5c6e90ec05e2c03b933f1281 PDF

Business Ethics
as Rational Choice
John Hooker
Tepper School of Business
Carnegie Mellon University
Prentice Hall
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hooker, John
Business ethics as rational choice / John Hooker.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-13-611867-1 (alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-13-611867-4 (alk. paper)
1. Business ethics. 2. Decision making––Moral and ethical aspects. 3. Business ethics––Case studies. I. Title.
HF5387.H664 2011
174'.4––dc22
2010015500
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN 10: 0-13-611867-4

ISBN 13: 978-0-13-611867-1
BRIEF CONTENTS
Preface ix
About the Author xi
Chapter 1 Introduction 1
Chapter 2 Conditions for Rational Choice 6
Chapter 3 Distributive Justice and Autonomy 25
Chapter 4 Initial Case Studies 34
Chapter 5 MBA Student Dilemmas 46
Chapter 6 Business Case Studies 59
Chapter 7 Cross-Cultural Ethics 89
Index 101
iii
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CONTENTS
Preface ix
About the Author xi
Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1
Why Business Ethics? 2
Dispelling the Myths 3
How to Use This Book 4
Notes 5
Chapter 2 CONDITIONS FOR RATIONAL CHOICE 6

Jennifer’s Choice 6
The Generalization Test 7
The Basic Argument 7
Corollaries of the Generalization Test 8
Why Acts Must Have Reasons 9
Identifying the Reasons for an Action 10
Judging Generalizability 12
Professional Ethics 12
Fiduciary Duty to Stockholders 13
Exercises 14
The Utilitarian Test 15
Maximizing Utility 15
Expected Utility 17
Does the End Justify the Means? 17
Too Much Altruism? 18
The Role of Self-Interest 19
Predicting the Consequences 19
Exercises 20
Virtue Ethics 20
Teleological Explanation 21
Virtues 21
Integrity 21
Exercises 23
Notes 24
v
vi Contents
Chapter 3 DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE AND AUTONOMY 25

Measuring Utility 25
Utility Functions 26
Calibrating Utility Functions 26
Exercises 28
Distributive Justice 29
The Veil of Ignorance 29
The Difference Principle 29
Refining the Difference Principle 30
The Liberty Principle 31
Exercises 32
Mathematical Note 1 32
Mathematical Note 2 33
Notes 33
Chapter 4 INITIAL CASE STUDIES 34

왘 CASE 4.1: Spying on Unilever 34
Exercises 35
왘 CASE 4.2: A Damaged Car 35
Exercises 36
왘 CASE 4.3: An Insurance Broker’s Dilemma 37
Exercises 37
왘 CASE 4.4: Product Safety 38
Exercises 39
왘 CASE 4.5: Misleading Numbers 39
Exercises 41
왘 CASE 4.6: Health and Smoking Bans 42
Exercises 43
Notes 45
Chapter 5 MBA STUDENT DILEMMAS 46

왘 CASE 5.1: Being Honest with the Customer 46
Exercises 47
왘 CASE 5.2: Paying for the Salad Bar 48
Exercises 48
왘 CASE 5.3: The Boss’s Unauthorized Expenses 49
Exercises 49
왘 CASE 5.4: Accepting Free Tickets 50
Exercises 51
왘 CASE 5.5: Unauthorized Salary Information 51
Exercises 51
Contents vii
왘 CASE 5.6: Sacrificing the Old for the New 52

Exercise 53
왘 CASE 5.7: Interviews after Accepting a Job 53
Exercises 57
Notes 58
Chapter 6 BUSINESS CASE STUDIES 59

왘 CASE 6.1: Nortel and Income Smoothing 59
왘 CASE 6.2: Tires and Rollovers 61
왘 CASE 6.3: The Bullard Houses 63
왘 CASE 6.4: Marketing Prozac and Paxil 66
왘 CASE 6.5: Countrywide Financial and Subprime Mortgages 68
왘 CASE 6.6: Super Size Me 74
왘 CASE 6.7: Conoco’s “Green” Oil Strategy 77
Exercises 80
Notes 87
Chapter 7 CROSS-CULTURAL ETHICS 89

Cross-Cultural Decisions 90
Relationships vs. Rules 90
Cronyism and the Purchasing Agent 91
Inappropriate Lawsuits 91
Bribery 92
왘 CASE 7.1: Kickbacks in Taiwan 92
왘 CASE 7.2: Bribery in India 93
왘 CASE 7.3: Nepotism in China 94
왘 CASE 7.4: Accounting Fraud in North America 94
왘 CASE 7.5: Corruption in Sub-Saharan Africa 95
왘 CASE 7.6: Side Payments in the Middle East 96
왘 CASE 7.7: Gifts to Korean Officials 97
왘 CASE 7.8: Dilemma in Côte d’Ivoire 97
Ethics and Human Nature 99
Notes 100
Index 101
PREFACE
This is a different kind of business ethics book. It focuses on building your decision-making skills,
so that you can arrive at, and defend, personal or company decisions in an objective manner that
others find convincing. It accomplishes this by bridging the gap between theory and practice, much
as an engineering text does. It develops ethical theory with enough rigor and precision to deal with
the complexity of real-life situations. It then provides you an opportunity to build expertise
through practice—by applying the theory to a wide variety of dilemmas in a disciplined way.
Rather than present full-length case studies or readings, the book succinctly describes
29 business dilemmas, chosen for their realism. It shows how to analyze them by applying
specific conditions for ethical conduct derived from the theory. It is based on the premise that
an ethical choice is at root a rational choice, where rationality is understood in a general sense
that takes into account the interests of all concerned. The text is accompanied by 106 exercises
that gradually develop your analytical skills. The book concludes with an introduction to
cross-cultural business ethics.
The book is intended for both professionals and students. It is for those in business or
government who desire a conceptual framework and vocabulary that allow them to balance the
interests of multiple stakeholders in a fair and convincing fashion. The concise presentation of
the basic theory is suitable for busy managers. The case study analyses illustrate the analytical
tools at a gradually increasing level of sophistication, so that readers can go as deeply as they
wish. New and updated case studies are available online, along with solutions for some of the
exercises in the book.
The book is also appropriate for several types of classroom use. It provides the analytical
framework for a course in business ethics, where it can be supplemented by full-length case studies
or problem-specific articles of interest to the class. It can also form the basis for a short business
ethics course or module that is dedicated to skill building. It can provide a common intellectual
framework for an ethics-across-the-curriculum program, because faculty in other business areas
can digest the compact theoretical treatment with a limited time investment. I have also used this
material in executive education programs, where the analytical tools are applied to scenarios
supplied by the participants. Finally, ethical analysis provides the perfect occasion to develop argu-
mentative skills in a communication course. An instructor’s guide provides suggestions for using
the book in these settings as well as solutions for all exercises.
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ix
x Preface
online and save up to 50% off the suggested list price of the print text. With a CourseSmart
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tion, visit www.coursesmart.com.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank my students and executive workshop participants over the years for
providing hundreds of ethical dilemmas, some of which appear here, as well as a laboratory for
working out the ideas. I am also indebted to business school colleagues who pointed me to case
studies and other materials that are used in their courses and analyzed in this book.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Hooker is T. Jerome Holleran Professor of Business Ethics and Social

Responsibility, and Professor of Operations Research, at Carnegie Mellon
University. He holds doctoral degrees in philosophy and management science.
He teaches at the undergraduate, postgraduate, and professional levels, and he
has published over 130 articles and 10 books. He has held visiting posts at univer-
sities in several countries, most recently at the London School of Economics. He
was head of Carnegie Mellon’s undergraduate Business Administration
Program, 1996–2001. He reorganized the program, led the design of its curricu-
lum, and received a distinguished service award from the Tepper School for his
contributions. In 2009, he received an Award for Sustained Teaching Excellence.
Professor Hooker has equally strong interests in applied mathematics
on the one hand and ethics and cross-cultural issues on the other. His books
Integrated Methods for Optimization and Logic-Based Methods for
Optimization exemplify the former. He has served on numerous editorial
boards and conference program committees related to operations research.
He is a Fellow of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management
Sciences and a recipient of that institute’s Computing Society Award.
His books Business Ethics as Rational Choice and Working Across
Cultures reflect his interests in ethics and cultural matters. He is founding
editor-in-chief of the Journal of Business Ethics Education and founding
director of the Center for International Corporate Responsibility at Carnegie
Mellon. He developed the ethics curriculum, including many of the course
materials, used in the Tepper School of Business, and he has co-organized
four conferences on international corporate responsibility. He has lived and
worked in Australia, China, Denmark, India, Qatar, Turkey, the United
Kingdom, the United States, and Zimbabwe and has extensive experience
in Germany and Mexico. He lives with his wife in his favorite city of
Pittsburgh and has one grown-up son. He enjoys attempting to play and
compose for the piano.
xi
Chapter 1
Introduction
T
he title of this book, Business Ethics as Rational Choice, may give the impression that I’m going
to reduce business ethics to self-interest—that I’m going to say it’s rational to be ethical because
ethics is good for business.
It is easy to read the title this way because we equate rational behavior with rational self-interest.
We believe that any tendency to care about others, to be “moral,” must be based on emotion or cultural
conditioning, rather than hardheaded reason.
I chose the title to make a point. Rational behavior is much more than rational self-interest.
Rationality requires us to consider the interests of others as well as ourselves—not because doing so
may eventually serve our own interests, but because neglecting others is inherently illogical and
self-contradictory. This may seem hard to believe, but read on.
The book is organized around three specific conditions that a choice of action must meet to be
rational and, therefore, to be ethical. These conditions make it possible to put ethical decision making
on a reasonably objective basis. When managing a complex organization with multiple stakeholders,
you can’t rely on gut feeling. You must have a conceptual framework and an ethical vocabulary to
defend your decision to others—and to yourself when the going gets tough. Analysis based on rational
choice, by its very nature, provides a rational basis for convincing oneself and others.
Rational decision making is a skill, and like any skill, it requires practice. This book is based on
the premise that ethics can be learned in much the same way as chemistry or mathematics. It presents the
theory and asks you to work through structured exercises until you learn how to apply it. At first, this
may not sound like much fun. We like to think of ethics as an area in which we can sit around and
exchange opinions, without having to think hard. But a rigorous approach is more satisfying in the
long run, because it provides the conceptual equipment necessary to make reasoned and defensible
judgments. I think you will come to enjoy the intellectual challenge presented by the exercises.
Because your time is valuable, I kept the expository sections of the book as brief as possible. All
of the basic theory appears in Chapters 2 and 3. Merely reading expository material isn’t very helpful in
any event. You must exercise your cranial muscles by thinking through real cases. Most of the book
consists of ethical dilemmas that are analyzed to show how it’s done, along with many others left for
you to analyze.
An ethics book, no less than ethical theory, must meet the challenge of real-world experience.
The materials in this book were developed over several years for the ethics program at the Tepper
School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University. The ideas were hammered out in a process of
1
2 Chapter 1 • Introduction
give-and-take with students at undergraduate, MBA, and executive levels, many of whom have
little patience for material that doesn’t prove convincing and relevant to their careers. Many of
the ethical dilemmas in the book were experienced and written up by students and executive
workshop participants, and I present them with minimal alteration to ensure realism.
WHY BUSINESS ETHICS?

Much of the business ethics literature focuses on showing that ethical behavior is good for
business. It usually is, but this misses the point of business ethics. Think about it. If ethical behavior
were reducible to self-interest, there would be no need for ethics. We could simply figure out how
to serve our interests and forget about ethics. Ethics was invented because ethical behavior is not
identical with self-interested behavior.
Ethical behavior is closely connected, however, with the welfare of society as a whole. Ethics
makes it possible for us to live together. We sometimes lose sight of this fact. We tend to think that
the law and the police keep order and that ethics is icing on the cake; that is, it’s nice to be ethical,
but it’s really law enforcement that makes the system work.
This is wrong. It’s ethics that makes law enforcement work. Imagine that tomorrow morning
all motorists started running red lights. What could the police do about it? Nothing. There are
not nearly enough police to monitor thousands of intersections, much less chase down the
offenders. Or suppose that tonight people all over town started burglarizing houses and
apartments. The police would be powerless to stop it. They can’t be everywhere at once. The law
is enforceable because there is consensus on what is right and wrong, and most people behave
accordingly. The police take care of a few people on the margins who don’t get the message.
It is the same in the business world. Laws and regulation are important, but there is too
little oversight to enforce them. Repeated waves of business scandals over the last two or three
decades demonstrate how easy it is to get away with mischief—perhaps not indefinitely, but long
enough to destroy a company. The Western business system works largely because of voluntary
compliance.
Even if everyone observes the letter of the law, it’s easy enough to violate its spirit. The
financial sector alone amply illustrates how clever operators can find loopholes or stay a step
ahead of the regulators, resulting in mayhem. But what does it mean to obey the spirit of the law?
It means to abide voluntarily by the ethical principles that underlie the law.
If ethics is to do its job, society must inculcate a disposition to be ethical. We must (a) agree
on what is ethical and (b) act accordingly. Every culture has mechanisms to accomplish both. In
Western cultures, part (a) is largely accomplished by building rational consensus. We talk the talk
as well as walk the walk. We come to understand why it makes sense to obey traffic laws and
respect property. We may break the speed limit, but perhaps it’s because we haven’t convinced
each other that we should drive more slowly.
This process of building rational consensus is particularly important in complex business
organizations, where there are many stakeholders with reasonable but conflicting claims. Gone
are the days when a business manager could simply maximize the bottom line, if they ever
existed. There is a growing realization that business decisions are inextricably linked with society
at large. The platitudes we learned in kindergarten aren’t going to work here. We require a sophis-
ticated discourse that can arrive at equitable and convincing solutions. We have developed
advanced methods for finance, operations, and marketing. It is time we did the same for ethics.
This is where business ethics comes into the picture. Its task is to provide a conceptual
framework for making defensible business decisions that consider all stakeholders. Fortunately,
Chapter 1 • Introduction 3
Western civilization provides us a rich tradition to draw from. Intelligent people have been
developing a rational basis for Western ethics ever since Socrates.
A central task of this book is to work out a rational reconstruction of this intellectual tradition
that makes sense to us today and that has the power and subtlety to deal with complex issues. The
theory is not as precise or well developed as chemistry and mathematics, but there are two good
reasons for this. One is that ethics is harder than chemistry and even mathematics (I know,
because I am a mathematician). The other is that far more effort has been invested in the rigorous
study of chemistry and mathematics than in the rigorous development of ethics.
You can help remedy this deficit. By working through this material and applying it at work
and in life, you can do your part to bring ethical reasoning out of kindergarten and into the
adult world.
DISPELLING THE MYTHS

My experience indicates that a few popular myths tend to block us from making the kind of
progress in ethics that we have made in other fields. Let’s take them one at a time.
• Myth 1. We learn ethics as little kids. When we reach adulthood, it is too late to change
our behavior.
Early childhood is important in character development, but decades of research in develop-
mental psychology show that ethical maturity grows with cognitive ability.1 As we develop the
capacity to think through our actions, our behavior tends to become more ethical. Obviously
there are exceptions, but they are exceptions, not the rule. Cognitive ability, in turn, can grow
throughout life, right up into old age. Some writers in moral development suggest that the
highest stage of moral development is reached only in the 60s or later, if ever.2 Training in
ethical analysis is one way to move this process along, while providing skills that relate directly
to decision making.
• Myth 2. There is no point in studying ethics, because we all know what’s right. It’s just
a matter of doing it.
Then why do we disagree all the time? My students and workshop participants differ on every
ethical issue I present to them. If we disagree, we can’t all be correct. Certainly, doing what is right
can be hard even when we know what is right, but often we don’t know.
I grant that there is a good deal of consensus on basic matters of right and wrong.
Otherwise, society would have fallen apart long ago, as I have already mentioned. But there is a
pressing need for greater consensus, particularly on complex issues that require careful analysis,
some of which may determine the fate of our civilization.
• Myth 3. Business ethics is simple. Just don’t do anything you wouldn’t want to
appear on the front page of the newspaper, or you wouldn’t want your mother to
know about.
This one is surprisingly popular, even though it stands up to scrutiny about ten seconds. Suppose
you lay off a thousand workers. Some of them become alcoholics, beat their spouses and children,
and become physically ill or clinically depressed (all regular consequences of layoffs). The local
economy is decimated, crime soars, and lives are ruined. You wouldn’t want this to appear on the
front page of the newspaper, or on the back page, for that matter. There is a good chance your
4 Chapter 1 • Introduction
mother wouldn’t approve, either. Nonetheless, it may have been the only ethical choice in a
difficult situation. The alternatives may have been even worse.
• Myth 4. There is no point in analyzing ethical issues, because ethics is just a matter of
opinion. I have my view and you have yours, and that’s the end of it.
Try to remember this the next time you are mugged. Pardon my sarcasm, but it’s hard for me to
accept that anyone really believes this.
• Myth 5. Studying ethics will have no effect, because human beings are motivated only
by self-interest, not ethical theories. We learned this long ago from Adam Smith, who
observed that self-interest drives the market system and makes it work to our benefit,
as if guided by an invisible hand.
Adam Smith said no such thing. The very first sentence of his book Theory of Moral Sentiments3
states that human beings are motivated by concern for others as well as themselves, and the rest of
the book makes an extended case for this proposition. His second book, The Wealth of Nations,4
describes the central role of self-interest in a market economy and uses the image of an invisible
hand. Yet most of the book deals with ways that self-interest also undermines a market system
and how this might be prevented. Smith saw government regulation as a major part of the solution,
and after finishing the book, he spent the rest of his working life as a regulator.
Of course, whatever Smith said, he may have been wrong. Yet recent research in fields ranging
from neuropsychology to genetics tends to confirm his view that altruism plays an important role
in human behavior. Business ethics can refine and reinforce the human tendency to care about
others by placing it on a rational basis that is practical and convincing in a business environment.
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

