characteristics, including also negative or harmful ones. The model is used to illustrate that consumers’ heterogeneity and bounded rationality – even if considered in a simple manner – indeed play a crucial role in the creation and diffusion of responsible innovation which can and should be used for further work in this field and for possible extensions of the model. (shrink)

Responding to criticism by Gordon Sollars and Frank Englander, this paper highlights a significant tension in recent debates over the ethics of global supply chains. This tension concerns the appropriate focus and normative frame for these debates. My first goal is to make sense of what at first reading seems to be a very odd set of claims: that valuing free, autonomous, and respectful markets entails a “fetish for philosophical purity” that is inconsistent with a moral theory that finds no (...) wrong in harming workers, including the least advantaged among them. Sollars and Englander reach these conclusions, I believe, because their criticism assumes and relies upon the presumption of a global prioritarian frame, one which focuses individual welfare, and which they then apply at the level of individual political and economic actors. Much of Benjamin Powell and Matt Zwolinski’s work, I continue, including their criticism of political and economic activism and Powell’s indictment of organized labor, relies on a similar frame—while expanding the harms to include the freedom and autonomy of would-be sweatshop workers. This prioritarian frame, I argue, is particularly poorly suited to discussion of the ethical responsibilities of individual economic and political actors. We ought to reject it. To make progress on debates over global sweatshops, and the ethics of global supply chains in general, we need a better frame, and better standards of freedom and autonomy, than those invoked by many prominent defenders of sweatshops. (shrink)

Economics without Preferences lays out a new microeconomics – a theory of choice behavior, markets, and welfare – when agents lack the preferences and marginal judgments that economics normally relies on. Agents without preferences defy the rules of the traditional model of rational choice but they can still systematically pursue their interests. The theory that results resolves several puzzles in economics. Status quo bias and other anomalies of behavioral economics shield agents from harm; they are expressions rather than violations (...) of rationality. Parts of economic orthodoxy go out the window. Agents will fail to make the fine-grained trade-offs between options ingrained in conventional economics, leading market prices to be volatile and cost-benefit analysis to break down. This book provides policy alternatives to fill this void. Governments can spur innovation, the main benefit markets can deliver, while sheltering agents from the upheavals that accompany economic change. (shrink)

Stakeholder theorists distinguish between normative stakeholders, those who gain moral standing by making contributions to the firm, and derivative stakeholders, those who can constrain the corporate association even though they make no contribution. The board of directors has the legal authority to distinguish among these stakeholder groups and to distribute rights and obligations among these stakeholder groups. To be sure, this stakeholder formulation appropriately seizes on the firm’s voluntary, associative character. Yet, the firm’s constituents contribute assets and incur risks to (...) participate in market, economic activities. And, as such, the firm’s “stakeholders” must share an imperfect language to assist in making two key economic decisions: (1) who are the legitimate and who are the derivative stakeholders; and (2) who should sit on the board? Still, stakeholder theorists have good reason to be skeptical of neoclassical economics. Its assumptions that all act opportunistically and that all can calculate rationally and fully hardly correspond to studies on the managerial experience of corporate coordination. However, advances in behavioral law and economics now provide a cogent economic logic that readily fits into a stakeholder mode. In brief, we argue that (1) the firm’s economic purpose designates legitimacy to core stakeholders, to those who add value, assume unique risk, and can incur harm; (2) the board serves as the principal who coordinates these core stakeholders to sustain competitive advantage and new wealth creation; and (3) state incorporation law, Delaware in particular, reinforces the board’s function. These, in turn, supply selection criteria for board membership. We aim to synchronize concepts from behavioral law and economics with stakeholder theory. (shrink)

A common argument against prostitution states that selling sex is harmful because it involves selling something deeply personal and emotional. More and more of us, however, believe that sexual encounters need not be deeply personal and emotional in order to be acceptable—we believe in the acceptability of casual sex. In this paper I argue that if casual sex is acceptable, then we have few or no reasons to reject prostitution. I do so by first examining nine influential arguments to the (...) contrary. These arguments purport to pin down the alleged additional harm brought about by prostitution by appealing to various aspects of its practice, such as its psychology, physiology, economics and social meaning. For each argument I explain why it is unconvincing. I then weight the costs against the benefits of prostitution, and argue that, in sum, prostitution is no more harmful than a long line of occupations that we commonly accept without hesitation. (shrink)

