Business Ethics Chapter 6 Question & Answer

Rawls’s difference principle calls for strict equality of resources unless an unequal distribution benefits the least well-off in society. The difference principle avoids the levelling down objection, and uses incentives to increase people’s productive contributions.

Understanding distributive justice as equalizing resources rather than equalizing welfare avoids the problem of expensive, champagne tastes. However, strict equality of resources still cannot avoid the problems of levelling down for the sake of equality and of failing to require people to take personal responsibility for their productive contributions.

As a theory of justice, the equal satisfaction of welfare interests has difficulty with the interpersonal comparison of preferences, with discounting unfairly expensive tastes, and with avoiding the reduction of everyone’s welfare to the lowest level in the name of equality.

The moral equality of persons requires equal consideration of their welfare interests. However, weighting everyone’s interests equally in a utilitarian calculation creates an unattractive theory of distributive justice. It implies unfair distributions because people have very different ways of converting resources into welfare.

The moral equality of persons requires equal respect for their self-ownership rights. Some people argue that self-ownership leads to unrestricted private property rights and to free exchange in a capitalist market system. However, it is difficult to account for the initial acquisition of idealized property rights, and the history of actual, present-day property rights includes conquest, theft, and unconscionable contracts.

Equality of opportunity to compete for positions leaves open the question of determining fair compensation for positions. Matching compensation to marginal contribution is difficult because of the complex way in which specialized positions divide labour in a firm.

The moral equality of persons requires giving everyone an equal opportunity to compete for economic resources. Equality of opportunity, though, may mean more than just removing legal impediments based on race or gender. It may also mean compensating for skill deficiencies caused by factors beyond a person’s control and for fixing structural barriers such as lack of childcare facilities.

Decision-makers must pay attention to three types of justice: retributive, compensatory, and distributive.

Treating people as moral equals does not mean treating them all the same. Justice permits treating people differently, as long as it is not for morally arbitrary reasons like their race or gender.

Decision-makers must treat people fairly, which means treating everyone as moral equals.