The first step is to read Chapters 2 and 3, which contain the basic concepts. Think critically about
the ideas as you go along. If you disagree with them, then so much the better, because you can try
to reconstruct the theory in a way that makes sense to you. This is a good way to start the mental
calisthenics that build decision-making skills. These chapters also provide exercises that verify
and deepen your understanding.
The next step is to work through the case studies in Chapter 4. These are chosen to draw
out key implications of the conditions for rational choice and show them in action. The analyses
are kept to a simple level, and they are sometimes incomplete, because you are just getting started.
The exercises in the body of the chapter help you think about the analyses, and those at the end
present some dilemmas for you to analyze on your own.
Chapter 5 analyzes dilemmas experienced at the individual level by my MBA students, and
Chapter 6 moves to more complex case studies that relate to company policy. I suggest beginning
with the cases that interest you most. It is good practice to analyze a case on your own and then
compare your thinking with the analysis in the text. Both chapters present a number of additional
scenarios for you to analyze as exercises.
It is helpful to discuss these cases with your colleagues or classmates, because this affords
practice in articulating your arguments. A structured debate is also a useful activity. The case
analyses, particularly the longer ones in Chapter 6, are most instructive after you have immersed
yourself in the issue. When you disagree with the conclusions of an analysis, you should pinpoint
the spot where you believe the argument goes astray and reconstruct it as needed.
Chapter 1 • Introduction 5
When working through exercises, it is essential that you don’t simply state your views, or
present some arguments that sound reasonable to you. You should specifically apply the conditions
for rational choice.
You may be concerned about whether you arrive at the right answer for an exercise, or if
there is in fact a right answer. The key point is that you apply the conditions of rational choice in
a cogent manner, following the pattern of the analyses in the chapter. Even then, you may arrive
at a different conclusion than someone else for several reasons. The exercise may not provide
enough factual detail to resolve the issue, in which case you might want to analyze the issue based
on two or more factual scenarios. An important part of the analysis is determining which facts
matter. Or the issue may be too hard to resolve satisfactorily without advanced skills, in which
case you can still make some progress by ruling out certain alternatives. Finally, the state of the art
in ethical reasoning may be inadequate to draw definitive conclusions.
This state of affairs may seem discouraging, but it is no different in other fields. If an
engineering text asks you to design a truss bridge over a certain ravine, there may be more than
one solution. A professional engineer is likely to recognize additional factors that students overlook.
Even the most experienced practitioners may disagree over some aspects of the design. This doesn’t
mean that there is no objectivity in engineering. One can still distinguish good solutions from
bad solutions, and it is the same in ethics.
A rationality-based approach may seem to reduce ethics to logic chopping, ignoring the subtlety
and ambiguity of real life. This is by no means the intent. Judgment and experience are as important
as close reasoning, and good decisions come from the heart as well as the mind. Again, this is true of
any applied field. Designing a transit system or a hospital involves much more than solving equations.
Nonetheless, it is essential to know the basics. Wisdom is built on a foundation of rigorous analysis
and clear thinking. This text shows how to “solve the equations” in ethics. You take it from there.
The final chapter is a brief introduction to cross-cultural ethics. It moves beyond the
rationality-based framework of Western ethics to provide a glimpse of some of the radically
different ethical traditions developed by other cultures. To maintain the practical bent of the
book, it exemplifies these normative systems with a series of real-life case studies of corruption.
The aim is partly to alert you to the necessity of learning about other cultures when doing business
in them. An equally important objective, however, is to put Western ethics into perspective,
clarifying its assumptions and highlighting its strengths and weaknesses.
Notes
1. See for example: W. G. Perry, Intellectual and Ethical and Approaches at Harvard Business School,
Development in the College Years, New York: Holt, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993;
1968; L. Kohlberg, The Philosophy of Moral Develop- M. L. Hoffman, Empathy and Moral Development:
ment: Moral Stages and the Idea of Justice, New York: Implications for Caring and Justice, Cambridge, UK:
Harper & Row, 1981; R. Kegan, The Evolving Self: Cambridge University Press, 2000; J. C. Gibbs, Moral
Meaning and Process in Human Development, Development and Reality: Beyond the Theories of
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981; Kohlberg and Hoffman, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
J. W. Fowler, Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Publications, 2003.
Human Development and the Quest for Meaning, 2. For example, see Kohlberg, The Philosophy of Moral
New York: Harper & Row, 1982; S. D. Parks, “Is it too Development; Fowler, Stages of Faith.
late? Young adults and the formation of professional 3. 1759, last revision 1790.
ethics,” in T. R. Piper, M. C. Gentile and S. D. Parks, 4. Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of
eds., Can Ethics Be Taught? Perspectives, Challenges Nations, 1776, last revision 1789.
Chapter 2
Conditions for Rational Choice
T
his chapter presents three specific conditions that any rational decision must satisfy. Briefly,
they are:
• The generalization test. A rational choice must be generalizable.

• The utilitarian test. A rational choice must maximize utility, subject to the other conditions for
rationality.
• The virtue test. A rational choice must be consistent with who you are and why you are here.
I will explain these shortly, but it is important to recognize that no explanation can fully convey their
meaning. They can be understood only in application. Properly applying the conditions is a sophisticated
skill that is developed with diligent practice. The rest of this book provides many opportunities to
practice, and life provides many more.
JENNIFER’S CHOICE
Let’s begin with an ethical dilemma that will serve as a running example as we discuss the conditions
for rational choice. It is fictitious but similar to situations that business students frequently encounter.
While interviewing for jobs, MBA student Jennifer learned about a very attractive opening at
Glamour Finance in New York City. It matched her interests and abilities perfectly. She interviewed on
site, and everyone expressed enthusiasm about her potential for helping clients to realize their business
goals. Shortly after the interview, however, Glamour announced a hiring freeze, due to a global financial
crisis. The freeze dragged on through much of the spring semester, and Jennifer’s contacts at Glamour
could not predict when it would be lifted.
In the meantime, Jennifer received two reasonably good offers from firms with which she had
interviewed before going to New York City. She tried to keep her options open, but graduation was near,
and her classmates were talking about the great job offers they had accepted. Her parents were asking
about her prospects. Her best friend Heather urged her to get real and accept a job. Finally, when her
offers were about to expire, she signed with Midwest Consulting, which is based in a small city.
About a week later, Jennifer received a call from Glamour announcing that the firm was hiring
again. Her employment contract was ready to sign. Distraught, she told Heather about her rotten luck.
Heather’s reply was, “What’s the problem? Just tell Midwest that an unexpected opportunity came up.
Employers understand that these things happen.”
6
Chapter 2 • Conditions for Rational Choice 7
I have conducted a number of discussions of this dilemma. People cite a variety of reasons
why Jennifer should accept the New York job: Midwest will have no problem finding someone else,
Jennifer will be happier doing a job she likes, there is probably an escape clause in the employment
contract, employers sometimes renege on job offers and should expect the same from employees,
and so forth. However, others point out that Jennifer made a promise, a contract is a contract, she
cannot expect employers to play fair with her if she does not play fair with them, the opposing
arguments just rationalize self-interested behavior, and so forth. Generally people walk out of the
room with the views they initially expressed, and we get nowhere toward resolving the issue. So it
goes with most ethical dilemmas.
The problem is that people talk past each other, exchanging arguments that seem to
convince only those who already agree with the conclusion. There is no rational convergence, and
people tend to lose faith in the ability of reason to resolve such disputes. Our approach in this
book will be to avoid advancing arguments merely because they sound reasonable, but to discipline
ourselves to apply only the conditions of rational choice. This will allow us to make some
progress toward resolving the issue.
However, you must be patient. No resolution of Jennifer’s dilemma will be possible until all
three conditions mentioned at the beginning of the chapter have been introduced, and even then
the analysis will be incomplete. One can’t do triple integration on the first day of calculus class,
and it is the same in ethics. But considering that most ethical debates get nowhere, even modest
progress toward resolution should be a welcome departure from the norm.
THE GENERALIZATION TEST

The conditions for rational choice are based on a simple premise: There must be a reason behind
every action. I will defend this premise shortly, but first I want to derive the generalization test
from it.
The Basic Argument

If I have a reason for my action, then the reason justifies the action for me. This is what reasons do:
They justify the actions for which they are reasons. Yet if a reason justifies an action for me, then
it justifies the action for anyone. Either the reason justifies the action or it doesn’t. If it does, then it
justifies the action for anyone to whom it applies.
For example, suppose I notice a display of wristwatches in a shop. They are not protected
under glass but are readily available for the taking. No clerks or security personnel are in the vicin-
ity, and there are no surveillance cameras. I could easily pocket one of these and stroll out of the
shop. Let’s suppose that I decide to steal one of the watches because I can easily get away with it.
Then I am committed to saying that anyone who can easily get away with stealing a watch should
do so. If ease of theft justifies stealing, then it justifies stealing.
I may protest that this reason doesn’t work for everyone, because not everyone cares to have a
new watch. Then I actually have two reasons for stealing the watch: I can get a free watch without
risk of being caught, and I would like to have a new watch. To be consistent, I must say that theft is
justified for anyone who wants a new watch and can easily get away with stealing one. When
I choose to steal for these reasons, I am choosing theft for anyone who has the same reasons to steal.
But now I am caught in inconsistency. I have adopted a policy of theft for everyone who
wants a new watch and can easily get away with stealing one. But if all such people were to steal
watches, it would no longer be easy to steal the watch and get away with it. The shop owner would
8 Chapter 2 • Conditions for Rational Choice
have discovered that most customers are thieves and would secure watches in a locked case. The
only reason I can steal is that others are honest enough not to do the same. I therefore don’t
choose for others to steal watches after all, because this would frustrate my own purposes. I am
inconsistent: By choosing to steal, I choose theft for others who have my reasons to steal, and yet
my reasons presuppose that they don’t steal.
Stealing the watch fails the generalization test, which can be phrased as follows:
• Generalization test. The reasons for my action should be consistent with the assumption
that everyone who has the same reasons acts the same way.
I am not saying that everyone with the same reasons would steal a watch if I did. I am making no
prediction about what other people would do. I am only observing that if they all followed my
example, the reasons for my own theft would no longer apply. This is enough to show inconsistency.
Nor am I saying simply that I wouldn’t want others to steal watches. This is not enough to establish
inconsistency in my reasons for stealing. The specific test is whether my reasons for stealing
would still apply if all others with the same reasons to steal did so. They would not.
To take another example, let’s suppose that a student is tempted to cheat on an exam
because it will improve his grade and career prospects. To apply the generalization test, imagine that
students cheated whenever these same reasons apply (i.e., practically anytime they take an exam).
Grades would be practically meaningless, because nearly everyone would make all As. Cheating
would no longer improve the student’s career prospects. The student’s reasons for cheating are
therefore inconsistent with the assumption that others who have the same reasons to cheat do so.
Cheating for these reasons fails the generalization test and is therefore irrational and unethical.
Corollaries of the Generalization Test

The cheating example suggests a restatement of the generalization test that is less precise but
sometimes helpful:
• Corollary 1. An action is unethical if its general adoption would undermine a practice
it presupposes.
Cheating fails this test because it undermines the practice of grading. This is not actually a
restatement of the generalization test but a corollary, or a more specific form of the test that an
action must pass if it is to pass the original test. Yet an action that passes a corollary may fail the
original test.
For example, suppose I build a cabin in a Deep Green Forest because I can afford to do so,
I want to live in an unspoiled area, and I particularly like Deep Green Forest. Let’s suppose further
that if everyone satisfying these conditions built a cabin, the cabins would spoil the forest. My
action does not undermine a practice that it presupposes, in any clear sense, and so it passes
Corollary 1. But it clearly fails the generalization test.
Another corollary of the generalization test is the free rider principle, which is again vague
but sometimes helpful:
• Corollary 2. One shouldn’t be a free rider on the efforts of others.
A literal case of free riding occurs in some European countries where public transit passengers are
normally not asked to show their tickets. Riding without a ticket is unethical because it presupposes
that others who have similar reasons to ride for free nonetheless buy a ticket. If they didn’t buy
tickets, it would be impossible for anyone to ride for free.
A third corollary is particularly useful. It applies when I have two types of reasons for my
action: the circumstances are right to perform the action and the action achieves the desired
purpose. For example, I build the wilderness cabin when the circumstances are right (I can afford
it, I want to live in an unspoiled area, and I particularly like Deep Green Forest), and I can achieve
a certain purpose by performing the act (live in an unspoiled area). Let’s say that an action is
generalized when everyone for whom the circumstances are right performs the act. Then the
generalization test implies the following:
• Corollary 3. An action is unethical if generalizing the action is inconsistent with
achieving its purpose.
Thus if my action of building a cabin is generalized, it would be impossible for those who move
into cabins to achieve the purpose of the action. The action fails Corollary 3 and therefore the
generalization test.
A subtle point arises when generalizing an action is consistent with its reasons in a particular
case but not in general. Suppose I build a cabin in a corner of Deep Green Forest that happens to
be almost completely surrounded by a national park, where no one can build cabins. If everyone
with my reasons for building a cabin in Deep Green Forest did so, the reasons would still apply in
my case. I would still live in an unspoiled area, thanks to the national park, even though everyone
else in the forest would lose this benefit. (The fact that my cabin is in the corner of the forest is
not one of my reasons for building it. It is enough that the cabin be secluded.) My action is
nonetheless ungeneralizable because it is impossible for everyone to enjoy seclusion if everyone
with these reasons built a cabin.
• Corollary 4. An action is unethical if generalizing the action is inconsistent with the
possibility that everyone who performs the action achieves its purpose.
Why Acts Must Have Reasons

This whole affair is based on the premise that acts are based on reasons that are taken to justify
the action. The source of this premise is a deeply held Western tradition that free agents are
rational agents and therefore act for a reason. This allows us to distinguish free action from mere
behavior, even if we subscribe to a scientific worldview that sees all of our actions as the inevitable
result of physical causes.
If a mosquito bites me, this is mere behavior. I don’t judge the mosquito morally, because it
didn’t “freely choose” to bite. The bite was merely the result of chemical reactions in the mos-
quito’s body. Human actions can also be given a causal explanation of this kind, but they can be
explained in a second way: by talking about the agent’s reasons. It makes no sense to say that the
mosquito bit because she thought to herself, “I’m going to bite that human because I’m hungry
and I think I can get away before I get swatted.” However, it is often very reasonable to explain
human actions by attributing reasons to the agent. The action is explained as the outcome of
rational deliberation as well as the result of physical causes.
The behavior of computers and robots may someday be more easily explained as the result
of the machine’s own deliberation than as the outcome of an algorithm. This would make
machines moral agents that are bound by ethical obligation, no less than humans.
When the reasons for an action are inconsistent, as when they fail the generalization test, they
are not reasons. Inconsistent reasons cannot explain behavior. An action taken for inconsistent reasons
is therefore not really an action, but mere behavior. It is like the mosquito’s bite, which can be given
only a causal explanation. This is why I assume that there must be a reason behind every action.
This is not to say that we humans never conduct ourselves unthinkingly or from habit. We do
all the time, and probably must, because constant decision making would be unbearable. But we also
choose to cultivate habits or allow them to continue, and we are ethically responsible for these choices.
Identifying the Reasons for an Action

If the generalization test is to apply to the reasons for an action, then we must identify what the
reasons are. Ultimately, the reasons are what we choose them to be, but it is important to identify
what we have chosen.
The basic rule is that the reasons must be necessary and sufficient for the action. Each
reason must be necessary in the sense that if it did not apply, I would not perform the action. Thus
I would not steal a watch if either of my reasons for doing so were absent—if it were not easy to
get away with it or if I had no desire for a new watch.
The reasons as a group must also be sufficient in the sense that I would be willing to
perform the act whenever they all apply. If I would steal a watch whenever I wanted a new one
and could get away with the crime, then these reasons are sufficient for the theft. If I would not,
there must be other reasons I am stealing it.
The necessity criterion prevents us from framing our reasons so narrowly that every action
is generalizable. For example, Gertrude Grosvenor might insist that she stole a watch because she
wanted one, she could easily get away with it, and her name is Gertrude Grosvenor. She protests
that her reasons are generalizable, because she could just as easily get away with stealing the watch
if all the Gertrude Grosvenors of the world stole watches.
This is the problem of scope. Gertrude passed the generalization test by drawing the scope
of her action too narrowly. Her name has nothing to do with whether she steals. If it did, then she
would stop stealing the moment she discovers a birth certificate in her mother’s attic showing
that her real name is Genevieve Grosvenor. But she wouldn’t stop stealing on this account. Her
name is not one of her reasons for stealing.
In general, the scope of an action is the set of circumstances under which it would be
performed. The scope is too narrow when unnecessary reasons are cited, and it is too broad when
some necessary reasons are left out. The adjustment of scope will often prove to be a subtle and
difficult aspect of judging an act. But if an ethical theory were not subtle it would be inadequate
for the complex situations life presents us.
Jennifer’s Choice
Recall that Jennifer faces a decision as to whether to break her employment contract with
Midwest Consulting, so she can accept a more attractive offer at Glamour Finance. Let’s check
whether taking this act passes the generalization test. To do so, we must identify the reasons for
her choice. The most obvious reason is that she prefers an employment contract with Glamour.
Breaking an employment contract to get a better one is not generalizable. If students broke
their employment contracts whenever they got a better offer, companies would not bother with
contracts that promise employment in the first place. The whole point of promising employment
is that, in return, the company can rest assured that the student’s job search is over and will work
for them. If Jennifer’s action were generalized, she wouldn’t be able to get the contract she wants
with Glamour, because Glamour would not be issuing contracts that promise employment. This
makes the breach of contract ungeneralizable and unethical.
We can say something stronger. Jennifer’s breach of contract would be unethical even if she
had no desire to contract with another firm, but simply found it convenient to break the agreement.
By definition, Jennifer cannot break an employment contract without having made the contract.
Breaking the contract is therefore ethical only if making and breaking the contract is an ethical
act. But making a contract and then breaking it simply for convenience is not generalizable. It
would be impossible to make an employment contract in the first place if everyone broke
contracts whenever it is convenient to do so.
Jennifer may protest that I have drawn the scope too broadly, because her reasons are more
complex than I have made out. She acted in good faith all along. The offer from Glamour was
unexpected, and she didn’t interview after signing with Midwest. These are all part of her reasons.
Making exceptions in such cases may be consistent with the practices that make employment
contracts possible.
Yet on reflection, this, too, fails the generalization test. Imagine what it would be like if
students were always willing to accept an unsolicited offer after signing a contract for a less-
attractive job. Companies would keep making them offers in the hope of luring them away from
the jobs they had accepted. Again, the employment contract would not mean that the job search
is over, and companies would have no reason to offer contracts that promise employment.
It would be like an auction at which the auctioneer keeps accepting bids after shouting
“sold.” The bidding would never be over. Auctions would be impossible, because people would
never know when they have bought the merchandise.
There may be another way for Jennifer to escape from her commitment to Midwest.
Employment contracts often have some kind of escape clause for both parties. In fact, contracts
frequently do not actually promise employment, but only the salary and other terms as long as
the employment lasts. Conversely, the employee may have the option of resigning at any time
without penalty, perhaps after giving notice, such as two weeks. Jennifer might therefore decide to
give notice even though she has not started work.
Let’s grant that this maneuver is legal. The difficulty is, from an ethical point of view, she promised
more than this. Everyone recognizes that a change in life circumstances may require a change of job,
such as marriage, children, or unexpected financial problems. Or after working at a company for a
while, one may be ready to move on to another position. In such cases, giving notice is reasonable and
expected. But barring unforeseen circumstances, Jennifer promised to work for Midwest for the time
being. Again, the whole point of signing with Midwest is to indicate that Jennifer has made up her
mind where to work, whatever may be the technical terms of the contract. Similarly, the whole point
of Midwest’s offering a job to Jennifer is to indicate that the company has made up its mind whom to
hire, whatever “employment at will” language may appear in the contract. Midwest is promising to
employ her for the time being, unless there is an unexpected change of circumstances, such as company
bankruptcy or Jennifer’s failure to perform satisfactorily. Companies sometimes renege on their
promise, but this doesn’t make it right to do so, or show that it is permissible for Jennifer to renege.
This analysis does not tell Jennifer precisely how long she must work for Midwest to honor
her agreement or how long the company must employ her. But it at least tells her that the two-week
notice maneuver is unacceptable.
The whole situation changes, of course, if Midwest releases Jennifer from the contract. She
might go to Midwest to explain the situation and learn that the company has found another MBA
student whom they would actually prefer to hire. Jennifer and the company therefore agree to
forget about their employment contract. This is clearly generalizable, because the practice of
employment contracts is not undermined if they are abrogated only with mutual consent.
The consent must be genuine, however. If Midwest releases Jennifer from the contract only
because they see that they are going to lose her anyway, this is not consent. From an ethical point
of view, Jennifer is in breach of her promise to work for Midwest, whatever may be its legal status.
As a last resort, Jennifer might concede that breaking her contract is problematic but insist
that the circumstances justify it. At Midwest she would be bored and unmotivated, while at
Glamour she will be enthusiastic and much more likely to keep customers happy. Midwest can easily
find someone else qualified for their job, while she is uniquely suited to the Glamour job. Can
these considerations override the generalization test? Or to put it differently, can the end justify the
means? I will deal with this issue shortly, when I discuss the second condition for rational choice.
Judging Generalizability
The generalization test requires that we judge the consequences of generalizing an action. This
raises the question of how we can really know what the consequences of a generalized action
would be. For example, Jennifer may ask how she can be sure that companies would keep making
offers if students would accept them. Fortunately, it is not necessarily to know the consequences
of generalizing an action. It is only necessary to be consistent in one’s beliefs. The generalization
test, like all the rationality tests, is a test for logical consistency.
Thus if Jennifer’s beliefs about how the world works imply that she would be unable to
make and break an employment contract if all students did so, then her action fails the general-
ization test. Similarly, if my beliefs about the world imply that the shop would lock up its watches
if customers regularly stole them, then my theft is not generalizable. The generalization test can
therefore be more precisely stated.
• Generalization test (refined). The reason for my action should be consistent, based on
my understanding of how the world works, with the assumption that everyone who has
the same reason will act the same way.
Suppose, however, Jennifer refuses to acknowledge that employers would continue to make offers if
students accepted them after signing. Then she may claim that her beliefs about employer behavior
are consistent with the possibility of generalizing her actions. In this case we must ask whether her
refusal is reasonable, given her experience and her other beliefs about the world. If not, no rational
reconstruction can be given for the thinking behind her behavior. This means that breaking the
contract is not an action, and therefore not an ethical action. To be ethical, she need not be right
about whether employers would continue to make offers, but only rational in her beliefs about it.
Professional Ethics
A central issue for business ethics is how to understand professional ethics, which sometimes
seems to impose obligations that conflict with ethics in a broader sense. A business executive, for
example, may be professionally bound to lay off workers, or pollute the environment within legal
limits, for the sake of profits—even when this hurts people. Similar dilemmas arise in other
professions. A physician may be professionally obligated to withhold a cancer drug from patients
because it has not been governmentally approved, even when it could save lives.
The generalization test plays a central role in analyzing professional obligation. To see why,
it is helpful to think about why we have professions. They assure the public that it can expect a
certain standard of conduct from members of the profession. Professional standards relieve
patients of the burden of investigating the background of every physician who might treat them,
or businesses the burden of administering a CPA examination to every accountant they hire.
This is not only socially efficient but holds every member of the profession to a promise. An
individual who walks into an examination room wearing a long, white coat and displays medical
diplomas on the wall makes a promise to the patient waiting there. She promises to conform to
the standard of conduct that the medical professional has led the public to expect. Accountants
who write “CPA” after their name promise to adhere to generally accepted accounting practices.
Because the duty to keep a promise is grounded in the generalization principle, it typically plays a
prominent role in the analysis of professional obligation.
Settling issues of professional obligation actually has two components. One is an empirical
matter of determining what the profession has in fact led its clients to expect. Exactly what does
the business executive promise stockholders, and what does the physician promise patients? The
other is the ethical matter of when there is an obligation to keep these promises, particularly
when doing so can cause harm. This is an issue that arises with promise keeping in general and
can be treated with the same type of analysis. Even in everyday nonprofessional life, we sometimes
find that our promises conflict with other obligations and must decide what to do about it.
Professional ethics is therefore not a different kind of ethics that may be at odds with general
ethics. It is a particular kind of promise-keeping obligation that is considered along with the
other elements of a case and evaluated with the same conditions for rational choice. This means
that we can’t make blanket statements about what professional obligation requires. We can’t say
that an executive’s fiduciary obligation to owners always requires profit maximization within the
law, or that a physician must always go by the book. It depends on the particulars of the case.
Fiduciary Duty to Stockholders