Discussions of reproductive responsibility generally draw heavily upon the principles of nonmaleficence and beneficence. However, these principles are typically only applied to women due to the incorrect belief that only women can cause fetal harm. The cultural perception that women are likely to cause fetal and child harm is reflected in numerous social norms, policies, and laws. Conversely, there is little public discussion of men and fetal and child harm, which implies that men do not (or cannot) (...) cause such harm. My goal in this paper is to begin to fill the void in the academic literature about men’s reproductive responsibility by highlighting the health-related, economic, and social harms men can cause to potential fetuses and children and then examining what it would mean to hold them responsible for preventing these harms. Applying the principles of nonmaleficence and beneficence to men, I conclude that men have a moral duty to use contraception if their behavior—past, current, or future—could harm the potential fetuses and children who result from their unprotected sexual behavior. (shrink)

European animal disease policy seems to find its justification in a “harm to other” principle. Limiting the freedom of animal keepers—e.g., by culling their animals—is justified by the aim to prevent harm, i.e., the spreading of the disease. The picture, however, is more complicated. Both during the control of outbreaks and in the prevention of notifiable, animal diseases the government is confronted with conflicting claims of stakeholders who anticipate running a risk to be harmed by each other, and (...) who ask for government intervention. In this paper, we first argue that in a policy that aims to prevent animal diseases, the focus shifts from limiting “harm” to weighing conflicting claims with respect to “risks of harm.” Therefore, we claim that the harm principle is no longer a sufficient justification for governmental intervention in animal disease prevention. A policy that has to deal with and distribute conflicting risks of harm needs additional value assumptions that guide this process of assessment and distribution. We show that currently, policies are based on assumptions that are mainly economic considerations. In order to show the limitations of these considerations, we use the interests and position of keepers of backyard animals as an example. Based on the problems they faced during and after the recent outbreaks, we defend the thesis that in order to develop a sustainable animal disease policy other than economic assumptions need to be taken into account. (shrink)

Discussions of reproductive responsibility generally draw heavily upon the principles of nonmaleficence and beneficence. However, these principles are typically only applied to women due to the incorrect belief that only women can cause fetal harm. The cultural perception that women are likely to cause fetal and child harm is reflected in numerous social norms, policies, and laws. Conversely, there is little public discussion of men and fetal and child harm, which implies that men do not (or cannot) (...) cause such harm. My goal in this paper is to begin to fill the void in the academic literature about men’s reproductive responsibility by highlighting the health-related, economic, and social harms men can cause to potential fetuses and children and then examining what it would mean to hold them responsible for preventing these harms. Applying the principles of nonmaleficence and beneficence to men, I conclude that men have a moral duty to use contraception if their behavior—past, current, or future—could harm the potential fetuses and children who result from their unprotected sexual behavior. (shrink)

During the second half of the twentieth century, economics exported its logic - utility maximization - to the analysis of several human activities or realities: a tendency that has been called "economic imperialism". This book explores the concept termed by John Davis as "reverse imperialism", whereby economics has been seen in recent years to have taken in elements from other disciplines. Economics and Other Disciplines sheds light on the current state and possible future development of economics by focusing on (...) it from a philosophical perspective, broadening the concept of rationality in economic theory. The beliefs that prevail in the world today make up a physicalist worldview. This book argues that this pervasive view is harmful for economics as a social science. Do new economic currents like behavioral economics, evolutionary economics, neuroeconomics, institutional economics, happiness economics, the capability approach and civil economy, escape this widespread mentality? What would be an adequate underlying economic ethos? Do these approaches fit into this ethos? Ricardo F. Crespo appraises the contributions from a classical philosophy angle, emphasizing their implications regarding practical reason. This volume is of great importance to those who are interested in political economy, economic theory and philosophy, as well as philosophy of social science. (shrink)

In this paper I describe and analyze an economic situation involving two competitive organizations. I put forth the argument that because of the systemic nature of decision making relative to managing the requirements of utilizing a descriptive equation that determines how many people an economic system can support, that even if all the players in the situation act ethically, the results will still be harmful, and necessarily so, to the system and to many innocent people. I will demonstrate (...) that harming innocent people is required and morally defensible given the choices available. The best one can do is slow down the increase in disutilities and possibly operate the system within a range of acceptable behavior that minimizes the resulting harm to innocent people, even if we cannot entirely remove this harm. In this context ethics becomes the study of the acceptable as opposed to the preferable. (shrink)

