Final Exam - Matching question Flashcards
Peter Huber
- Government agencies have broad power to regulate product safety. Critics, like Huber, contend that these regulations are costly and that they prevent individuals from choosing to purchase a riskier but less expensive product.
- Touches on legal paternalism, which the law justifiably used to restrict the freedom of individuals for their own good.
- “Liability”
Henry Fairlie
- Chastises us all for failing to acknowledge the role of risks in our lives.
- Example is a comparison of NASA experiences with Apollo and Challenger.
- “Fear of Living”
Mark Dowie
- Discussed one of the most publicized liability cases in the past several decades, the case of the Ford Pinto, which exploded on impact because of a fixable design law.
- “Pinto Madness”
Thorstein Veblen
- Changing structure of society has rendered the desire to impress others a powerful motive in our decisions as consumers
- Capitalist emphasis on acquiring and demonstrating wealth is psychologically unhealthy
o “to gain esteem and envy of ones fellow-men” - Problem is the economic system itself
- “Conspicuous Consumption”
John Kenneth Galbraith
- Advertising creates consumer demands, rather than merely serve consumer needs
- Natural wants are wants that arise within the consumer
–> Artificial wants is something you saw through advertising and decided you wanted it. For Galbraith, this is morally problematic - Contends that the same process that produced products also produces the demand for those products. (the dependence effect)
- Advertising encourages a preoccupation with material goods and leads us to favour private consumption at the expense of public goods.
- “Dependence Effect”
Friedrich Von Hayek
“The Non Sequitur of the “Dependence Effect”
- Offers a counterargument to Galbraith, suggesting it is a non-starter.
- Hayek agrees that there are artificial and innate wants. He agrees that advertising creates these wants but he does not think it’s always bad.
- Offers a point concerning innate needs and cultural needs with comparison to the arts.
“Justice Ruins the Market”
- Argues that the attempt to impose “social justice” on a healthy marketplace will in the end only harm the market and those whom the original action intended to help.
- Great Society
Peter A. French
“Corporate Moral Agency”
- Does the corporate internal decisions structure make it reasonable to assign moral responsibility to corporations?
- Difficulty assigning moral responsibility to individuals inside corporations
Milton Friedman
“The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits”
- Maximum profit means maximum good in society. For a business to involve itself in “doing good” would be contrary to its purpose and would interfere with the structure of the free market.
- Narrow view of CSR
- Contends that diverting corporations from the pursuit of economic profit makes our economic system less effective.
- Make money with the rules of the game.
Christopher D. Stone
Puts forward four arguments:
Promissory argument - “promised” the shareholders they would maximize profits.
Agency argument - Shareholders designate their managers, agents.
Role argument - Assigns obligations based on a role or status
“Polestar” argument - Managers lack social or moral expertise
Kenneth J. Arrow
“Social Responsibility and Economic Efficiency”
- In response to Friedmans argument, he explains why there must be certain regulations in place for the free market foundation.
- Wholly unregulated free market will not produce the maximum good effect from maximum profits
- Business could increase its efficiency and thus benefit from a professional moral code.
Adam Smith
“On Human Exchange and Human Difference”
- The highest good for all will result if each individual member of society is allowed to pursue her or his own idea of the good (and not interfering with others), so that everyone may cultivate the talents particular to her or him.
- People live in a society, not just an economy, and feel social obligation towards one another
“Benefits of Capitalism”
- Business is the power whereby civilizations makes itself
- “the benefits of capitalism”
o Improvement in machinery
o Division of labour
o Specialization
Robert Nozick
Entitlement Theory
- Holds that the distribution of goods, money and property is just if people are entitled to what they have - that is, if they have acquired their possessions with out violating the rights of anyone else.
Justice in Holdings
o Original acquisition of holdings
o Transfer of holdings
o Rectification of injustice in holdings
John Rawls
“Justice as Fairness”
- veil of ignorance
- cooperative project for mutual benefit and that justice requires us to reduce the social and economic consequences of arbitrary natural differences between people
- “helping the little guy”
Irving Kristol
“A Capitalist Conception of Justice”
- Argues that capitalism does not require the creation of a common authority charged with redistributing the wealth.
- We have an obligation to help those less fortunate than ourselves, that does not mean we should have a centralized power to tell us who, when and how to help those persons.
Lesley A. Jacobs:
- Engages with the idea that “some of the economic resources and goods that are important to the lives of individual citizens… should be distributed equally among them.”
- Deals with how different ideologies view distributive justice