Fiduciary duty requires closer examination, because it is frequently cited as justification for taking
whatever action may be necessary to maximize profit. “Fiduciary” literally means loyalty, and
fiduciary duty is normally interpreted as a duty to be loyal to stockholders by advancing their
financial interests. This most closely describes the position of board members and senior executives,
as opposed to middle managers and other employees. When someone joins the board of directors or
signs on as CEO, there is at least an implicit promise to represent the financial interests of the owners.
The first point to recognize is that the owners are ultimately responsible for the actions of
the firm. If the firm shuts down a plant and moves its operations to a low-wage country, for the
sake of profitability, the owners are responsible for this decision. If it is unethical, the owners are
unethical. So the fundamental and prior question always is, is the action in question an ethical
choice for the owners? If so, then board members and executives carry it out on their behalf in
good conscience. If not, we must ask whether the directors and top executives of the firm are
nonetheless obligated to carry out the action to keep their fiduciary promise.
As with professional obligation in general, this is a promise-keeping issue that must be
resolved one case at a time. We might anticipate, however, that only in fairly unusual situations is
one obligated to act on behalf of someone for whom the action would be unethical. The directors
have specific duties that are mandated by the corporate charter or by law, but the law rarely
requires strict profit maximization, as is often supposed in the popular imagination. The key
point is this: The mere fact that an action maximizes profit does not establish a fiduciary obligation
to carry it out, particularly if it is unethical for the owners. Further argument is required.
The situation is different with employees other than top executives. Their duties to the firm
derive from their employee contracts, instructions from superiors, and the expectations associ-
ated with their specific positions. Fiduciary obligation is not directly relevant, except to the extent
that their specific duties tend to enhance profitability. In fact, if superiors instructed them to take
actions that reduce profitability, they would normally be obligated to do so. The common defense
that “I must do this because I have a fiduciary duty to maximize profits” is therefore invalid for
employees other than the most senior executives.
Exercises
1. Give a simple argument that breaking a promise, simply because it is convenient to do so, fails the
generalization test. Note that one can break a promise only if it is possible to make a promise.
2. Give a simple argument that lying, merely for convenience, fails the generalization test. Assume that the
lie would achieve its purpose only if it is believed.
3. As an ambulance driver, you normally use a siren and flashing lights only for an emergency. At the moment
you are driving the vehicle to an important meeting with your boss that may determine whether you will be
laid off due to budget cuts. You lingered a bit too long at lunch before departing and therefore turn on the
siren so that you can arrive on time. Suppose for the sake of argument that this is legal. Is it generalizable?
4. The situation is the same as in the previous exercise, except that you are running late because of a very
unusual traffic jam on the route. You can still arrive on time by using the siren. Is this generalizable?
What exactly is the scope in this case? Hint: If you are willing to use the siren due to a traffic delay, would
you be willing to use it for other kinds of delay? Why not?
5. While walking down Fifth Avenue in New York City, you see a $100 bill on the pavement. You take the money
and spend it because you have no way of knowing who dropped it. This is legal, but is it generalizable?
6. You shop at a grocery that arranges milk bottles so that the oldest ones are in front and the freshest in
the rear. You reach behind the older bottles to select the one at the very back. Your reason for doing so is
to obtain the freshest milk. Does your behavior pass the generalization test?
7. As you are about to board an aircraft, it is announced that the plane will be boarded by zones to expedite
the process. However, you would like to board before your zone is called to make sure you can find space
for your carry-on luggage in an overhead compartment. Is this generalizable?
8. While commuting home from work, you take a detour through a residential area to avoid a congested
main artery. Because only a few drivers take the detour, it removes several minutes from your commuting
time due to the light traffic. Is your action generalizable?
9. In the previous exercise, suppose that a few commuters can drive through the residential area unnoticed,
but if many cars used the detour, the traffic would become a noisy and hazardous nuisance in the neigh-
borhood. Does this have a bearing on the generalizability of your action?
10. In Exercise 8, suppose that you are taking the detour only because few people know the city as well as
you do. If many people knew about the detour and were nonetheless avoiding it, you would follow their
example. Is your action generalizable?
11. Music shop temptation. While browsing in a music shop, you spot a CD recording of Arnold Schönberg’s
Pierrot Lunaire. You love this piece, but you are absolutely certain that no one else within a thousand-mile
radius can bear listening to this abstract atonal music. The shop is lax about security, and you can easily
walk out with the CD without being noticed. You conclude that stealing the CD, because of your unique
affection for what others regard as incomprehensible noise, is generalizable. Are you right?
12. Police have closed one lane of a highway due to an accident. A long queue of traffic has formed in the
lane that remains open, because drivers slow down to view the accident. However, a few drivers bypass
the queue by driving along another lane up to the point of closure and then rely on polite drivers to let
them merge at the front of the queue. Is this behavior generalizable? Assume it is legal.
13. In the previous exercise, is it generalizable for a driver at the front of the queue to allow someone to
merge? Assume it is legal.
14. You decide to play in an amateur tennis tournament because you know you are the best player in town
and will certainly win the trophy and prize money. This is the only reason you are playing the tournament.
Is your decision to play in the tournament generalizable? If not, under what sort of rationale would your
entry in the tournament be generalizable?
15. You are considering whether your cable TV business should enter the market in Anywheresville, which
presently has no cable service. You expect a few other cable companies will do the same. However, past
experience in towns of this size shows that only one cable provider will survive. Your only reason for entering
the competition is to drive the other companies out. Is a decision to enter this market generalizable?
16. Damage expense.1 Chris is a new hire at a manufacturing company, which pays his moving expenses.
However, the movers seriously damage an expensive piece of furniture. The insurance covers only a
small fraction of the cost. Chris mentions this to his boss Bob, who tells him to cover it by padding his
expense account over the next few months. Chris is surprised by this suggestion, because in their
previous conversations, Bob has impressed him as having a high sense of business ethics. (a) Is it
generalizable for Chris to pad the expense reports? Be sure to state the scope clearly. (b) Suppose
coworkers tell Chris that this kind of padding goes on all the time at the company. Does this change
the analysis?
17. Upgrading the refinery. You are plant manager at a refinery that meets all environmental regulations.
However, the mayor of a nearby community is pressuring you to install new technology that would
reduce emissions below mandated levels. You respond that your plant is more cost-efficient than some
of your competitors because they bore the cost of installing the new technology. Putting the equipment
in your plant would erase this advantage and perhaps result in a plant shutdown. However, the mayor,
who has taken a course in Ethics as Rational Choice, points out that your rationale is not generalizable.
If all plants followed your example, then keeping the old technology would no longer make your plant
the most cost-efficient. How should you respond?
18. Ordinarily, an action that fails the generalization test would continue to fail if the scope were broadened.
This is because a rationale is less likely to be generalizable when it applies to more people. However,
there are exceptions. Can you think of one?
THE UTILITARIAN TEST

The reasons for our actions often have a means–ends structure. You may attend class in order to
improve your grade, but the grade is itself a means to a degree, which perhaps is a means to a
better job, which is itself a means to acquiring happiness, serving others, or whatever. At some
point, this regress must reach an end or ultimate purpose, or perhaps several ends, if it is to justify
any of your actions as means.
We obviously cannot justify our actions in this way unless we get straight on what our ends
are. Once we do that, to be rational, we must choose actions that are means to these ends, rather
than means to something else or to nothing in particular. We often fail to meet even this simple
condition, particularly in the business world. It is easy to get caught up in the struggle of competition
and forget what it is all for. Yet we cannot decide how much to sacrifice to maximize stock price
until we have determined what we are ultimately trying to accomplish. Almost certainly, a high
stock price is not an end in itself, because we wouldn’t care about it unless it were necessary to
achieve some further end. To be rational, we must identify this end.
Maximizing Utility
Utilitarianism, in its simplest form, suggests that we have or should have some ultimate end
that might be called utility. This could be pleasure, happiness, or whatever you prefer. High
grades, a good job, and a big salary are instrumentally good, while pleasure and happiness are
perhaps inherently good. Rationality requires us to decide what is inherently good and aim for
it consistently.
We can take this a step further, and this is a crucial step. Suppose I regard happiness as in-
herently good, my ultimate goal. If creating happiness justifies an action, then creating anyone’s
happiness justifies the action. Otherwise it is not happiness, in and of itself, that justifies the
action, as we are supposing. This means that if I can do something to make people happier, I will
want to do it. Otherwise I don’t really believe happiness is inherently good! I must, in some sense,
maximize utility across the whole population, or as the traditional formula goes, achieve the
greatest good for the greatest number.
I may protest that my happiness is inherently good, not just anyone’s. It is my happiness that
justifies my action, not happiness in general. But to be rational in distinguishing my happiness from
someone else’s, there must be some difference that justifies the distinction. If my happiness is some-
how of a different quality than everyone else’s, then at least I am internally consistent. But I really
don’t want to claim this. I just arbitrarily distinguish my happiness from that of others. An arbitrary
distinction, however, is an irrational one.
Many people find this simple argument unconvincing, perhaps due to the heavy emphasis
our society places on self-interest as a motivator. It may be helpful to think about disutility rather
than utility. Almost anyone would grant that it is as bad to do harm to another as to oneself. But
why? To be rational, we must justify this view. One possible justification is that if we regard harm
as inherently a bad thing, in and of itself, then to be consistent we must try to avoid doing harm
to anyone (except when it would prevent a greater harm). Harm is harm, regardless of who suffers
it. The same argument applies to positive utility.
There are various senses in which I can maximize utility. One is to achieve a Pareto optimal
state of affairs, which means that if I can do something to make one person happier, without
reducing the happiness of anyone else, then I will do it. But maximization is normally understood
in the stronger sense that it maximizes the net sum of utility across all persons. That is, a small
utility loss for one person is outweighed by a greater utility gain for others.
While rationality seems clearly to require a Pareto optimum, it is hard to argue rigorously
that it requires maximizing the sum. Nonetheless, I will adopt the working hypothesis that it
does. Almost anyone would say that it is better for one person to sacrifice a little if it relieves
millions from misery. This follows from the utilitarian test if we take the sum of happiness as the
relevant criterion.
• Utilitarian test. An action is ethical only if no other available action creates greater total
net utility.
It may seem an impossible task to measure happiness in a way that allows us to add it up. But we
need only judge whether there is more happiness in one outcome than in another. It may not be
necessary to arrive at a number that measures the amount of happiness. If alternative A results in
a cure for malaria and alternative B a cure for ingrown toenails, we know what to do without
putting any numbers on it. When some kind of numerical calculation is necessary, we will see, in
the next chapter, that utility theory provides some reasonable ways to do it.
Another issue is that we may want to recognize multiple ends that are desirable for their
own sake. Perhaps knowledge, beauty, love, and freedom are valuable irrespective of whether
they are associated with happiness or some other good. This raises the problem of how to
trade them off when they conflict. Ideally, our goal structure should incorporate some ranking
of goals. Value pluralism remains a deep problem and has been the focus of much research in
ethics.2 It is not a major issue, however, in most of the dilemmas analyzed in this book.
A related problem arises when ultimate ends are not universally shared. Perhaps some people
find the experience of political freedom or unspoiled wilderness to be intrinsically valuable, apart
from whatever pleasure or satisfaction they may bring. It is unclear why these persons should be
committed to maximizing freedom or wilderness experiences for those who place no intrinsic
value in them. For present purposes, we will suppose that they are obligated to maximize these
values only for those who care about them. This matter obviously requires deeper thought for a
satisfactory resolution.
Expected Utility
When the consequences of an action are unpredictable, it may nonetheless be possible to identify
a few possible outcomes whose probability can be estimated. One can then calculate the expected
utility of the action and apply the utilitarian test on that basis.
Suppose, for example, that a farmer is considering whether to plant a crop of wheat. Due to
weather and other factors, it is impossible to predict the size of the yield, but the farmer knows
from experience that a good year yields a profit of $50,000 and a bad year brings a loss of
$20,000. Historically, 30% of years are good years and 70% are bad. If we let profit be a measure
of utility, then the expected utility is a weighted sum of the outcomes, where the weights are the
probabilities:
(0.3)($50,000) + (0.7)( - $20,000) = $1,000
The expected utility can be viewed as the average annual utility that would result over many
years. Because the expected utility in this case is positive, planting the crop is (slightly) preferable
to planting nothing, from a utilitarian point of view.
Jennifer’s Choice
Jennifer argues that breaking her agreement with Midwest will lead to a better outcome. The job
at Midwest doesn’t require a person with her unique resume. There are plenty of qualified MBAs
who can replace her, and she would be personally unhappy in the Midwest job. Her qualifications
and enthusiasm for the Glamour job will create significantly more value for its clients than their
second-choice employee would. It is true that she may create a bad reputation for herself at
Midwest by breaking her word, and this could prevent her from making the contributions of
which she is capable. But Midwest is a small firm in a small city, and we can suppose that its
reaction will have minimal effect on her career.
This is a utilitarian argument. Using any reasonable definition of utility, Jennifer can
convincingly argue that breaking the agreement will result in at least as much utility as keeping it.
She considers her own welfare as well as that of others, but this is appropriate, because everyone’s
welfare figures into the utilitarian assessment, including hers. Breaking the agreement therefore
passes the utilitarian test.
It does not follow, however, that breaking the agreement is ethical. To be ethical, the action
must pass all the tests for rational choice. Breaking the agreement fails the generalization test and
is therefore unethical.
Does the End Justify the Means?

There is a lingering problem with Jennifer’s case, however. Taking the Glamour job not only
creates as much utility as taking the Midwest job, but it creates more utility. This seems to
imply that Jennifer has an obligation to take the Glamour job. Does creating more utility
justify breaking the employment agreement with Midwest? Briefly put, does the end justify
the means?
Not if the means is unethical on other grounds. The utilitarian test says that an act is ethical
only if no other available act creates greater utility. Strictly speaking, breaking the agreement with
Midwest is not an act because it violates the generalization test and therefore has no consistent
rationale. So the utilitarian test does not require Jennifer to take the New York job. Let’s restate
the utilitarian test to clarify this:
• Utilitarian test (clarified). An action is ethical only if no other available action creates
greater total utility and meets the other conditions for rational choice.
In other words, the utilitarian test can never override another condition for rational choice. All
the conditions for rational choice must be met. One should never violate the generalization test
to achieve greater utility, no matter how desirable the outcome.
This may seem too strict. One thinks of Jean Valjean, the famous protagonist of Victor
Hugo’s novel Les Misérables, who stole a loaf of bread to feed his starving family. If his theft
violates the generalization test, then it is unethical, regardless of what is at stake. But this is a big
“if.” Remember that the generalization test is applied to the reasons for an action. Stealing a loaf
of bread merely to save money is probably ungeneralizable, but Jean Valjean’s reasons had a much
narrower scope. He stole only because he was penniless and his family was starving. This is a
different rationale that may pass the test.
The end never justifies an unethical means, but the means may be ethical if the end is built into
the rationale for the act. This was not the case for Jennifer, incidentally. Even if creating greater customer
and job satisfaction were part of the rationale for her act, the rationale would still be ungeneralizable.
Too Much Altruism?