There is growing evidence to support the claim that we react differently to robots than we do to other objects. In particular, we react differently to robots with which we have some form of social interaction. In this paper I critically assess the claim that, due to our tendency to become emotionally attached to social robots, permitting their harm may be damaging for society and as such we should consider introducing legislation to grant social robots rights and protect them (...) from harm. I conclude that there is little evidence to support this claim and that legislation in this area would restrict progress in areas of social care where social robots are a potentially valuable resource. (shrink)

In his important recent book, Aaron James has defended a principle ? Collective Due Care ? for determining when a form of economic integration is morally objectionable because it causes unjustified harm (including unemployment, wage suppression and diminished working conditions). This essay argues that Collective Due Care would yield implausible judgements about trade practices and would be too indeterminate to play the practical role for which it is intended.

In the climate ethics debate, scholars largely agree that individuals should promote institutions that ensure the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. This paper aims to establish that there are individual duties beyond compliance with and promotion of institutions. Duties of individuals to reduce their emissions are often objected to by arguing that an individual’s emissions do not make a morally relevant difference. We challenge this argument from inconsequentialism in two ways. We first show why the argument also seems to undermine (...) the case for duties to promote institutions that the arguments’ proponents endorse. Second, we argue that individuals ought to cut emissions if they exceed their fair share of emissions entitlements and, by emitting, contribute to climate-related harm. In response to inconsequentialism, we specify the notion of ‘contribution’ via the so-called NESS theory, according to which an act is causally relevant for and contributes to an outcome if it is a Necessary Element of a Set of conditions that is Sufficient for the outcome. After refuting two objections to our approach, we conclude by discussing how to deal with possible conflicts between duties to promote institutions and to reduce one’s emissions. (shrink)

We analyse the implications of classical liberal and libertarian approaches for distributive justice in the context of social welfare orderings. We study an axiom capturing a liberal non-interfering view of society, the Weak Harm Principle, whose roots can be traced back to John Stuart Mill. We show that liberal views of individual autonomy and freedom can provide consistent foundations for welfare judgements. In particular, a liberal non-interfering approach can help to adjudicate some fundamental distributive issues relative to intergenerational justice. (...) However, a strong relation is established between liberal views of individual autonomy and non-interference, and egalitarian principles in the Rawlsian tradition. (shrink)

This article argues that economic crises are incompatible with the realisation of non-domination in capitalist societies. The ineradicable risk that an economic crisis will occur undermines the robust security of the conditions of non-domination for all citizens, not only those who are harmed by a crisis. I begin by demonstrating that the unemployment caused by economic crises violates the egalitarian dimensions of freedom as non-domination. The lack of employment constitutes an exclusion from the social bases of self-respect, (...) and from a practice of mutual social contribution crucial to the intersubjective affirmation of one’s status. While this argument shows that republicans must be concerned about economic crises, I suggest a more powerful argument can be grounded in the republican requirement that freedom must be robust. The systemic risk of economic crisis constitutes a threat to the conditions of free citizenship that cannot be nullified using policy mechanisms. As a result, republicans appear to be faced with the choice of revising their commitments or rejecting the possibility that republican freedom can be robustly secured in capitalist societies. (shrink)

Abstract Today’s scholarship and policymaking on business and human rights (BHR) urges businesses to better understand their human rights responsibilities and remedy them, when and if abuses do occur. Despite the public discourse about businesses and human rights, the state—as the main duty bearer in international human rights law—plays a fundamental role as the protector and enforcer of human rights obligations. Yet, the existing literature overlooks state involvement as perpetrators of abuse in the corporate context. We develop the term _economic (...) complicity_ to shed light on the state’s role in directly or indirectly abusing human rights within a corporation’s sphere of influence, such as police violence toward nonviolent protesters or granting environmental licenses without adhering to legally required community consultations. We ask: What contributes to the state’s engagement in economic complicity in corporate human rights abuses? We assess hypotheses emergent from the democratic change and development studies literatures with a unique database that includes economic complicity data from Latin America, the Corporations and Human Rights Database (CHRD). This research has important theoretical implications for the business ethics and BHR literatures, as understanding economic complicity highlights the need for business actors to avoid shirking their moral responsibilities to not only ‘do no harm’ but also to protect human rights when they are threatened by the state. (shrink)

