Week 3 Flashcards
Organizational justice + leadership
What is organizational justice?
The extent to which people at work perceive that they are treated fairly by their organizations, their managers, and their colleagues.
What are Rhodes’ critiques on (organizational) justice overall?
- It is not about how others treat me, it is about how I try to be just towards others
- Justice is therefore not solely a feeling but also a concrete activity that expresses your relationships with other people
What is pleonexia
“The insatiable desire to have what rightfully belongs to others.”
Thereby also taking more than what is good for themselves as the individual
* It is being satisfied with taking from others what you please
* Pleonexia leads to a fallacious happiness: hedone (hedonism)
* Pleonexic people cannot restrain themselves, it is a psychopathic situation
Pleonexia= Greek for eating too much food
hedonism= a person pursuing whatever contributes most to their own pleasure after subtracting any pain caused (also to others)
What are Aristotle’s ideas on justice?
Aristotle (384- 322 B.C)
Justice is the ‘complete virtue’ (since it focuses not only on the self but on the relationship with
others as well). These relationships can be viewed as exercises (aksesis). Unlike some other virtues that primarily focus on personal character traits, justice involves the proper treatment of others and the fulfillment of one’s duties and obligations within society.
* Justice and law are closely related (but not the same!): the person who breaks the law is oftentimes
judged as being unjust while blindly following the law is also unjust.
* Justice is also linked to an understanding of fairness and equality: injustice occurs as soon as something unfair or unequal happens.
Complete virtue refers to the ideal state of moral excellence or character that encompasses all the virtues necessary for living a flourishing and fulfilling life.
Which person does the following cite:
‘“Justice? In the next world you will have justice, in this world you have the law.”
William Gaddis
What are Thrasymachus’ main points on justice and greed?
Thrasymachus (425 B.C.)
Within The Republic he defines it as a natural state that moralists want to end
–> However, not an all serious stance: he takes this stance to play devil’s advocate against moralists and is rather cynical
Pleonexia itself is not evil, but all efforts to go against it to some extent may be bc they lead to more repression and social control
‘Can pleonexia (greed) be good?
One person mentioned in the book says yes to this statement. Who is this and what are his main points?
Bernard Mandeville (pioneer for liberalism, things such as invisible hand)
The selfish struggle of maximizing self-interest furthers society. Out of the selfishness of each individual, a kind of just order might come into being.
1705 Fable of the bees: Thought experiment: two beehives: one with egotistical bees and one with altruistic bees. The question he asked was: ‘Which will gain more prosperity?’ The egotistical bees of course.
Bernard Mandeville (1670- 1733)
What are Rawls’ ideas on justice?
By John Rawls
Justice as fairness
* Justice is the first virtue of social institutions (state, markets, parliaments, politics …), they need it for authority
* Justice as a social ideal (to be established by a social contract) (and not only juridical)
Organizational justice
- Focus in the literature has been on justice for the self (rather than anyone else)
- Fairness is a subjective perspective
- Claim in organizational theories of justice is that it is descriptive (in contradistinction to philosophical theories about justice where it is a normative ideal)
- This means that justice is often seen as a particular organizational outcome (like profit, efficiency, etc)
- Why is justice so important? It affects the way people are motivated!
- Important: justice debates are always focusing on the ‘self’: as long as I feel that I am not manipulated or exploited, there is justice
descriptive: a statement that describes a certain situation
Normative: a situation that we all (in general) desire
What are the three types of justice?
- Distributive justice
- Procedural justice
- Interactional justice
Distributive justice
Input-output calculations (is the effort I put in an activity somehow related to the rewards I receive for doing it?
–> Equity theory: Then, people will adjust their input if they think the reward is not on a par with the work they do.
Question: are people really constantly making these sort of calculations? (homo economicus)
Procedural justice
Perceived outcomes for the self are not the focus here, but rather people’s perception of processes and procedures.
6 elements of a fair process are discussed:
1. consistency
2. freedom from bias
3. accuracy
4. representativeness of stakeholders
5. correctness
6. consistency with ethical standards
Interactional justice
“… the extent to which people feel that they are
treated fairly in their interactions with people in organizations and the nature of communication involved in those interactions”, especially in relation to the “treatment one receives at the hand of the authority figures”.
Emphasis on:
1. truthfulness
2. justification
3. respect
4. propriety
4= ‘decency’: absence of prejudice in interpersonal interactions
What are the main continental points on organizational justice?
For most philosophers (unlike social theorists), there is a very close affinity between justice and morality!
*Aristotle and Rawls attest to this.
* Justice should be normative (prescriptive) because it has to do with morality and therefore is something we should all strive for
* Levinas (1906-1995) does not opt for prescription, but he nevertheless establishes a close relationship between justice and ethics.
What are Levinas’ main views?
Emanuel Levinas (1906-1995)
Ethics is rather an emotion than a rational state
* You (same) vs. the other
* Being ethical is putting the other first
* It is not ethical to reduce the other to a category because this does not allow you to get to their heart or core
The face
identifies the face-to-face encounter with another human – the Other – as the foundational experience of ethical responsibility.
* … is a concept Levinas’ uses to explain what ethics is all about
* “Goodness consists in taking up a position in being such that the Other counts more than myself.” Responsibilty over the other