The utilitarian criterion may seem much too demanding. As long as there is poverty and suffering
in the world, I can increase utility by giving what I have to the less fortunate. They would gain more
than I would lose, until I give so much that I am not much better off than they. Must I impoverish
myself to be ethical? This kind of generosity is perhaps laudable, but surely it is not obligatory.
The situation is similar for a business. A wealthy corporation could relieve much suffering
through massive charitable contributions to world health, famine relief, and so forth. Certainly, if
the company were too generous, it would lose profitability and perhaps go out of business,
thereby losing the ability to create any sort of utility. Yet the utilitarian test seems to require it to
donate as much as is consistent with its ability to continue making donations and maximize total
utility. Few corporations are willing to operate in this mode.
The fact that the utilitarian condition is demanding does not show it is wrong. Yet it only
demands that we maximize utility consistent with generalizability. The reason I would impoverish
myself to help others is presumably that it would increase total utility. But if everyone who is in a
position to increase utility in this fashion did so, there would be too little left to maintain a pro-
ductive economy. We would have too few resources left to support the infrastructure, educational
system, and capital investment necessary to create the kind of wealth I can presently give away. So
if sacrificial generosity were generalized, it would not accomplish my purpose of increasing utility
and would in fact reduce utility. It therefore fails the test. Note, by the way, that it does not fail the
test simply because universal sacrifice would make us worse off. It fails because universal sacrifice
is inconsistent with my reason for being sacrificial, which happens to be to increase total utility.
On the other hand, a reasonable degree of generosity is consistent with maintaining a pro-
ductive economy even when it is generalized. The utilitarian test obligates me to be as generous as
I can, subject to the condition that equal generosity on everyone’s part would be consistent with
achieving the goal of increasing total utility.
The same applies to the owners of a business. They are obligated to contribute as much as
possible to causes that increase overall utility, consistent with the ability of the business system to
continue to raise capital and support a productive economy if all businesses were equally generous.
The Role of Self-Interest

Even with all the above qualifications, the utilitarian test may seem to set an unreasonably high
standard for mere human beings. While my own utility counts in the utilitarian calculation, every
other person’s utility receives equal weight. This seems to require me to consider the whole world
in every decision. Yet in practice, I find it hard enough to take care of myself, perhaps along with
my family and friends.
Ethics never requires us to do what we cannot do (ought implies can). The utilitarian
principle, in particular, asks us to select an available action that maximizes utility. An action
beyond our powers is not available.
A utilitarian calculation also recognizes that my actions affect me more than anyone else.
I have the greatest control over my own affairs, and as a rule, my efforts are more efficiently applied
to improving my own situation rather than someone else’s. This means I can often maximize
utility by placing the greatest emphasis on self-interest.
The balance nonetheless tends to change as I mature and assume greater responsibilities.
As a parent, business manager, physician, or teacher, I have substantial influence over the
welfare of those in my charge. Utilitarianism requires that they become a more central
element of my decision making. Fortunately, maturity tends to bring a greater capacity to
meet this responsibility.
A similar principle applies to business. A company creates utility primarily through the
efficient and responsible production of valuable goods and services, because this is what it is best
equipped to do. More mature companies can and should broaden their perspective, perhaps by
contributing to infrastructure and education.
An obligation to care for others may flow from the other conditions of rational choice as
well. We have already noted, for example, that professional obligations to stockholders, patients,
or students are based on the generalization principle. We will see that the third condition for
rational choice can also impose loyalty obligations toward family, coworkers, and others with
whom one has a relationship.
Predicting the Consequences

The utilitarian test asks us to foresee the consequence of an individual action, much as the gener-
alization test asks us to gauge the consequences of a generalized action. Neither requires us to be
right about it, but only that we make rational judgments. If I have evidence that action A creates
more utility than action B, then consistency requires me to choose action A. However, if the
evidence is scarce or ambiguous, and I have no particular reason to believe that one action has
better consequences than another, then the utilitarian criterion imposes no particular obligation.
Either choice satisfies the utilitarian test.3
This doesn’t give me a license to be lazy, however. I can’t just say that because I happen to
have no evidence either way, I can do whatever I want, without trying to gather some evidence. If
happiness is my goal, for example, it is irrational for me to act without making some effort to find
out how to create happiness. It is as though I want to drive to a certain shop but don’t bother to
find out which route to take. If I drive around aimlessly, I am simply irrational. It makes no sense
to begin the trip without looking at a map or asking a friend about the route.
How much effort must I exert to be rational? It is a trade-off. If I spend too much time
studying maps, then I will have too little time to shop when I arrive. To be rational, I must find a
balance between information gathering and action that I can reasonably believe maximizes the
utility that results.4
Exercises
19. In Exercise 7, does boarding early pass the utilitarian test?
20. The accidental bank robbery.5 Chris is a relief branch manager for Commerce Trust Bank. His job is to fill
in for regular branch managers while they are away. Today he is serving at a bank with several
inexperienced tellers. One of them, Carole, comes up $900 short at the end of the day. She is in a panic,
because reporting a $900 shortage to headquarters would result in automatic termination of her job. On
checking the transactions ledger, Chris finds that while cashing a check, Carole misread $100 as $1,000 and
paid out the larger amount. Fortunately, the check holder is one of the bank’s best customers. However,
when Chris telephones the customer, he insists that he received only $100—even when Chris mentions
that Carole would lose her job if the money were not returned. Carole is in tears, but Chris must somehow
reconcile the ledger. His options are: (a) report the loss, (b) debit the customer’s account by $900, (c) place
the amount in a suspense account and let the regular manager resolve the issue at a later time. Which
option is likely to maximize utility? Hint. If (c) is selected, the regular manager must select (a) or (b).
21. Back at the music shop. You are again browsing in the music shop that has a CD recording of Arnold
Schönberg’s Pierrot Lunaire on display (see Exercise 11). You were reluctant to steal it last time, but another
thought has occurred to you. The shop will never sell this recording, because everyone else in the world hates
this atonal stuff, and it can’t be returned to the manufacturer. However, if you steal it, at least you will enjoy the
music. Furthermore, as a penny-pinching student you can make better use of the $12 on the price tag than the
shop owners. The rational thing to do is therefore to steal the CD, if you can get away with it. Is this correct?
22. Irrevocable election.6 Steve is in his second year at a CPA firm. A firm partner discovers that Steve neg-
lected to attach an irrevocable election form to one of last year’s tax returns. The form is necessary for
the client to avoid a substantial tax liability in subsequent years. The partner reassures Steve that it is a
fine point he would have not expected Steve to catch. The client shouldn’t have to pay a higher tax due
to their mistake, but there is a way to fix it. The partner asks Steve to prepare the election form and
attach it to their file copy of last year’s tax return. Then he is to prepare this year’s tax return as though
the election form were submitted last year. There is no need to mention any of this to the client. If questions
arise, they will show the IRS the file copy of the form and suggest that the IRS lost it in processing. Does
the partner’s request pass the utilitarian test? Is it ethical?
23. Hard choice in Hondo.7 George is manager of an Ardnak Plastics plant in Hondo, Texas. It employs several
hundred persons, a large fraction of the local workforce. George’s boss, Bill, telephones him from head-
quarters in El Paso with the news that the EPA will levy fines against Ardnak for excessive smokestack emissions
at the Hondo plant. However, Bill won’t approve new scrubbers because the company can’t afford it. He
points out that competitors have escaped EPA fines even though their emissions are higher. Upon investigation,
George learns that the competitors avoid fines by scheduling their heavy emissions at night, when the EPA
isn’t running tests. Meanwhile, Bill has been in touch with the Mexican authorities and mentions to George
the possibility of relocating 15 miles south in Mexico, where environmental regulation is lax. This would
necessitate hiring Mexican workers and devastate the economy of Hondo. He tells George that he must
either avoid the fines or relocate. George therefore has three options: (a) dump the pollution at night,
(b) relocate, or (c) resign, in which case his successor will choose (a) because it is the path of least resistance.
Assuming that (a) is ungeneralizable, which of these three options pass(es) the utilitarian test?
VIRTUE ETHICS
The first and second conditions for rational choice impose formal conditions on our decisions.
The third condition begins to examine the content of those decisions, while still using rationality
as a guide. It says that rational decision making must start by making sense of our role in the
world. We can’t decide what to do until we decide why we’re here.
The resulting guidance is in part purely formal and in part substantive. The purely formal part
reminds us that purely formal guidance is not enough. It asks us to subscribe to a cultural tradition,
religion, or philosophy that can provide an ultimate basis for decision making. The choice is ours, but
however we choose, we must act accordingly. We may also define who we are in part though our
choice of career or profession. To be consistent, we must act consistently with this choice.
The second, substantive part begins with the premise that we are rational human beings and
deduces that, as such, we must exhibit certain virtues. The resulting guidelines are often called virtue
ethics. The idea goes back at least to Aristotle and is based on his concept of teleological explanation.
Teleological Explanation
Teleological explanation is a way of understanding the purpose or function of things. (Telos, from
the Greek, means purpose.) It is not hard to identify the purpose of artifacts like cars or computers,
because their designers give them a purpose. But a teleological approach can help us understand
other things as well, such as the human body. It is true that science emphasizes causal explanation.
It explains respiration, for example, by identifying a complex chain of chemical reactions. Yet the
complexity of the human body would be unintelligible if we did not give it a teleological or
functional explanation as well. The function of the heart is to pump blood, the function of the
lungs is to provide oxygen to the blood, and so on. The molecular biologists who tell us about
chemical reactions acquired their first understanding of the body when their kindergarten teachers
told them about the heart and the lungs.
Virtues
There is an old tradition that finds a purpose for human life in the scheme of things much as we find
a purpose for the organs of the body. We say that the heart’s function is to pump blood because it is
uniquely suited to do so. Similarly, human beings are uniquely suited to certain kinds of activity. We
are rational beings. We can apprehend beauty. We are capable of trust, loyalty, friendship, honor, and
courage in a self-conscious way that apparently characterizes no other creature. One might conclude
that our purpose here is at least in part to bring these qualities to the world. They are traditionally
called virtues. No one can prove that this is why we are here, but no one can prove that the heart
exists to pump blood. Nonetheless it is a hypothesis that helps us make sense of things.
Humans are also uniquely capable of monstrous cruelty, and one may wonder why this
would not also be a virtue. Yet no organ of the body can kill like the heart, because a slight electrical
disturbance will do the trick. The heart’s pumping behavior, not its ability to kill, helps us to
understand how the body works. Similarly, cruelty doesn’t help us explain human existence but
makes that existence even harder to explain. Rather, it is by regarding human beings as the world’s
source of rationality, aesthetic sensibility, trust, loyalty, honor, friendship, and courage that we are
able to make some sense of our predicament.
Another way to put this is that the virtues are part of our essence; they help define who
we are. A heart can have two chambers or four, but an organ that doesn’t pump isn’t a heart.
A human being can be tall or short or male or female, but a human being without rationality,
without any of sense of beauty, with no understanding of friendship, is not fully human.
Integrity
Integrity (wholeness) is the result of being consistent with who we are. The third condition for
rational choice is really an ethic of integrity. We lose integrity when we compromise our honor,
abandon a friend, or do a shoddy job that is beneath our intellectual ability. There are various
psychological expressions for this: We can’t live with ourselves, can’t look at ourselves in the
mirror, can’t sleep at night, and so forth. We are no longer whole persons because we have walked
away from who we are as human beings. Yet the third condition does not rely on psychology. It
requires us to act in a way that is logically consistently with who we are.
The pressures of business life can make it difficult to develop some of the virtues, such as
loyalty and friendship. In Western economies, employees may feel free to depart for greener
pastures in the middle of a company project, and the firm may feel free to terminate the employee
in mid-career. Workers and managers who share a commitment to each other arguably live fuller
lives than those linked only by transitory economic incentives, if only because they can develop
their capacity for loyalty and friendship. On the other hand, a competitive business environment
encourages one to develop intellectual competence, which is an equally important virtue and
equally part of one’s essence as a human being.
Virtue ethics tends to be somewhat vague, but in some cases it alone can bring moral
clarity. In practice, its applicability depends on whether virtues conflict. If a single virtue is at
stake, then it must not be compromised, unless this would require an ungeneralizable act. If
conflicting virtues are at issue, however, virtue ethics may provide no clear directive.
Virtue ethics sometimes seems to conflict with the generalization principle. Family loyalty,
as well as utility maximization, may require Jean Valjean to commit a seemingly ungeneralizable
act of theft. This is an old conundrum and a perennial subject of literature.8 It is harder to resolve
than apparent conflicts with the utilitarian principle, which calls only for utility maximization
within limits set by the other principles.
We will deal with this matter by supposing that virtue ethics cannot override the general-
ization principle. One justification for this is that virtue ethics is rather vague in the first place,
and the generalization principle helps resolve the vagueness. Another is that an act may be gener-
alizable when preserving virtue is one of the reasons for it, thus removing the conflict. A deeper
understanding of ethics is necessary to resolve this issue completely, but it is only occasionally a
pivotal factor in business decisions.
Jennifer’s Choice
A virtue ethics perspective would argue for Jennifer’s accepting a job in which she could develop
her abilities, such as the Glamour Finance job. Walking away from Midwest Consulting is perhaps
not a breach of loyalty, either, because no relationship has really been established. On the other
hand, a breach of agreement would compromise Jennifer’s honor and integrity. Honor is part of
integrity, because it is part of who we are.
It is never consistent to act contrary to a virtue, unless it is for the sake of another virtue. In
this case, however, there is a conflict of virtues, and virtue ethics provides no clear verdict. The
best Jennifer can do is to try to strike a balance. The ancient Greeks viewed the ability to find a
balance as itself a virtue, which they called sophrosyne (a word with no English equivalent).
In this case, the best compromise may be to stay with Midwest, where Jennifer can still look
for opportunities to develop her talents to the utmost. For example, with sufficient cleverness and
persistence she may persuade the company to introduce a new analysis tool that will better serve
customers and perhaps attract national attention. On the other hand, if she leaves Midwest, there
is little she can do to mitigate her loss of honor.
The following scorecard sums up the ethics of breaking the Midwest employment contract:
1. Generalization test: Fail.
2. Utilitarian test: Pass.
3. Virtue ethics test: Inconclusive, but leaning toward fail.
Because an act must meet all the conditions to be ethical, breaking the contract is unethical.
Exercises
24. Retirement fund recommendation.9 John is a portfolio analyst for Metropolitan City Teachers’
Retirement Fund (MCTRF). His boss Mary has asked him to compare one of MCTRF’s external growth
stock portfolio managers, Bill Fredericks, against Growth Unlimited (GU) and make a recommendation.
Mary sees some impressive numbers in GU’s performance over the last three years. In fact, John
normally evaluates fund managers based on a three-year record. However, this time he is considering a
different approach. Bill Fredericks was actually slightly ahead of GU last quarter. In addition, John and
Bill have become close friends. Bill has helped John with several projects apart from growth stock invest-
ing and has arranged for John and his staff to attend some of Bill’s educational seminars without cost to
MCTRF. Analyze John’s decision from a virtue ethics perspective. Which recommendation(s) pass the
virtue ethics test?
25. Plant automation.10 George is a recent MBA who just joined a manufacturing firm’s Cedar Valley plant
as its only cost accountant. Cedar Valley is a town of 20,000 people, and the plant is one of several
owned by the firm. George’s boss Arthur tells him that management wants to automate this particular
plant with robots as a pilot project, to help judge whether the other plants should be automated. Arthur
admits that the community will be in an uproar due to the loss of jobs. However, the firm can save some
of the jobs through retraining. Once George releases accounting information showing that the upgrade
is necessary, the community will be less likely to resist. George points out that the report he sent to
headquarters last year found that automation would not benefit the plant. Yet Arthur points out that
the report was based on cost assumptions, and these can be adjusted as necessary to make the bottom
line come out differently. After all, market prices fluctuate, and there is no solid proof that one cost
estimate is better than another. How does virtue ethics bear on this case?
26. Missing travel documentation.11 Tim, a CPA, works for an auditing firm and has been placed in charge of
an annual audit for Dalton Enterprises, a medium-sized firm with $20 million in assets. Mr. Dalton
micromanages the family-owned firm except the finance area, which he leaves to his son Chauncy,
recently appointed as VP of Finance. Chauncy’s duties include the appointment of auditors. Past audit
reports have never been circulated outside the firm. They have been quite detailed, including all changes
in general ledger accounts, because Mr. Dalton uses the reports for administrative control purposes.
Tim notices that travel expenses are $20,000 higher this year, due to expenditures authorized by
Chauncy. Most of these expenses are undocumented, but the firm’s controller seems unconcerned. Tim
finally raises the issue with Chauncy, who questions why auditors would be skeptical of his honesty. He
says that it is typical of “bean counters” to focus on minor issues while ignoring possibilities for major
efficiency improvements. He ends the interview by asking, “What are we paying you guys for anyhow?”
How does virtue ethics relate to Tim’s decision as to what to put in the report?
27. The good credit reference.12 Diversified Consolidated Corporation (DCC) is a supplier for North
Manufacturing. As a credit officer at DCC, Kathy is responsible for about $1 million in credits to North.
There are rumors that North is in deep trouble. The company has always paid on time and even lists
BCC as a credit reference. Nonetheless, Kathy decides that a visit with North’s treasurer, Scott, is in
order. They have developed a good working relationship over the years, and after a few drinks at lunch,
Scott levels with her. He confesses that although North’s latest financial statements are technically
correct, there has been a sudden reversal, and the company is talking to bankruptcy attorneys. Scott is
giving first priority to paying suppliers like DCC, because supplier credit is their only hope for survival.
In fact, Scott has just placed a major order with DCC’s competitor Basic Products. If there is anything
Kathy can do to convince Basic to extend credit, North may get over this hump and bring business back
to DCC. Otherwise, North is probably headed for bankruptcy by the end of the quarter. Later that day,
Kathy receives a phone call from her friend Mike at Basic Products. Suppliers often share credit infor-
mation, and Mike asks about North. He has heard rumors, and he wants to make sure all is well before
he commits to a major order. He is relieved when Kathy tells him that North continues to make its
payments promptly. She asks him to hold the line a moment. Her mind races as she thinks about
whether to tell the rest of the story. How does virtue ethics interact with the other conditions for
rational choice in this case?
28. Suppose that in Exercise 22, the partner thinks better of committing tax fraud. Instead, he tells Steve that
the firm will cover the portion of the client’s tax bill that results from Steve’s mistake. However, it’s best that
the client know nothing of this. Steve is therefore asked to send the client a copy of the tax form he would
have prepared to carry out the partner’s first plan, rather than the form actually submitted to the IRS. The
partner points out that his new plan complies with tax law and benefits the client, so it can’t be unethical. Is
he right?
29. What is the ethical choice in Exercise 20?
Notes
1. Based on the Arthur Andersen mini-case Damage that we can be completely rational when acting with-
Expense by Michael Forget and Raymond L. Hilgert. out full knowledge, because we may have reason to
A number of the exercises in this book are based on a believe that further investment in fact-finding could
collection of ethics case studies assembled by Arthur consume more effort than it is potentially worth (or
Andersen & Co. S.C. during the period 1987–1994. to use a term from decision theory, the net expected
They were one product of a $5 million effort by value of perfect information is negative).
Andersen to raise awareness of ethical issues in busi- 5. Based on the Arthur Andersen mini-case The
ness. Ironically, Andersen surrendered its CPA licenses Accidental Bank Robbery by D. Anthony Plath.
and effectively went out of business in 2002 when 6. Based on the Arthur Andersen mini-case Irrevocable
convicted of obstruction of justice for its role in the Election by Ed Scribner.
Enron scandal (the U.S. Supreme Court overturned 7. Based on the Arthur Andersen mini-case Something
the conviction in 2005). The case collection consists Rotten in Hondo by John Fraedrich.
of five full-length case studies and 85 mini-cases. 8. One thinks of Søren Kierkegaard’s analysis of
2. For example, Isaac Levi, Hard Choices: Decision Making Abraham’s decision in the biblical book of Genesis to
under Unresolved Conflict, Cambridge University sacrifice his son at God’s command. Kierkegaard calls
Press, 1990. it a “teleological suspension of the ethical” in his
3. This differs from classical utilitarianism, which book Fear and Trembling (1843). In our terms, it
requires me to choose the action that actually maxi- would be a teleological suspension of the generaliza-
mizes utility. The classical theory is consequentialist, tion principle.
while the theory presented here is a deontological 9. Based on the Arthur Andersen mini-case Metropolitan
reinterpretation of utilitarianism. City Teachers’ Retirement Fund Performance Appraisal
4. This is related to the concept of bounded rationality by James R. Haltiner and Paul B. Bursik.
introduced by my former colleague Herbert Simon. 10. Based on the Arthur Andersen mini-case Plant
For Simon, bounded rationality is a corrective for Automation by Sue Atkinson.
rational agent models in economics. It takes into 11. Based on the Arthur Andersen mini-case What
account the fact that human beings have limited Happened to All Those Credit Slips? by Robert R. Davis.
knowledge and ability to choose rational acts, even 12. Based on the Arthur Andersen mini-case The Good
acts that are rational in the narrow, self-interested Credit Reference by Scott B. Moore and Edward
sense used by economists. Yet Simon acknowledged D. Curren.
Chapter 3
Distributive Justice and Autonomy
M
any if not most organizational decisions allocate resources. People want their fair share, and
decision makers are frequently called upon to justify their allocations. If the principles of
rational choice are to be adequate for real-world decision making, they must provide
guidance for just distribution.
The utilitarian principle has obvious relevance. It asks us to distribute resources so that they do
the most good. This raises the issue of how to calculate the resulting utility, and it may seem a hopeless
task to quantify such ultimate ends as happiness. Yet it can be done well enough for practical purposes,
and it is not as hard as one might think. This chapter shows how.
Maximizing utility is not the whole story, however. The utilitarian principle tends to allocate the
lion’s share of resources to the most productive individuals, because they create more utility. Those
who are left out may insist that they deserve a decent standard of living, even if they are less productive
due to life circumstances over which they have little control, such as illness, disability, unemployment,
and a disadvantaged background, or assignment to a job that is inherently less productive.
We approach this issue through the well-known ethical principles of John Rawls, which are based
on essentially the same reasoning as the generalization principle. We do not attempt to follow Rawlsian
thought precisely but use it as a starting point for developing the tools we need for rational choice.
This foray into Rawlsian philosophy will provide an opportunity to elaborate on a central idea that
has only been briefly discussed—the autonomy of a moral agent. Autonomy not only explains why
actions must be based on reasons, but respecting autonomy is itself a moral imperative. It lies behind
much of what we say about the value of life and freedom and the immorality of coercion and oppression.
MEASURING UTILITY
The utilitarian test assumes that there is some way to measure the utility of one outcome versus the
utility of another. But how can we assign a number to someone’s happiness or satisfaction? Even if we
can do this, does it make sense to add up these numbers across different people?
As noted in the previous chapter, common sense suffices to settle many cases. We used common
sense to measure utility in Jennifer’s dilemma, for example. In business decisions, wealth can often
serve as a reasonable surrogate for utility, particularly if great disparities of wealth are not part of the
picture. We know how to measure wealth. Even when this is inadequate, elementary utility theory
provides a workable approach.
25
26 Chapter 3 • Distributive Justice and Autonomy
The idea can be illustrated by a real case. In 1996, AT&T laid off about 40,000 workers,
including some 17,000 managers, typically middle-aged. Every option available to AT&T at the
time was harmful to someone. Layoffs would harm the redundant workers, but a bloated payroll
would harm the company and therefore everyone that depended on it. The utilitarian test asks
whether the layoff would result in gains that outweigh the losses.
Measuring total net wealth is probably not adequate in this case. Even if stockholders gain
more wealth than laid-off workers lose, one might argue that the workers lose more utility than
the stockholders gain. The workers’ salary may be worth more to them than a gain in share price
is worth to stockholders. We will analyze the situation with the concept of an individual utility
function that measures the value of wealth.
Utility Functions
Classical utility theory assumes that everyone has a utility function u(Q) that measures the utility
of possessing wealth Q. A typical utility function appears in Figure 3.1, where the horizontal axis
represents wealth (perhaps annual salary) and the vertical axis the utility of that wealth. The curve
is concave (i.e., less steep at the high end) because wealth has greater marginal value when one has
less of it. Figure 3.2 illustrates that a gain of $10,000 benefits someone with $20,000 income more
than its loss harms someone with $100,000 income.
Suppose the AT&T layoff results in income Qi for each person i. Then the total utility
that results from the layoff is Σ i u(Q i ), the sum of the resulting utilities over all persons
affected. Next suppose that retaining these employees results in income Qi ¿ for each person i,
which will be higher than Qi for those who would have been laid off, but lower for some
others. The utilitarian test says that the layoff is preferable if it results in greater total utility,
that is, if Σiu(Qi) > Σiu(Qi ¿ ).
Calibrating Utility Functions