Corporations perform actions that can inflict harm with different levels of intensity, from death to material loss, to both companies’ internal and external stakeholders. Research has analysed corporate harm using the notions of corporate social irresponsibility and corporate crime. Critical management studies have been subjecting management and organizational practices and knowledge to critical analysis, and corporate harm has been one of the main concerns of CMS. However, CMS has rarely been deployed to analyse CSIR and corporate crime. (...) Thus, the aim of this paper is to critically analyse the perspectives of CSIR and corporate crimes on corporate harm via CMS in general and postcolonial studies in particular. The paper contributes by arguing that research on CSIR and corporate crime could be perceived as producing research that does not challenge the essence of contemporary corporation profit-seeking activities that ultimately produces corporate harm. We argue that CSIR and corporate crime are ideologies that assist in disguising the contradiction between producing shareholder value and the social good that is at the heart of the modern corporation system and the current economic system. Furthermore, the postcolonial view of CSIR and corporate crime highlights how they are based on a Western-centric view of corporate harm that ignores the realities and perspectives of the Global South, especially in situations where corporate harm leads to death in the Global South. (shrink)

Three types of objections have been raised against sweatshops. According to their critics, sweatshops are (1) exploitative, (2) coercive, and (3) harmful to workers. In “The Ethical and Economic Case Against Sweatshop Labor: A Critical Assessment,” Powell and Zwolinski critique all three objections and thereby offer what is arguably the most powerful defense of sweatshops in the philosophical literature to date. This article demonstrates that, whether or not unregulated sweatshops are exploitative or coercive, they are, pace Powell and Zwolinski, (...) harmful to workers. (shrink)

Anthropogenic climate change has become a hot button issue in the scientific, economic, political, and ethical sectors. While the science behind climate change is clear, responses in the economic and political realms have been unfulfilling. On the economic front, companies have marketed themselves as pioneers in the quest to go green while simultaneously engaging in environmentally destructive practices and on the political front, politicians have failed to make any significant global progress. I argue that climate change needs (...) to be framed as an ethical issue to make serious progress towards the path to a sustainable human civilization. In an effort to motivate the urgency needed to confront climate change, I argue that climate change seriously affects human beings living here and now, and if one cares about unnecessarily harming fellow innocent living human beings, then one should care about one’s own environmental impact related to climate change. Since this argument does not depend upon any specific philosophical, religious, or ethical tradition but applies regardless of one’s particular background, I hope to induce genuine concern among all human beings regarding this issue. (shrink)

The standard view on economics imperialism is that it should be resisted when it is epistemically or morally harmful. I argue that the moral dimension of economics imperialism is in need of further analysis. In my view, economics imperialism is wrong when imperialists violate the epistemic responsibility they have towards scientists working in the discipline that is the target for imperialist explorations. By epistemic responsibility, I refer to a moral duty to justify one’s knowledge claims to a particular audience so (...) that the justification appeals to at least some of the standards of argumentation recognized by that audience. (shrink)

Whether dealing with contracts, tort actions, or government regulations, lawyers are more likely to be successful if they are conversant in economics. Economics for Lawyers provides the essential tools to understand the economic basis of law. Through rigorous analysis illustrated with simple graphs and a wide range of legal examples, Richard Ippolito focuses on a few key concepts and shows how they play out in numerous applications. There are everyday problems: What is the social cost of legislation enforcing below-market (...) prices, minimum wages, milk regulation, and noncompetitive pricing? Why are matinee movies cheaper than nighttime showings? And then there are broader questions: What is the patent system's role in the market for intellectual property rights? How does one think about externalities like airport noise? Is the free market, a regulated solution, or tort law the best way to deliver the "efficient amount of harm" in the workplace? What is the best approach to the question of economic compensation due to a person falsely imprisoned? Along the way, readers learn what economists mean when they talk about sorting, signaling, reputational assets, lemons markets, moral hazard, and adverse selection. They will learn a new vocabulary and a whole new way of thinking about the world they live in, and will be more productive in their professions. (shrink)

This paper provides an economic justification for the exemption from liability for omissions in torts and for the exceptions to this exemption. It interprets the differential treatment of acts and omissions under tort law as a proxy for a more fundamental distinction between harms caused by multiple injurers, where each one can single-handedly prevent the harm, and harms caused by a single injurer. Since the overall cost to which a group of injurers is exposed is constant, attributing liability (...) to many injurers reduces the part each has to pay and, consequently, reduces each one’s incentives to take precautions. Broad exemption from liability for omissions is a way of carving a simple, practical rule to distinguish between the typical cases in which an agent can be easily selected and provided with sufficient incentives and cases in which there is a serious problem of dilution of liability. The exceptions to the rule exempting from liability for omissions are explained in terms of efficiency. The imposition of liability for omissions depends on the ability to identify a salient agent, i.e., to single out one or few liable agents and differentiate their role from that of others. Tort law designs three types of "salience rules." It either creates salience directly, or it can exploit salience created "naturally," or it can induce injurers to create salience voluntarily. (shrink)

Biblical prophetic writings display an unexplained interweaving of anti-idolatry themes with social justice themes. This article offers a link between these ethical foci by appealing to Thorstein Veblen's philosophical economics. Veblen and his more recent followers such as Fred Hirsch argue that upper classes glorify valueless expenditures and activities (conspicuous consumption and leisure) as a means of signaling predatory status. Veblen further theorizes that this process can manifest itself in religious practices and language, appearing when a deity is honored through (...) pointless aesthetics or through portrayal as a predatory entity. This article argues that such a depiction of the deity as predatory, or as worshipped through positional (wasteful) goods, is integral to idolatry, at least as the prophets framed it. Because the hallmark of social injustice is predation by an elite group upon another group, Veblen's paradigm provides a conceptual pathway between the prophet's opposition to idol worship and their disgust with powerful oppressors. Selected texts from Isaiah, Amos, and Jeremiah provide examples of this connection. (shrink)

This paper reflects on the highly contested Israeli restrictions on the importation of civilian goods into the Gaza Strip, with reference to a wide range of principled questions within military ethics regarding sieges, sanctions and blockades. Beginning with Israel's unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and culminating in its recent easing of sanctions, the paper attempts to bring out the central issues of principle embedded in the political polemic: unilaterally terminated occupation; the responsibilities of a former, though recent, occupier; the (...) semantic distinction between siege and sanction and their respective ramifications; harm to civilians; necessity and proportionality. Overall, it argues in the specific case that Israel's restrictions on Gaza were not indefensible from the start as a first attempt to halt terrorism while avoiding full-scale conflict. In view of their ineffectiveness in achieving these goals, however, the harm they inflicted on civilians increasingly proved unnecessary and therefore excessive. There could then be no justification for continuing to restrict the flow of civilian goods into Gaza, as Israel itself eventually recognized. Nonetheless, Israel retains the right to search and regulate the passage of all relief supplies into Gaza, whether by land or by sea, as well as to secure its own borders for the safety of its citizens. (shrink)

This article examines the relationship between economic rationality and the possibility of a moral science of business ethics. The purpose of this inquiry is to consider whether a universal and non-controversial moral science of business ethics can be defined satisfactorily, and linked to economic rationality of managers and other stakeholders of firms operating in market economies. Economic rationality connotes economic efficiency, meaning a strictly instrumental maximization of actor utility from limited resources. This rationality is a universal (...) and value free (or value neutral) axiom: actors should and generally will be rationally efficient. Utilitarianism accepting aggregation across values is the moral framework associated with market exchange. Business ethics is about normative valuation of motives, actions, and consequences. This article argues that the common foundation across relevant ethical frameworks – moral common sense, Kantianism, virtue theory, religion as a belief system, and utilitarianism – is a first or axiomatic principle of no harm without acceptable justification. A moral science of business ethics proceeds from this no harm axiom. (shrink)

Our main thesis is that the U.S. has a duty of justice to adopt an open-border policy with regard to economic migrants because it is significantly responsible for the unjust social and economic conditions that bring such migrants to its borders. From this perspective, President Bush’s recent “guest worker” proposal is morally objectionable because it is designed more to serve U.S. business interests than the interests of the migrants. We address three objections to opening borders: it will worsen (...) the economic condition especially of low-skilled native workers; it will harm developing countries by increasing the so-called “brain drain”; and it is preferable to discharge our responsibility to the global poor by increasing development assistance instead of adopting an open-border policy. (shrink)