The utilitarian calculation obviously requires that we know what utility curves look like. There is
a simple way to find out. Let’s suppose you want to calibrate your utility function u. Pretend that
you make $100,000 at AT&T and are asked to choose between two alternatives: (a) keeping your
job with a lower salary of Q and (b) retaining your current salary, but with a 50–50 chance you
Utility ui (Q )
Income Q
$20,000 $50,000 $100,000
FIGURE 3.1 Hypothetical utility curve for income levels.
Chapter 3 • Distributive Justice and Autonomy 27
Utility ui (Q )
Income Q
$20,000 $50,000 $100,000
FIGURE 3.2 Illustration of decreasing marginal utility.
will lose your job and have to work elsewhere for $20,000. Now ask yourself, for what value of Q
are you indifferent between these two alternatives?
Let’s suppose you are indifferent when Q = $50,000. Then the expected utility of (a) and (b)
should be the same for you. If you choose job security, your utility is u(50,000), the value of your
utility function at $50,000. If you choose the lottery with a 50–50 chance of losing your job, your
expected utility is a weighted average of the utilities of the two outcomes, where the weights are
their probabilities (1⁄2 for each). This yields the equation
1 1
u150,0002 = u1100,0002 + u120,0002 (1)
2 2
You can arbitrarily assign numbers to the utility of $100,000 and of $20,000. They can be any
numbers you want, but let’s say u(100,000) = 40 and u(20,000) = 10. Equation (1) now determines
the utility of $50,000 to be 25.
You can carry out the same thought experiment for other probabilities. Let p be the
probability you will lose your job if you retain your current salary, which means 1 - p is the prob-
ability you will keep it. You decide that you are indifferent between this lottery and a secure job
with salary Q. Then the expected utilities are again the same for the two options:
u1Q2 = 11 - p2u1100,0002 + pu120,0002 (2)
By evaluating the right-hand side of equation (2), you can derive the utility of Q. Two of the
utility values are arbitrary, but once you fix them, all the others are determined.
You can continue these thought experiments for several probabilities p and identify several
points on the graph of your utility function. (Or you could try several values of Q and identify the
corresponding probabilities p.) By connecting the points with a smooth curve, you have an
approximation of your utility function.1
The specific numerical values of the utility function have no meaning, because you could
have started with any distinct values for u(20,000) and u(100,000). But relative utility differences
mean something. Losing your job reduces utility twice as much as getting a 50% pay cut, no
matter what values you assign to u(20,000) and u(100,000). This is verified in Mathematical Note
1 at the end of the chapter.
For practical purposes, it is normally adequate to suppose that everyone has more or less
the same utility function. Also, because relative utility differences are meaningful, it makes sense
to compare the total utility of two alternatives. Even if the utility function were calibrated with
different starting values, the utilitarian decision would always be the same.
Thus, we have all the tools we need for AT&T to apply the utilitarian test. Carrying out the
analysis is quite practical. A company economist can suggest a reasonable utility function. Other
company analysts can estimate the financial impact of the two options on stakeholders, or may
have already done so. The rest can be done on a spreadsheet. If some stakeholders dispute the
decision that results, which is very likely, the company is now in a position to explain why its
choice is best all around.
The situation is more difficult when different stakeholder groups have significantly
different utility functions. The interpersonal comparability of utility functions has received a
good deal of study that goes beyond the scope of this book. Nonetheless, the principal lesson to
take away from this section is that utilitarian calculations are often possible and practical in
business contexts.
Exercises
1. You wish to estimate the utility to you of earning the annual salaries in the left column of Table 3.1.
You fix the utility of $10,000 arbitrarily at 15, and the utility of $40,000 arbitrarily at 25. You
decide that you are indifferent between (a) receiving a sure salary of Q between $10,000 and
$40,000 and (b) taking a chance of receiving $40,000 with probability p and $10,000 with
probability 1 - p, where Q and p are shown in the table. Calculate the utility of salaries $15,000,
$20,000, and $30,000.
2. Now suppose you wish to estimate the utility of $5,000. You are indifferent between (a) receiving
$10,000 for sure and (b) receiving $40,000 with probability p and $5,000 with probability 1 - p, where
p = 1/3. Use this to calculate the utility of $5,000.
Hint. Suppose, in general, that you fix utilities for salaries Q1 and Q2 (here, $10,000 and $40,000,
respectively) and wish to calculate the utility of some salary Q that is less than $10,000. If you are
indifferent between (a) receiving Q1 and (b) a lottery in which you receive Q2 with probability p and
Q with probability 1 - p, then
u1Q12 = 11 - p2u1Q2 + pu1Q22
This allows you to solve for u(Q) in terms of u(Q1) and u(Q2).
3. Suppose you are indifferent between (a) receiving a salary of $40,000 for sure and (b) a lottery in which
you receive $50,000 with probability p and $10,000 with probability 1 - p, where p = 0.9. Use this fact to
calculate the utility of $50,000.
4. Plot your utility curve using the results of the previous three exercises.
TABLE 3.1 Data for Exercises 1–4

Salary Q Probability p
15,000 0.35
20,000 0.6
30,000 0.85
DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE
An allocation may be unjust even when it maximizes utility. True, there is already a principle of
justice in utilitarianism simply because everyone’s utility is given equal weight in the calculation.
One cannot (arbitrarily) give greater weight to members of the upper class or of a certain race, for
example. Furthermore, utilitarian solutions show at least some preference for equality because
utility curves are concave, and resources are worth more at the margin to those who have less
(Figure 3.2). This can partially offset the advantage of allocating most of the resources to a few
more productive persons (see Mathematical Note 2).
But utilitarian calculations nonetheless endorse highly unequal and possibly unjust distribu-
tions if they happen to maximize overall utility. They may require us to pay CEOs exorbitant salaries
while paying sweatshop laborers next to nothing, deny health care benefits to low-wage workers,
refuse to hire the handicapped, and so forth, if these policies raise the average utility despite hurting
those at the low end. To determine whether these policies are ethical, we must apply the other
conditions for rational choice.
The Veil of Ignorance

John Rawls proposed a vivid way of understanding the generalizability of reasons.2 On his view, you
must make a decision without knowing who you are. When Jennifer decides to sign with Glamour,
for example, she could be Jennifer, a manager at Midwest, or another student. As Rawls put it, she
must decide behind a “veil of ignorance” as to her station in life. She will find out who she is only
after she makes the decision. Her reasons must justify her choice no matter who she turns out to be.
This can be seen as one more consequence of the generalization principle. The principle
can be understood as requiring that a decision be evaluated as a policy for everyone. But this
means (a) the reasons must be consistent with everyone’s carrying out the policy (the generaliza-
tion test), and (b) the policy must be rational from everyone’s point of view (the Rawlsian test).
The Rawlsian test does not mean that one should figure the probabilities and maximize
the expected outcome when one learns one’s identity. An AT&T executive behind the veil of igno-
rance might decide it is a good bet to lay off some middle-aged employees to make a company
more profitable. She might be one of those terminated, but there is a greater chance she would be
someone who benefits from the layoff. She is willing to take her chances. Rawls says this is not
enough. She must construct a justification for the layoff that would be equally rational for her to
use if she were transported into the body of one of the redundant employees.
The Difference Principle

Rawls used his idea of the veil of ignorance to analyze distributive justice. He arrived at two principles:
• Liberty Principle: A policy must result in the greatest basic liberty for everyone.
• Difference Principle: A policy must not create inequality unless it results in the greatest
benefit for the least advantaged.
The Liberty Principle addresses the issue of autonomy, which we take up in the next section. The
Difference Principle applies to allocations of utility, such as salary levels. Because the principle is a
generalization test, it evaluates a company’s salary scale as though it were general policy for all
companies: Certain types of work earn certain types of compensation. The Difference Principle
says that it is unjust to create salary differentials unless the lowest paid would be even worse off if
all salaries were equal. Perhaps there would be no incentive for people to work hard or prepare
themselves for the more responsible positions. Companies would become much less profitable,
and possibly go under, making the lowest salaries even lower (perhaps zero). If this is true, then
salary differences of some sort are necessary to make the lowest-paid person as well off as possible
and therefore satisfy the Difference Principle.
The Difference Principle has been defended with a social contract argument. We all get
together and make policy before we know who we are. A policy is justified only if we can all ration-
ally agree with it after finding out how we will be personally affected. But I can rationally agree with
a policy that puts me on the bottom only if I would have been even worse off under another policy.
In other words, it is rational to minimize regret. The policy must therefore result in the greatest
possible benefit to those on the bottom.
Refining the Difference Principle

The Difference Principle requires several clarifications before it can be applied. First, the
principle doesn’t say that a policy should maximize benefit to those currently on the bottom.
The argument from rational choice clearly implies that it should result in the greatest possible
benefit to those on the bottom after the allocation. This is sometimes referred to as a maximin
principle, because it maximizes the resulting minimum.
It is also unclear what it means to “create inequality.” If an action raises the welfare of the
middle class, for example, it widens the gap between the middle and the bottom but reduces the
gap between the middle and the top. Does this create or reduce inequality? Perhaps the best way
to deal with this issue is simply to say that we should maximize the welfare of the worst off,
whether or not we “create” inequality. A party to a social contract would want to minimize regret
whether the inequality results from the contract or from some other source.
• Revised Difference Principle: A policy must result in the greatest benefit for those who
are least advantaged after the policy is generally adopted.
Still another question is whether the “least advantaged” should refer to an individual person or a
group. Should we maximize the welfare of the poorest individual, or the lowest class in general? It
seems best to say that the Difference Principle refers to the smallest group whose welfare is
actually controlled by the allocation.
For example, if I sell lottery tickets, I don’t maximize the welfare of the worst-off ticket
holder, because the losers would have been better off if I had sold no tickets. Yet my choice to sell
lottery tickets didn’t make any particular person worse off. That person could just as well have
been the winner, under the same choice. On the other hand, the decision to have a lottery controls
the welfare of ticket holders as a group. In fact, it makes them worse off, because I keep part of the
proceeds of the lottery tickets. A policy of holding lotteries of a given type therefore passes the
Difference Principle unless the tickets holders are, as a group, the least-advantaged persons.
For similar reasons, a company is not required to maximize the wealth of its poorest
employee, because the company controls only the salaries. Even if all salaries were equal, different
levels of wealth would result due to different spending habits and personal circumstances.
However, the average welfare of all employees receiving low salaries may be predictable.
Companies are required only to choose a salary scale that, if generally adopted, would maximize
the collective welfare of those receiving the lowest salaries.
The Difference Principle is sometimes strengthened to say that after maximizing the welfare of
the worst-off group, we should then maximize the welfare of the second worst-off group (without
reducing the welfare of the worst off). The social contract argument would seem to require that those
who end up second from the bottom minimize regret, as well as those on the bottom. We should then
maximize the welfare of the third worst-off group, and so forth. This is known as lexicographic
maximization because of an analogy with putting words in lexicographic (i.e., alphabetical) order.
One alphabetizes by the first letter (analogous with the worst-off group), then by the second letter,
and so forth.
• Extended Difference Principle: A policy must result in a lexicographic maximum of
benefits after the policy is generally adopted.
What kind of benefits are subject to the Difference Principle? Rawls says that it applies only to
“primary goods,” which he defines as things that everyone wants, no matter what else they want.
These include income, wealth, and rights and prerogatives other than the basic liberties guaran-
teed by the Liberty Principle. It is important that everyone want the benefits, because otherwise
the social contract argument would not go through. I don’t care whether I end up on the bottom
if I have no interest in the benefits allocated.
To be consistent with our framework, we will view the Difference Principle as applying to
allocations of utility, as defined in Chapter 2. This means that the principle applies to what we
regard as intrinsically valuable, perhaps happiness or pleasure. The social contract argument
remains valid to the extent that these are universally valued. In practice, we typically focus on
benefits that enhance these intrinsic goods, such as income and health, just as when applying the
utilitarian principle. This tends to yield similar results as focusing on primary goods (except that
Rawls doesn’t regard health as a primary good). If the kind of utility at stake is not universally
seen as an intrinsic value, such as wilderness experience, then we consider only those who value it
intrinsically, as we do when using the utilitarian principle.
Some people are uncomfortable with the Difference Principle. It implies, for example, that
salary scales should maximize the welfare of those in the lowest bracket, even if paying more to
top executives would result in greater total income. Some say that the utilitarian principle should
prevail on such cases and that top executives should earn a thousand times more than the average
worker if this maximizes aggregate utility (accounting for the concavity of utility curves).
The social contract argument for the Difference Principle is perhaps less than airtight. Yet
the argument (if any) for maximizing total utility, as opposed to obtaining a Pareto optimum, is
even less certain. Both principles are working approximations. Perhaps at some point we will
discover a synthesis of the two that can be rigorously defended.
In the meantime, rationality constrains those who reject the Difference Principle to be clear
about why the social contract argument doesn’t work. They must also be prepared to accept the
consequences of having no distributive justice principle, or else find a defensible substitute. For
example, they must endorse social arrangements in which an underclass toils for privileged elites,
or the physically and mentally impaired are left out of the economy, if such arrangements
maximize total utility consistent with generalizability and virtue ethics.
The Liberty Principle

The Liberty Principle might be defended on the grounds that agency itself requires a certain
amount of freedom to achieve one’s purposes. There can be no consistent rationale for destroying
agency, because having a rationale for any action presupposes the ability to choose one’s actions.
This justifies giving the Liberty Principle priority over the Difference Principle. When designing
an allocation, the first task is to make sure that everyone has basic liberty, if possible, at which
point remaining benefits can be distributed in a way consistent with the Difference Principle.
The Liberty Principle protects basic liberty, not the freedom to do anything we want. Its
most obvious consequence is that it is wrong to cause death, unless other lives are at stake. The
same applies to debilitating injury, imprisonment, coercion, or otherwise consigning people to a
situation in which they have no meaningful control over their lives, unless these are necessary
to avoid equal or greater deprivation for others. Further examples might include slave labor or
extreme sweatshop conditions that rob people of any meaningful alternatives.
It is also wrong to deprive people of the faculties necessary to make rational choices, perhaps
by means of a psychoactive drug, psychological manipulation, overbearing indoctrination, or denial
of opportunity for cognitive development—because without rationality, there is no agency. Thus,
an advertising campaign that works subconsciously could be examined for possible violations of the
Liberty Principle.
The obvious question arises as to what to do when we must take the life or liberty of some for
the sake of others. This quandary arises when a drug saves many lives but will inevitably destroy a
few due to unintended side effects, or when we incarcerate criminals to prevent harm to future
victims. The unfortunate fact is that the Liberty Principle, as I interpret it, doesn’t tell us how to
balance one life against another. If the available options are generalizable and consistent with virtue
ethics, we must treat life and liberty as forms of utility and select the option that maximizes utility.
This may force us to put some kind of value on life, however unpleasant that may be.
In fact, it is common to assign a monetary value to human life in contexts where there is
no other way to make a rational decision. A government might avoid all deaths by severe
weather, for example, by investing billions in every conceivable safeguard, but only at the cost of
shutting down other services, perhaps including those that save life and limb. This seems clearly
irrational, and the only evident alternative is to assign a monetary cost to death and injury.
Exercises
5. A drug is discovered that cures all mild cases of diabetes but has no effect on severe cases. It is therefore
prescribed only for patients who have mild cases. Does this policy satisfy the Difference Principle?
6. Suppose the drug in the previous exercise cures all mild cases but has only a small positive effect on
severe cases. The drug is in short supply, and to make the best use of it, it is prescribed only for patients
with mild cases. Does this policy satisfy the Difference Principle?
7. Some provincial governments conduct daily lotteries. Studies have found that those who buy the lottery
tickets are the poorest people in the province. Does this type of lottery satisfy the Difference Principle?
8. An economics game.3 A popular economics game teaches an important lesson in rationality. You are
granted $100 along with the option of donating any portion of the grant (from $0 to $100) to an
anonymous person. That person, to whom the donor is anonymous, is given the option of accepting or
rejecting the donation. If the gift is rejected, both parties forfeit the money. No collusion is allowed.
Clearly, rational self-interest requires that you donate a very small positive amount (say, one cent) and
that the recipient accept it. If you donated zero, the recipient could reject it without penalty, but it is
irrational to turn down even one cent. Actual behavior is quite different. The average donation tends to
be in the range of $30–40, and close to half give away $50. This behavior is normally cited as a
demonstration that people are irrational. Yet this follows only if rationality is interpreted in the narrow
sense of rational self-interest. How can the observed behavior, particular the behavior of those who
donate half the money, be seen as entirely rational from a Rawlsian perspective?
MATHEMATICAL NOTE 1
When a utility function ui is calibrated by the lottery method described in this chapter, the ratio of
utility losses is the same, no matter what initial values are used to calibrate the function. Let’s
suppose that initial values are assigned to ui(Q1) and ui(Q3), where Q1 = 20,000 and Q3 = 100,000
in the example of Figure 3.2. The utility loss of a salary cut from Q3 to some intermediate value Q2
($50,000 in the example) is ui(Q3) - ui(Q2), and the utility loss of a cut from Q3 to Q1 is ui(Q3) -
ui(Q1). The ratio of these losses is
u i1Q32 - u i1Q22
u i1Q32 - u i1Q12
Because individual i is indifferent between a secure salary of Q2 and a lottery between Q1 and Q3
for some probability p, we can write ui(Q2) = (1 - p)ui(Q1) + pui(Q3). We substitute this expres-
sion for ui(Q2) in the above ratio and get
11 - p2u i1Q32 - 11 - p2u i1Q12
u i1Q32 - u i1Q12
But this algebraically simplifies to 1 - p. So the ratio is the same (namely, 1 - p) regardless of what
arbitrary values are initially assigned to ui(Q1) and ui(Q3).
MATHEMATICAL NOTE 2
The utilitarian bias toward equality is limited, as shown by a mathematical analysis. Suppose for
the sake of argument that the utility generated by a person i who receives resources Q is given by
ciQ p. This reflects not just the utility of Q to individual i, but the utility of what individual i will
accomplish with resources Q. The exponent p is less than 1 when there are decreasing marginal
returns. The coefficient ci indicates the individual’s ability to use the resources; ci is presumably
larger for individuals who are intelligent, well positioned in society, or advantaged in other ways.
The goal is to maximize g iciQ pi subject to ∑iQi = R, where Qi is the amount of resource allocated
individual i and R is the total amount of resource available. If p = 1 (i.e., marginal utility is
constant), then the most advantaged person gets all of the resources. Otherwise the problem can
be solved by associating Lagrange multiplier l with the constraint. The optimal solution satisfies
the Lagrangean equations pciQpi - 1 = l for each i and ∑iQi = R. It is therefore
- p2
c 1/11
i
Qi = R
1/11 - p2
a cj
j
This gives more resources to the more gifted persons but no longer gives everything to the most
gifted. As the exponent p drops to 0, the allocation becomes proportional to ci. So the most nearly
equal distribution that a utilitarian can endorse is to give each person resources in proportion to
that person’s ability to use them.
Notes
1. Or you could use regression techniques to fit a 2. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Harvard University
reasonable functional form to the points, perhaps Press, 1971, last revision 1999.
ui(Q) = a + b Qr. The regression procedure 3. This version of the game is used by Edward Fischer,
determines the values of α, β, and r that result in the an anthropologist at Vanderbilt University, although
best fit. the interpretation is mine.
Chapter 4
Initial Case Studies
T
his chapter provides some initial examples of how ethical dilemmas may be analyzed using the
principles of rational choice. The object here is not to conduct a thorough or lengthy analysis of
every case but to illustrate at an elementary level how the principles apply.
CASE 4.1
Spying on Unilever
1
SYNOPSIS spying on Unilever, in which case there was no need for Pepper to
confess and get his company into serious trouble.
In 2001, John Pepper, the then Chairman of the Board at Procter and
As for the “professional” code of ethics, it is unhelpful. The
Gamble (P&G), discovered that contractors for his company had
proviso that bins be located on public property is presumably
been spying on a competitor, Unilever. They had been digging
based on the illegality of taking anything of value from private
through trash bins outside Unilever’s Chicago offices in hope of find-
property. This does not address the issue of whether spying is
ing memos that revealed the company’s marketing strategy. They
ethical. If it is wrong, then it is wrong whether carried out on
took some 80 documents related to hair care products. Pepper was
public property or private property.
outraged by the practice and fired the contractors. He confessed the
action to Unilever, returned the documents, and pledged not to use
the information in them. Although P&G’s spying was not criminal ANALYSIS
behavior, Unilever responded by playing hardball. It demanded
It is often useful to begin by analyzing a clearer case, to learn
$20 million in damages, reassignment of some P&G hair care
lessons that may help to understand a more difficult case. We can
managers, and restrictions on the marketing of some of its hair care
therefore begin by exploring the ethics of a more egregious case of
products. It further demanded that P&G submit to a third-party audi-
spying, as when an employee sells information about his company
tor who would ensure that the company did not act on the informa-
to a competitor. The generalization test has a clear verdict. The
tion in the documents. Reporters asked a spokesman for The Society
reason for the spy’s actions presumably is to make some money. If
of Competitive Intelligence Professionals about the ethics of P&G’s
all employees who could make money by selling confidential
behavior. He responded that the society’s Code of Ethics condones
information did so, then they would no longer have access to the
trash scavenging only when the trash bins are on public property.
information. Companies would make sure that sensitive information
is carefully controlled and entrusted to as few trusted employees as
THE ISSUE
possible. The spy would no longer be able to make any money by
Did John Pepper overreact? Industrial espionage is practiced world- selling information. Spying of this kind is therefore ungeneralizable.
wide, and industrial spies even have a professional organization Moving to the issue of spying in trash bins, it is ungeneral-
with its own code of ethics. Perhaps there was nothing wrong with izable for a similar reason. If companies routinely searched through
34
Chapter 4 • Initial Case Studies 35
trash bins for information, that information would be routinely Marketing professionals find out what goods and services people
shredded. It would no longer be possible to achieve the purposes of need or want, so that firms produce them rather than something
the action. (In fact, shredding has become common practice.) else. Digging through trash for confidential information doesn’t
A utilitarian analysis is harder to carry out, because it is further this mission and is therefore contrary to what being a
hard to predict the overall net effect of spying. Yet there is no need marketing professional should be all about.
to carry it out, because P&G’s actions violate generalizability and The scorecard for P&G’s spying is as follows:
are unethical on that ground alone.
We can say something about how virtue ethics applies to
2. Utilitarian test: Not applied.
this case, even though this is unnecessary to resolve it. The trash
3. Virtue ethics test: Fail.
scavenging was carried out by a marketing firm, presumably staffed
by marketing professionals. The mission of the marketing profession John Pepper’s outrage was justified. 䊏
is not simply to sell a product, but to match supply and demand.
Exercises
1. Suppose that when John Pepper discovered the espionage, he also discovered that very similar information
appeared in the business media the day before the trash bins were raided. How does the analysis change?
2. In the previous exercise, suppose that shortly after the Unilever story appeared, other media outlets
reported that the journalist paid a Unilever insider for the information, and the insider was fired.
3. Suppose that P&G acquires secret Unilever marketing plans from an attached file that a Unilever
employee mistakenly sends to a P&G employee.
4. In the previous exercise, suppose that the attached file is deliberately sent to P&G from a disgruntled
Unilever employee who was fired for some other reason.
5. Is all spying wrong? For example, is spying on another country for national security generalizable?
6. Spy or customer?2 Business Equipment Corporation (BEC) has developed a new technology that will
enable it to launch a fax machine superior to anything now on the market. Kyle, product manager at
BEC, goes into panic when he reads that Hiyota, a competitor, plans to release a new high-quality fax
machine before BEC’s product will be ready. Kyle must find out what the machine can do as soon as
possible, so he can give the production department new specifications if necessary. He asks his market-
ing consultant Lynn to make an appointment with a Hiyota sales representative and pretend to be a
customer. During their discussion, she will obtain copy samples and learn as much as possible about
product features, pricing, and marketing strategy. Lynn is hesitant about the ruse and doesn’t want to
waste the sales rep’s time. However, Kyle insists that it is perfectly legal because no trade secrets will be
stolen. People do this sort of thing all the time, and it is Hiyota’s responsibility to make sure information
doesn’t leak out before the product hits the market. Besides, sales reps are accustomed to unproductive
sales pitches, and who knows, the rep may convince Lynn to buy the new Hiyotas for her company.
CASE 4.2
A Damaged Car
SYNOPSIS3 gave him a lunch voucher for a restaurant a short drive from the
Joe was interested in buying a particular car at a dealership. He dealership. He suggested that Joe have lunch and think it over.
negotiated a price with the salesperson, Juan, along with a While at lunch Joe decided to buy the car, but he had a minor
trade-in price for his old car. However, Joe had second thoughts, accident while driving back to the dealership. His old car suf-
partly because the trade-in offer was below book value (i.e., be- fered some body damage that was inconspicuous but significant.
low the published average price for a used car of that make and Joe guessed that the repair would cost at least $1,000. Yet he
model). When he was about to walk away from the deal, Juan was almost certain that the people at the dealership wouldn’t
36 Chapter 4 • Initial Case Studies
notice the damage, because they had already inspected the car. doing so. Not only will it save him money, but the damage was
He decided not to mention the accident to Juan. It was only fair, inconspicuous and happened after the deal was made. This
because the trade-in offer was about $1,000 below book value. makes his action generalizable. Inconspicuous damage between
the deal and the delivery is rare. If customers never mentioned it,
they would still be able to save money by not mentioning it.
UTILITARIAN TEST
This rationale for the action seems generalizable, but it is
We can start with the utilitarian test because it seems to give Joe not Joe’s rationale. Joe is willing to deliver the damaged car sim-
some support. Due to the concavity of utility curves, more utility ply because the damage is inconspicuous. The time at which the
would result if the dealer covered the cost of fixing the car than if damage occurred is irrelevant. But if people always followed a
Joe covered the cost or got less for his car. An amount of $1,000 is practice of delivering inconspicuously damaged goods, it would
of little consequence to the wealthy dealer but a significant piece be equally standard practice for the buyer to check every delivery
of change for Joe. carefully. The practice is therefore not generalizable.
Joe admits that the dealer might pass the damaged car Joe defends his action on the grounds that he was
along to an unsuspecting buyer, in which case the buyer would offered a below-market price for the trade-in car. This is one of
have to pay for the damage. This could reduce utility because the those arguments that sound convincing to someone who
buyer of a used car is likely to be less well off than Joe. But a util- already agrees with the conclusion, but perhaps not to others.
ity increase is more likely, because it is more likely that the dealer The relevant test for us is not whether the argument sounds
would repair the car or give the buyer a price break because of the convincing, but whether the action in question meets the condi-
damage. So the expected utility is greater if Joe does not speak up. tions for rational choice.
Joe’s action therefore passes the utilitarian test. We have already argued that Joe’s action fails the general-
ization test because it breaks an agreement. The book value issue
doesn’t change this. Joe might regret making the deal because of
GENERALIZATION TEST
the low trade-in price, but he nonetheless made it.
Breaking a sales agreement simply to save money is clearly Joe might say that the low offer is one of his reasons for
ungeneralizable. If everyone broke sales agreements whenever it breaking the agreement, and this makes breaking the agreement
would save them money, agreements would lose their point, and generalizable. But it is one of his reasons only if he would be
there would be no sales agreements to break. willing to mention the damage if he had been offered full book
Joe might insist that he is not really breaking an agreement. value. This seems unlikely. Even if he would, the action remains
He agreed to turn over his old car for a certain price, not in any ungeneralizable. If sellers reneged on a deal whenever they
particular condition. But this is clearly fallacious. Suppose the thought the price was too low, deals would be meaningless. The
accident had been more serious, and a wrecker had towed his whole point of a deal is that the seller has decided to deliver the
seriously damaged car to the dealership for trade-in. This would promised goods at the agreed-upon price, be it high or low.
clearly be a breach of the agreement, because the car would not be A seller who is not satisfied with the price should not agree to it.
in the same condition as when the deal was made. The actual We can now evaluate Joe’s decision:
damage is less serious, but the car is still not in the same condition,
and the agreement is breached for the same reason.
2. Utilitarian test: Pass.
Joe might also argue that I have drawn the scope too
3. Virtue ethics test: Not applied.
broadly. He is breaking the agreement in a particular way, namely
by delivering damaged goods, and he has additional reasons for Joe is obligated to tell Juan about the accident. 䊏
Exercises
7. It is argued above that returning a damaged car violates the sales agreement because the car is not in
the same condition as when the agreement was made. Suppose Joe refutes this by pointing out that
even if there had been no accident, he would not have returned the car in precisely the same condition.
The few miles to the restaurant would put some wear and tear on the automobile, but no one would
say that the agreement was breached. Thus the fact that the car is returned in an altered condition is
insufficient to show that the agreement is breached. What is the flaw in this refutation?
8. There is a small chance that Juan will get in serious trouble with his boss when it is later discovered that the
trade-in car is damaged. How might Joe argue that this does not affect the outcome of the utilitarian test?
9. Suppose Joe grants that if sellers always delivered damaged goods when the damage is inconspicuous,
buyers would check carefully. But he, in particular, would still be able to deliver the damaged car,
because the dealer would have already checked the car carefully and would not check again. Let’s
suppose Joe is right about this. Why does his action still fail the generalization test?
CASE 4.3
An Insurance Broker’s Dilemma

SYNOPSIS4 sound. They may refuse to perform a surgery even when the patient
requests it. If the surgery is medically ill-advised and turns out badly,
A major museum currently obtains insurance from Haverford, the physician gets the blame. This is not inappropriate, because
through its insurance broker Ashton & Ashton (A&A). It is time for making this sort of judgment is part of a physician’s professional
renewal of the policy, and A&A has obtained several bids. There is promise. Public expectations appear to be evolving toward greater
one lowball bid from a “shaky” company called Reliable. If A&A patient responsibility, but these expectations tend to be forgotten
conveys the Reliable bid to the museum, the museum will probably when a malpractice lawsuit is filed. Brokers, however, are generally
accept it. A&A receives 10–15% of the premium as commission, expected to present the full range of alternatives, and the client is
17% in the case of Haverford. Should A&A present the low bid? expected to take responsibility for the decision. Quoting the low bid is
If it does not, could it be accused of conflict of interest? therefore consistent with professional ethics.
Furthermore, failing to quote the low bid seems inconsis-
ANALYSIS tent with professional duty. While a broker would not be
expected to mention every option, it is important to provide a
It is helpful to view this as a case in professional ethics. It raises
representative selection. One of the primary motivations for
the question of what an insurance broker’s professional duties are,
working through a broker is to make sure one is aware of the
with respect to conflict of interest and advising clients. As noted
range of options. This may well reduce utility, because the
in Chapter 2, professional duties are based on the obligation to
museum is apparently unwilling or unable to make the right
meet expectations that the profession created in the public mind.
decision, even after hearing A&A’s advice. Yet there is no obliga-
The conflict of interest matter is easy to resolve. While
tion to achieve higher utility through actions that are otherwise
professionals are normally expected to avoid or minimize conflicts of
unethical. A&A can be as emphatic and detailed as it wants,
interest, the conflicts are often inherent in the nature of the profes-
however, when it advises the museum to reject the lowest bid,
sion. If so, professionals are expected to make the right decision
and there is probably a utilitarian obligation to do so.
without being influenced by personal incentives. In the present case,
The primary virtues at stake are honesty and loyalty to the
the conflict of interest is a built-in characteristic of insurance broker-
client. An honest presentation of the alternatives, together with a
age and exists whether or not A&A presents the low bid. It should
stern warning about the risks of insuring with Reliable, seems
have no bearing on how A&A decides to deal with its client.
consistent with these virtues.
The main issue is how many choices A&A should present to
The action of presenting the low bid can now be evaluated:
its client. There are two basic policies. One is to present the client a
full range of representative bids, give advice, and let the client 1. Generalization test: Pass.
decide. A second policy is to make some decisions for the client by 2. Utilitarian test: Pass.
screening out bids that the broker thinks are clearly inappropriate. 3. Virtue ethics test: Pass.
As a rule, brokers are expected to give advice and not make
decisions. This is not true of all professionals. Physicians, for example, The action is not only permissible but also obligatory, because failing
generally present only the alternatives that they believe are medically to present the low bid fails the generalization test. 䊏
Exercises
10. You engage a real estate “agent” (actually, broker) to help you find a house in an unfamiliar city
and give her the price range. She only shows you houses that are at the upper end of the range,
because her commission is a fixed percentage of the sales price. Does her conduct conform to
professional ethics?
11. Pricey insurance.5 Mark, an insurance salesman, is concerned about the product he sells most. It is a
“whole” life policy that provides death benefits, retirement savings, and a fund that can be accessed in an
emergency. The problem is that it is not a good deal for the young families who buy it from him. They
would do better to buy a “term” life insurance policy, which provides only a death benefit, and use the
savings to buy an annuity. On the other hand, term insurance and annuities are much less profitable for
the company, and the sales commission is therefore much less. Mark’s commission on a whole life policy
is 110% of the first year’s premium. Mark can support his family only by selling a substantial number of
these policies. Is Mark living up to professional and other ethical obligations?
CASE 4.4
Product Safety
SYNOPSIS6 aim in mind, and the utilitarian solution has probably been worked
out as best can be done in the current state of the art. Dow
For some years, Dow Corning manufactured breast implants designed Corning’s duty, from a utilitarian point of view, was to follow best
for women who had undergone mastectomies. Testing was performed practices as they were known at the time. Given that only animal
only on animals and provided no clear evidence that the implants testing was carried out before the product release, it seems clear
would cause harm when properly used. Anecdotal evidence involving that the company fell short of its duty.
human patients, however, suggested that silicone oozing out of the
implants could cause autoimmune reactions. The company sometimes GENERALIZATION TEST
told its salespeople to conceal the oozing by wiping the implants clean
just before displaying them to surgeons. A court ruled the implants There is no reason to believe that releasing a medical device that
defective in a 1991 product liability suit. This gave rise to about 13,000 maximizes utility is ungeneralizable. However, an issue of distributive
lawsuits, and in 1994, Dow Corning agreed to contribute $3.2 billion to justice is at stake. It may be unfair to make a few women much
a settlement fund. In 1995, the company filed for bankruptcy, from worse off, even when this is offset by many women who are better
which it emerged only in 2004. In recent years, extensive studies have off, and even when overall utility is maximized. We therefore apply
failed to confirm that silicon or any other design defect of the implants the generalization test in the form of the Difference Principle.
causes the autoimmune symptoms. The Difference Principle states that a policy should maximize
the welfare of the least advantaged. On the face of it, a policy of
THE ISSUE providing breast implants appears to violate the principle. It doesn’t
maximize the welfare of the least fortunate, namely, those who
The lawsuits against Dow Corning took place in the United States, suffer a rejection of the implant as well as a horrible disease. They
where courts have enforced the doctrine of strict liability since the would have been better off without the decision to sell implants.
early 1960s. On this doctrine, a company must pay for damages Yet the Difference Principle pertains only to the smallest
caused by a defective product, no matter how hard it tried to make group that is controlled by the allocation, and not necessarily to
the product safe. Dow Corning may not have tried very hard, but individuals. In this case, Dow Corning can’t control the reaction of
this is legally irrelevant to product liability; the only question is individual patients to the implant. It can only control the welfare of
whether the breast implants were defective. the implant recipients in general. Because this group benefits on
The ethical question, however, is different. The company the average (assuming the implant maximizes utility), there is no
must decide when the product is safe enough to be put on the violation of the Difference Principle. Even if they are the least
market. Too much caution and delay can be as harmful as too little, healthy patients as a group after the implant, withholding the
because they deprive patients of treatment. The fact that silicone implant would have made them even worse off.
now appears to be safe is irrelevant. What matters is whether Dow As for Dow Corning’s conduct, the scorecard is as follows:
Corning acted ethically, given the state of knowledge at the time.
1. Generalization test:
a. Basic test: Pass.
UTILITARIAN TEST b. Difference principle: Pass.
The utilitarian principle seeks a schedule of testing and product 2. Utilitarian test: Fail.
releases that maximizes benefit and minimizes harm. The medical 3. Virtue ethics test: Not applied.
and regulatory communities have developed protocols with this The company behaved unethically. 䊏
Exercises
12. It is often said that if there is risk associated with a medical product, there should be full disclosure of
that risk. Can you defend this claim using the conditions for rational choice, even when disclosure is not
required by law?
13. A pharmaceutical company has developed a remarkably effective headache remedy and is deliberat-
ing whether to market it over the counter or as a prescription drug. Over-the-counter sales would
be more profitable and would reach far more headache sufferers. However, the medication
doesn’t ease migraine headaches, the most severe type of headache. In fact, clinical trials suggest that
for 10% of migraine sufferers, use of the medication results in twice as many headaches as before.
The effect seems to be permanent, or at least to last as long as the trials. An over-the-counter
label could carry a warning to migraine sufferers, but many of them don’t realize that their
headaches are migraines. If the drug required a prescription, doctors would dispense it only to
patients without migraines. Would over-the-counter sales satisfy the Difference Principle? Hint.
There are two groups to compare when applying the Difference Principle: those with severe cases and
those with mild cases.
14. A new flu medication can act as a cure or as a vaccine, but a curative dose is 10 times larger than a
vaccination. The cure and the vaccine always work. Half of healthy persons who don’t receive the
vaccine will get the flu. The medication is in short supply. Health authorities can use all of it as a cure
or all as vaccine, or some combination of the two. What allocation maximizes utility? What alloca-
tion(s) satisfies the Difference Principle? Hint. Utility is measured by the number of persons who
don’t get the flu. There are potentially four groups to consider when applying the Difference
Principle: treated sick patients, untreated sick patients, vaccinated healthy patients, and unvaccinated
healthy patients. The benefit to a group can be measured by the probability that a person in that
group will get the flu.
15. In the previous exercise, suppose that the vaccine works only half the time. What allocation maximizes
utility? What allocation(s) satisfies the Difference Principle?
16. A million persons nationwide have a chronic disease. A thousand of them have a rare, severe form of
the disease that is fatal, and the rest have a mild form that gives them a headache once a week. A new
bioengineered drug can cure a mild case or convert a severe case to a mild case. The drug is hard to
manufacture and in short supply, and a severe case requires very large doses. There is enough to treat
all the severe cases or all the mild cases, but not both. How should the drug be allocated to satisfy
Rawlsian ethics?
17. In the previous exercise, suppose that severe cases are not fatal but only cause headaches twice a week.
Everything else is the same. What is the ethical allocation? Hint. Examples such as this one suggest that
a purely Rawlsian allocation may be inappropriate when the utilitarian cost is too high. This is an active
research issue in ethics, particularly in the health area.
CASE 4.5
Misleading Numbers
7
SYNOPSIS All marketing literature published in the investment advisory
I was confronted with an ethical dilemma firsthand in a previous industry has a footnote, “Past performance is not an indication of
job as a financial advisor. One of my tasks was to prepare a report future returns.” Theoretically this is true, but past performance
to clients. In a one-on-one meeting, a manager asked me to influences both investors seeking investment products and
exclude certain past performance numbers for one of our mutual consultants who recommend investments. In this particular
funds, because they greatly lagged behind our stated benchmark. instance, I was not instructed to change the numbers, which
would be a blatant ethical violation, but rather to exclude data for It is not as though the boss will fire you on the spot,
a product with historically poor performance. because this would require the boss to justify the action. Note that
Although no law required companies to show all rele- in the case description, the boss’s request was delivered orally and
vant product performance records to a client, it was extremely in private. Rather than outright dismissal, your next performance
misleading to exclude this poor performer from the group that review will be lukewarm, resulting in your being passed over for
was shown. The manager seemed to only be concerned about promotion, or your inclusion in the next reduction in force.
increasing the assets under our management and not accurately There is another consideration. If you don’t do it, someone
representing our past investment performance, or about the else will. The boss will find someone else to do his bidding and
ethical issue. As is often the case, this manager was more con- reward that person with promotions and salary raises. The impact
cerned with increasing shareholder value than our duty to on the clients will be the same.
clients. Should I tell the manager that I cannot comply with this The question, “How high a price must you pay to be ethi-
request? cal,” may give the wrong impression. It may suggest that ethics
tells you that it is unethical to mislead clients, whereupon you
must decide what to do about it. Ethics is not finished until it tells
DECEPTION you whether to obey the boss. Once you decide whether it is eth-
This is the most common sort of ethical dilemma described by ical to obey the boss, it makes no sense to agonize further about
my students: The boss asks them to do something questionable. what you “should” do. The ethical choice is, by definition, the one
There are two issues in such cases. Is the requested action you should make.
ethical in itself, and if not, does one have an obligation to defy
the boss?
UTILITARIAN TEST
The first issue is relatively easy in the present case. Although
every statement in the report will be true, the report will nonetheless In practical situations you may instinctively try to defuse the situa-
be deceptive. To deceive is to cause someone to believe something tion. Perhaps you can avoid a stark choice between dishonesty and
you know is false. Omitting information is not always deceptive, but defying the boss. You might try to reason with the boss or suggest
in this case it is, because it causes readers to believe mistakenly that a compromise solution that reports the bad numbers but (honestly)
the bank’s asset management is uniformly successful. This is the points out the extent to which they are misleading. By all means,
whole point of omitting the bad numbers. If there were no desire to do so. This kind of compromise maximizes utility while avoiding
deceive, the bank would have no objection to adding a note to the unethical behavior.
title page: “This report omits all bad news.” If the boss insists on having his way, however, you can
Deception merely to benefit oneself is ungeneralizable. This apply the utilitarian test to the either/or situation before you.
is because deception serves this purpose only if people believe the Unfortunately, the consequences are hard to evaluate for either
deception, and they would not believe it if people were routinely option. Defying the boss could hamper your career and make
deceptive. Deception continues to be ungeneralizable when the it more difficult for you to make useful contributions in the
scope is narrowed to the context of a financial report to clients. future. If you lose your job, it could result in financial difficulties
A report can mislead clients only if it has credibility. If companies for you and your dependents. On the other hand, your boss may
regularly left out the bad numbers, clients would throw such forget about the whole thing, or even respect you for your
reports in the trash. courage.
As for the matter of shareholder value, we noted in Chapter As for obeying the boss, it could compromise your reputa-
2 that while board members and top executives have a fiduciary tion for honesty and, again, prevent you from making valuable
responsibility to owners, the primary duty of other employees is to contributions in the future. One act of dishonesty can have very
follow the instructions of superiors. The issue therefore reduces to damaging effects on an individual, because people generally
whether there is an obligation to obey the boss in a case of this sort, assume that anyone who is willing to be dishonest once will do
and fiduciary duty is irrelevant. This is precisely the second issue so again. On the other hand, the whole affair may go unnoticed.
stated above. Finally, omitting the bad numbers may induce your clients to make
unwise investments.
How about the argument that if you don’t do it, someone else
THE PRICE OF BEING ETHICAL
will? Actually, we don’t know that someone else will. Yet we should
How high a price must you pay to be ethical? There is a clearly a think about how to deal with this kind of response, because it comes
limit. If the boss is holding a gun to your head, you don’t worry up so frequently. One can imagine security personnel who are
about such trifles as omitting numbers from a report. But if there is ordered to murder political prisoners saying to themselves, “If I don’t
a limit, what is the limit? Must you risk your job, for instance? do it, someone else will.” Is this a valid argument?
Assuming that someone else will really do it, this may It remains to explain why you wouldn’t be obligated to
be a valid utilitarian argument. It may show that refusing will disobey the boss if he held a gun to your head or there were some
have no effect on utility, which means that the act may pass the other very serious consequences. It is because the argument
utilitarian test. However, this doesn’t show it meets the other against generalizability breaks down. If all employees deceived
conditions for rational choice. Murder, for example, is the most simply to avoid the vague threat of negative career consequences,
extreme denial of autonomy and thus unethical on that ground then bosses would take advantage of this, and attempts to deceive
alone. would be rampant. But this would not occur if employees deceived
In the case of the misleading numbers, the utilitarian only under serious threat. Even now, nearly all employees are
test is inconclusive, which means that either choice passes it. willing to deceive under a sufficiently dire threat, and bosses rarely
The other conditions for rational choice must now be brought respond by issuing such threats.
to bear.
VIRTUE ETHICS
GENERALIZATION TEST
Misleading clients violates integrity whenever it occurs, both
Identifying the reasons for omitting the numbers is crucial to because it is dishonorable in itself and because it is contrary to
the analysis. Deception simply to benefit yourself is ungeneraliz- the mission of this employee’s profession. You are a financial ad-
able, but perhaps the additional factors at play in this case reverse visor, the essence of which is to help clients make the right in-
the judgment. One obvious reason is to benefit your career by vestments. Misleading clients is the precise opposite. The boss,
obeying the boss. If this were the only reason, the action seems who hired you to be a financial advisor, is asking you not to be an
not only generalizable but in some historical contexts already advisor. The inconsistency is clear enough. Virtue ethics clearly
generalized. It is not hard to think of times and places in which requires you to remain honest, unless there is another virtue at
subordinates regularly did what they were told, however odious it stake.
might have been, to benefit their careers—and they continued to There may in fact be another virtue at stake if you have
benefit their careers by doing so. heavy family obligations. Perhaps your elderly parents require
Because the action in question is not simply to obey the very expensive care or your child is disabled and requires
boss, but to do so by deceiving customers, the issue arises as to constant therapy. In this case, the virtue test is harder to
whether the deception is one of the reasons for your action. You evaluate; you must do a balancing act and decide whether family
might think that it is not, because your interest is in obeying the loyalty is more important than personal integrity.
boss, not in deception. You would obey the boss whether or not If serious family burdens are your only reason for obeying the
the deception succeeded. The issue is important, because boss, however, you can rerun the generalization test. In fact, serious
obedience is probably not generalizable if you must deceive to repercussions for your family are another form of serious conse-
accomplish your purpose. If employees were always willing to quences if you don’t obey. So the argument against generalizability
deceive for their bosses, then bosses would probably require breaks down as above.
deception often enough that the deception would no longer be In summary, a decision to obey the boss stacks up as
effective. follows:
It’s clear, however, that you must deceive to accomplish
your purpose. Your aim is to protect your career by obeying 1. Generalization test: Fail, unless your family situation
the boss, and the boss wants the clients to be deceived. If carries extraordinary financial obligations.
you omitted the numbers but sent all the clients an e-mail warn- 2. Utilitarian test: Inconclusive, and therefore Pass.
ing them about the omission, then your boss would not be 3. Virtue ethics test: Fail, unless perhaps your family
satisfied. situation carries extraordinary financial obligations. 䊏
Exercises
18. Suppose the boss compromises and allows you to describe the list of performance results as a “sample”
of results (it is, after all, a sample consisting of all but one). Does this change the analysis?
19. Suppose the boss compromises some more and allows you to report only the average performance of
the funds. Does this change the analysis?
CASE 4.6
Health and Smoking Bans

SYNOPSIS8 GENERALIZATION TEST
Ford Meter Box Company has a total nonsmoking policy, not only The generalization test looks at the reason for the no-smoking
at work but at home as well. The policy is enforced by requiring policy: It reduces costs. But if this is a reason to exclude smokers
employees to submit to periodic blood tests to check for the from the workforce, then it is a reason to exclude all workers
presence of nicotine. The rationale for the policy is that smokers with detectable health hazards that increase costs. This is not a
cost the company substantially more in health care bills and days slippery-slope argument, because the generalization test does
off. However, some employees have objected to this intrusion into not assume that this and other companies will in fact exclude all
their personal lives, and a few have brought suit. employees with expensive health conditions. It only asks
whether it would still be possible to cut costs if they did.
It probably would not. If every company tried to externalize
THE ISSUE
health care costs in this way, the government or society in general
This case involves both a privacy issue (the nicotine test) and a would have to pick up a much greater burden. After all, few of us
personal freedom issue (the smoking ban). We will focus on have perfect bodies, and someone must pay the costs of illness.
freedom issue. Taxes and social costs would be much higher (think of Sweden),
Strict rules against smoking on the job have become and Ford Meter Box would end up paying the cost anyway through
commonplace and accepted in the United States, largely on the taxes and otherwise. The only reason the company can externalize
grounds that secondhand smoke endangers the health of the costs now is that other companies carry their share of the load.
nonsmokers. However, the secondhand smoke argument does not It is therefore unethical for Ford to make an exception for itself by
obviously support an after-hours ban, since smokers can be careful trying to reduce its share of health care costs below the norm.
not to endanger others. The ban at Ford Meter Box rests solely on A common reaction to this conclusion is that it is permis-
a cost-saving argument. For the sake of distinguishing this issue sible to ban voluntary behavior that creates a health risk. This
from the privacy issue, we will suppose for the moment that it is sounds like a more reasonable policy, but a reasonable sound
obvious whether one smokes during after-hours (it creates bad does not prove anything. Let’s apply the generalization test. We
breath, or whatever), and no blood test or other invasion of privacy suppose that the company ban extends only to smoking, illegal
is needed. drug use, and other clearly voluntary and dangerous activities
that incur significant health-related costs. This policy seems
UTILITARIAN TEST generalizable on the face of it, because if adopted by all compa-
nies, the population in general would be obliged to adopt health-
There is an obvious slippery-slope argument against the smoking ier habits and actually reduce the social costs of illness.
ban. If companies ban smoking today, then tomorrow they will The fact remains, however, that a smoking ban is a
refuse to employ individuals who are overweight, have cancer in restriction of personal freedom that many would find objection-
the family, pursue dangerous hobbies, show a genetic propensity able. Is there a rational basis for their objection? One might
to diabetes, and so forth. Before you know it, most of us will be construct a generalization argument on a cultural level. A
unemployable, and this is not a utilitarian outcome. company that does business in a particular culture relies on that
There are two problems with this argument. One is that culture for the institutions and practices that make its business
slippery-slope arguments are rarely backed up by convincing possible. It should not act to undermine the culture, because such
evidence that the slope is in fact slippery, and that is the case an action is not generalizable. Perhaps the availability of a certain
here. The other is that a slippery slope, even when it exists, is range of lifestyle choices is an essential element of Western or
irrelevant to the utilitarian test. The test is not whether utility is U.S. culture and should be respected on that basis. We will
maximized when companies in general reject employees with explore this type of argument in the last chapter of the book.
health risks. The test is whether utility is greater when Ford Meter
Box in particular bans smoking than when it does not. It is hard to
LIBERTY PRINCIPLE
argue that a smoking ban at this one company reduces utility,
because some employees may, after all, stop smoking and improve A smoking ban restricts freedom and might therefore run afoul
their health as a result. The utilitarian test must therefore be of the Liberty Principle. Ford Meter Box is likely to respond
judged as inconclusive. that there is no restriction of freedom, because no one is forced
to work for them. This response is not helpful, however, company might adopt. One is to exclude all employees with major
because if a smoking ban is justified at Ford Meter Box because health risks, which scores as follows:
it cuts costs, then it is justified at any company where it 1. Generalization test: Fail.
would cut costs, which is to say, nearly all companies. So 2. Utilitarian test: Inconclusive, and therefore Pass.
the policy in question effectively denies employees the freedom 3. Virtue ethics test: Not applied.
to smoke.
A broad policy of this sort is unethical. A more restrictive policy is
Employees can argue for a violation of the Liberty Principle
to exclude employees who pursue voluntary behavior that incurs
on the ground that a ban on smoking and similar behavior restricts
major health risks. The scorecard is as follows:
basic liberty unnecessarily. The ban is necessary only to spare
others the social costs that result when some people smoke. To 1. Generalization test:
make this argument go through, employees must argue that a a. Basic test: Pass in an initial analysis, but further
smoking ban restricts a basic liberty, while requiring others to bear study needed.
the costs of this habit does not. b. Liberty Principle: Possible violation.
We have not provided a complete analysis of the case, but 2. Utilitarian test: Inconclusive, and therefore Pass.
this discussion indicates some directions in which the analysis 3. Virtue ethics test: Not applied.
might go. To sum up, we can distinguish two types of policies the This is a difficult issue that requires further analysis. 䊏
Exercises
20. On sale next week.9 Bernie walks into an electronics store and tells Sam, the salesman, that he is looking
for a particular model of flat-screen TV. The model is in stock and will in fact go on sale for 15% off the
following week. However, Sam does not mention the upcoming sale to Bernie, because Sam’s commission
would be proportionately less. Is this ethical?
21. Cheap stuffing.10 Elite Furniture Manufacturing has a reputation for high-quality upholstered furniture.
Hard economic times have hit, however, and the company must cut costs quickly. Top management
orders that from now on, an inferior grade of padding will be used in the upholstery, on the expectation
that customers won’t notice the change at the time of purchase. Is this an ethical decision?
22. Uncrushable Volvos.11 At a monster truck rally in Vermont, a huge “Bear Foot” truck drove over the
roofs of several cars and crushed all but a Volvo. Volvo’s advertising agency recreated this scene for a
highly acclaimed television commercial. Engineering analysis confirms that the Volvo is strong enough
to support the truck, and the other cars are not. However, the agency reinforced the Volvo and partially
sawed through the roof supports of the other cars. The agency claimed that this was necessary for
production purposes. The State of Texas sued Volvo for consumer fraud based on deceptive advertis-
ing. Is it deceptive advertising, in the sense that it misleads customers about the product? Is it deceptive
in some other way? Can the ad be altered in some small way to make sure it is not deceptive?
23. Delayed delivery.12 Don is production scheduler at Fitzgerald Machine Company, where a large order is
scheduled to go out Friday. The customer calls, however, and asks Don to delay the delivery at least a
week beyond Friday, due to a labor dispute at the customer’s plant. On authorization from his boss, Don
complies with the request on the condition that the customer will remit the amount due Friday, as
specified in the original contract. The customer agrees to these terms, and Fitzgerald sends a bill payable
Friday. The next day, Don learns from the production manager that the order won’t be ready until at
least a week beyond Friday. Don does not mention this to the customer and collects the payment Friday
as agreed. Is this deceptive? Is it ethical?
24. Taking credit.13 Janice is Chief of Research and Development. Her boss asked her some time ago to
design software that would solve certain problems at the company, but she has been too busy to think
about it. However, her assistant John invents a creative solution on his own initiative and shares it with
Janice, in hope of boosting his meager salary. Janice is impressed by his proposal and tells John that she
is going to take credit for the idea. If he objects, she will downgrade his performance evaluation, but if
he cooperates, she will give him a promotion and a substantial raise. Is her action ethical?
25. Poor morale.14 Stacy graduated near the top of his business school class and takes a job at a growing
CPA firm. Despite his ability and training, Stacy finds himself unable to deal with several assign-
ments. He gradually learns that there has been heavy turnover at the senior level, and as a result he is
assigned tasks that require a more experienced accountant. He begins to receive reprimands for his
blunders, one delivered loudly in front of coworkers. The firm eventually hires a psychologist to
interview staff and determine the reason for growing turnover at all levels. The staff complain of poor
working conditions and low morale. When the partners read the psychologist’s negative report, they
take it personally, and there are rumors they will put the firm up for sale. Nonetheless, the firm
continues to interview for its vacant staff positions. The partners ask all those who are interviewing
candidates to present the firm in a positive and favorable manner. Stacy is unsure how candid he
should be with his interviewees.
26. A pizza puzzle.15 Sharon is Restaurant and Food Services Manager for Marigold Inn. She is concerned about
a decline in room service orders, the highest margin portion of her operation. After some marketing
research, she concludes that guests are ordering pizzas from outside the hotel because they cannot believe a
hotel restaurant can make an authentic pizza. She therefore proposes the following to George, General
Manager of the inn. She will put Napoli Pizza brochures in the rooms, with a phone number having a
different prefix than the hotel number. Calls to this number will reach a special phone in room service,
which will be answered,“Napoli Pizza, authentic Italian pizza from old, family recipes.” Hotel personnel will
don a “Napoli Pizza” hat and coat when delivering the pizza in boxes marked “Napoli Pizza.” The hotel chef,
Luigi, will in fact make the pizzas according to an old family recipe. How should George respond to this
proposal? If it is unethical, how can the plan be modified to make it ethical?
27. Unmentioned plans.16 It is October, and Boris is in his third year at a large accounting firm. He finds the
job less than satisfactory due to his heavy workload. He therefore applies for several MBA programs and
expects to enroll in one of them next fall. Meanwhile, a firm partner in charge of staff development, Julie,
tells him about five-month internships at the firm’s overseas offices. The requirements for the assignment
include language fluency and long-term career potential at the firm. Julie says she can probably get him
the assignment at the Moscow office due to his fluency in Russian. Boris is excited about the opportunity
because he has relatives in the Moscow area. He decides not to tell Julie about his MBA plans.
28. The incredible shrinking potato chip package.17 Julie is brand manager for potato chips. Due to an abrupt
rise in the price of potatoes, she must raise the unit price 15% to maintain the already-slim margins. She
hits on the idea of reducing the package contents 13% but retaining the current price. This would result
in the same revenue as before if unit sales don’t change. She suspects that customers who would balk at
a higher price won’t notice that the bag is slightly less full. Her boss assures her that “package shorting”
is standard practice in the industry and may well have the intended effect. It is also legal, because the
package will indicate the correct net weight. The boss leaves the decision to Julie, and she must decide
whether package shorting is a deceptive practice.
29. Better is good enough.18 Kirk is being groomed for the controller’s position in a medium-sized manu-
facturing firm. While attending a monthly financial meeting, he listens intently as the company’s chief
engineer explains that the firm’s new plant, now on the drawing board, will require an upgrade of the
current waste disposal system if it is to meet industry standards. However, the existing facilities are in
compliance with minimum legal requirements, even if some environmental activists are pressuring the
government for tougher standards. Bob, company president, points out that the closest competitor in
the business has waste treatment facilities that are even inferior to theirs. He is therefore not in favor of
further expenditures in this area. Most managers at the meeting express strong agreement, and the
discussion moves to another topic. Kirk soon begins reflecting on whether this is the right firm for
him. Hint: First analyze the president’s decision, and then Kirk’s personal decision.
30. Another type of discrimination.19 Paula is Brand Manager for a line of soap used to scrub floors. Her
assistant Terry is uneasy about the fact that Paula’s plan calls for advertising spots that feature unat-
tractive actors. In her view, this kind of ad promotes harmful stereotyping of less-attractive people.
Paula defends her plan by citing an article in a top marketing journal, which reports research showing
that sales are enhanced when attractive people appear in ads for glamorous products and unattractive
people appear in cooking and cleaning ads. Terry, however, carried out a project in college in which she
reviewed over 1,000 studies of societal attitudes toward physical appearance. She found a strong bias
against unattractive people, who are discriminated against in employment and education even when
equally qualified. Can she make an ethical case against Paula’s advertising plan?
31. Whistle-blower accepts a deal.20 An auditor employed by a pharmaceutical company submitted documenta-
tion to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to support the approval of new drugs. He later suspected
inaccuracies in the information he provided for one particular drug and, upon investigation, discovered that
the project director in fact falsified data. When he reported this to his superiors, the company board of
directors offered the auditor a deal. If he will not interfere with the FDA’s imminent decision to approve the
drug, the company will discontinue the drug and request the FDA to withdraw approval due to “mistakes in
marketing projections.” The aim was to avoid the bad press that would result from public knowledge of the
falsification. The auditor accepted the deal, the company kept its word, and the project director quietly
resigned. No further scandals of this sort have occurred. Was the auditor’s decision ethical?
32. Family plans.21 Barbara has been with Apex for four years and is now controller. Apex will merge with
another firm on July 1, two weeks from now, and the ensuring staff cuts will be announced on August 1.
The new company will need only one controller. Barbara hears through the grapevine that Sam, controller
at the other company, is perceived favorably by management but will probably be dismissed, perhaps
because he has been at the firm less than a year. In the meantime, Barbara has dealt with the increasing
burden of caring for her parents. Her father has cancer and is expected to live six months. Her mother
needs frequent support. In addition, Barbara is expecting her first child in a few months. She plans to take
a short maternity leave and return to work. She believes that she can balance her personal and professional
life, but she wonders if she should make her boss aware of her situation before August 1.
Notes
1. Based on Case 6.3, “Procter and Gamble Goes 10. Based on the Arthur Andersen mini-case Elite
Dumpster Diving,” in John Boatwright, Ethics and Furniture by David J. Fritzsche.
the Conduct of Business, 4th ed., Prentice-Hall, 2003, 11. Based on Case 11.2, “Volvo’s ‘Bear Foot’ misstep,” in
pp. 151–152, and on Julian E. Barnes, “P&G placed Boatwright, pp. 303–304.
under monitor in spy case,” New York Times, 12. Based on the Arthur Andersen mini-case The Fitzgerald
September 1, 2001, p. C-1. Machine Company by Eliot S. Miner and William Roth.
2. Based on the Arthur Andersen mini-case I Spy: A Case 13. Based on the Arthur Andersen mini-case Might
of Competitive Espionage by Nancy Artz. Makes Right by J. H. Coll.
3. This case was provided by an MBA student. The 14. Based on the Arthur Andersen mini-case Psych Me
names are fictitious. Out by Curtis J. Bonk and Mary M. Bonk.
4. Based on Case 6.2, “Conflict of an insurance broker,” 15. Based on the Arthur Andersen mini-case The Pizza
in Boatwright 2003, pp. 150–151. Puzzle by Fred L. Miller.
5. Based on the Arthur Andersen mini-case Life Insurance: 16. Based on the Arthur Andersen mini-case To Go or
Who Benefits, the Consumer or the Company? by Not to Go by Cynthia L. Rooney and Mary Loyland.
Thomas W. Bose. 17. Based on the Arthur Andersen mini-case The Incredible
6. Based on Case 11.1,“Dow Corning’s breast implants,” in Shrinking Potato Chip Package by Geoffrey P. Lantos.
Boatwright 2003, p. 273, and subsequent news reports. 18. Based on the Arthur Andersen mini-case Safety? What
7. This case was contributed by an MBA student. The Safety? by G. Stevenson Smith and Curtis Jay Bonk.
student’s description of the case is quoted almost 19. Based on the Arthur Andersen mini-case Another
verbatim. Type of Discrimination by Gordon L. Patzer.
8. Based on Case 7.3, “Ford Meter Box,” in Boatwright 20. Based on Case 5.2, “A Whistle-Blower Accepts a
2003, pp. 180–181. ‘Deal,’ ” in Boatwright, pp. 120–121.
9. Based on the Arthur Andersen mini-case The Speedy 21. Based on the Arthur Andersen mini-case Family
Sale by Geoffrey P. Lantos. Plans by Cynthia J. Rooney and Mary Loyland.
Chapter 5
MBA Student Dilemmas
T
his chapter analyzes ethical dilemmas experienced by MBA students. All of the dilemmas were
provided anonymously by my students, except the last, which is based on a published case study.
I edited the student write-ups lightly for clarity but changed none of the facts. Names and other
identifying information are, of course, altered to preserve anonymity. Almost all of the cases describe
personal dilemmas on the job or in everyday life, as opposed to company policy decisions, presumably
because these students typically have only a few years’ work experience and have not risen high enough
in the company to influence policy. The next chapter focuses on broader issues faced by organizations.
All of the case studies that appear in exercises describe ethical dilemmas faced by my MBA
students or professionals in executive workshops I have facilitated.
CASE 5.1
Being Honest with the Customer

Prior to entering business school, I was a salesman for a small aero- software. Deception is ungeneralizable, even in the specific case of
space and defense contractor. My role was to sell our software and salespeople. The reason you want to mislead the customer is to
consulting services to the government and other contractors. On generate more revenue. If all salespeople were deceptive when it
several occasions, I knew that our software could not perform all the would generate more revenue, then they would have absolutely no
functions a prospective customer needed, and I was faced with the credibility, and it would be impossible for them to generate revenue
dilemma of whether to be honest about this. Because I was respon- by deception.
sible for 20–25% of company revenue, it was absolutely essential However, the situation may not seem so clear when it is up
that I meet quotas. The company’s normal response to low revenue close and personal. In a perfect world, you would love to confess all to
numbers was to lay off employees, no doubt including me. One the customer. But do you have the right to sacrifice jobs, and perhaps
particular dilemma involved a major sale that, if completed, would even a company, for the sake of your personal scruples? After all, sales-
allow me to make my quota for the year and pay for my first semes- people are not expected to point out the negative side of a product. You
ter of business school. I therefore led my customers to believe that need a solid analysis that you, and ideally others, find convincing.
our software could meet their needs.
UTILITARIAN ANALYSIS
INITIAL ANALYSIS
Part of your thinking suggests a utilitarian perspective. Failure to
When viewed from a distance, the case seems clear. You are deceiv- make the sale could cost jobs, including your own, which is a very
ing the potential customer by misrepresenting the capabilities of the negative outcome. On the other hand, the short-term cost is at
46
Chapter 5 • MBA Student Dilemmas 47
least partially offset by the long-term damage to the company that software, then your dishonesty will have no effect on the sale. The
can result from dissatisfied customers. A client that is stuck with customer will evaluate the software by other means. This is an
inadequate software may have to compromise its operations or interesting scenario to analyze, but it is clear from the case
pay technical staff to find a work-around, which again reduces description that you believe your deception will have an effect. To
total utility. be consistent, you must recognize that your intent is deceptive
You can probably make an educated guess about the net and therefore ungeneralizable.
utilitarian effect of dishonesty. For the sake of argument, let’s
suppose you decide it is positive. Given sufficient revenue now, VIRTUE ETHICS
the company will at some point upgrade the software, take care
of its customers, and mitigate the reputational damage. If it loses The virtue of loyalty is potentially at play in this case. There is,
big sales now, however, none of this can happen. This means that for example, your loyalty to your customers. If you have worked
you have a utility-based obligation to make the sale, unless with client representatives over a period of time and developed
deception fails other tests for rational choice. We now turn to this a relationship, particularly one that implies mutual trust, then
question. loyalty requires you to care about them. Because loyalty applies
to human beings, not companies, it doesn’t matter how long you
have worked with a particular company. What matters is your
GENERALIZATION TEST
relationship with individuals representing the company. The case
You deceive a customer if you cause the customer to believe description provides no evidence that such a relationship exists,
something you know is false. Thus you need not tell an out- however. If so, loyalty to the customer has no bearing on the
right lie to deceive. You need not say literally that the soft- analysis.
ware will meet all customer needs. It is enough that you There is also the matter of loyalty to coworkers whose jobs
lead the customer to believe as much. But deception for the pur- may be at stake. If you have developed a bond with them, as
pose of increasing revenue is ungeneralizable, as already sometimes happens in the business world (particularly in small
pointed out. firms), you have an obligation to care about them as well. Again,
You might argue that you are deceptive not merely to loyalty in this sense is not owed to the company, but to human
boost revenue, but specifically to save jobs. You would never beings. The case description is unclear as to whether you enjoy
mislead a customer simply for the sake of profitability. This nar- this kind of relationship, but to make the situation more interesting
rows the scope of the rationale, but it remains ungeneralizable. we can suppose that you do.
If salespeople always deceived when jobs are potentially at The next question is whether loyalty entails an obliga-
stake, then customers of a small firm like yours would be on the tion to deceive. We determined in Chapter 2 that virtue ethics
alert, particularly big customers who can substantially impact should be clarified by, rather than override, the generalization
the firm’s cash flow. They would insist on technical evaluation, principle. It is in fact unclear, solely from a virtue ethics
trial periods, contractual penalties for nonperformance, and so perspective, whether loyalty to coworkers requires going so far
forth. as to deceive customers. The generalization principle tells us
You suggest that your presentation of the product is not that it does not.
really deceptive because salespeople are expected to gloss over We can evaluate your deception as follows:
the negative. The customer allows for this already and is not 1. Generalization test: Fail
deceived. This is true in some contexts. However, if your customer 2. Utilitarian test: Pass
makes allowance for “sales talk” about the capabilities of the 3. Virtue ethics test: Pass 䊏
Exercises
1. You can still ask whether deceiving the customer is generalizable if loyalty to coworkers is one of your
reasons for being deceptive. What is the answer?
2. Suppose your customers study the software and conclude that it is adequate for their purposes. You
know better, because you are more familiar with problems that arise after installation. However, you say
nothing about this, and the customers continue to believe that the software is adequate. Is your silence
ethical?
48 Chapter 5 • MBA Student Dilemmas
CASE 5.2
Paying for the Salad Bar

SYNOPSIS You claim that most people who pay $4 make two trips to
the salad bar, and this is factored into the price. Assertions that
At a school cafeteria where I sometimes eat, customers pay the
“most people do it” tend to be based on surmise rather than
cashier for meals as they leave. Employees come by the tables and
evidence, but let’s suppose you have evidence for this. Presumably
write up a bill that indicates the plates selected. I sometimes opt
this is “factored into” the $4 price in the sense that customers who
for the soup and salad bar. The price for one trip to the bar is $4,
are billed for one trip consume $4 worth of salad on the average.
and for unlimited trips it is $5.75. On one occasion, I made two
The cafeteria can therefore recoup its costs by charging $4. It is
trips, but as I paid for the meal I realized that the bill indicated only
unclear how you know this, but again we will suppose you have
one trip. I didn’t know what to do. I thought about how the tuition
reason to believe it. But what does it prove? It is not as though you
rate had just been raised at this already very expensive institution.
pay for two trips by handing over $4, because $4 reflects only the
I also reasoned that most people would pay $4 even if they made
cost to the cafeteria of the average customer who pays for one trip,
two trips to the salad bar, and this was already reflected in the
not the customer who actually makes two trips.
cafeteria prices. If so, then I would have been a chump to pay. Yet,
I did go to the salad bar twice.
GENERALIZATION TEST
INITIAL ARGUMENTS We might interpret your remarks as an argument that paying $4

passes the generalization test. The reasons for paying $4 for two
There is not a great deal at stake in this dilemma, but small issues trips are presumably that it saves money and that the cafeteria billed
can provide good practice in ethical reasoning. At first glance, the you for only one trip. You might argue that if everyone who could save
case appears straightforward. You understand how the cafeteria money in this fashion did so, the reasons for doing so would still
operates. By patronizing it, you agree to abide by the terms of sale, apply, because the cafeteria would not raise the one-trip price further
which specify a payment of $5.75 for two trips to the salad bar. as a result. But why not? After generalization, all customers are
Breaking sales agreements merely to save money is obviously making two trips. Because the cost of two trips is $5.75, the cafeteria
ungeneralizable, as noted in Case 4.2. can recoup the cost only by charging everyone $5.75.
You make a couple of remarks in defense of paying the You might argue that the cafeteria would retain the $4 price
lower rate. You first observe that the university charges a great deal because the managers would be unaware that everyone is making
for tuition. This might be interpreted as a utilitarian argument. Due two trips. Yet you claim they are now aware that most people are
to the concavity of utility curves, the $1.75 surcharge would presum- making two trips. Why would their observational powers degrade
ably create more utility in your possession than in university coffers. if customer appetites increased? You have no apparent reason to
Whether this is true depends on how university funds are distrib- believe they would. (Recall that the generalization test is based on
uted, but it is irrelevant in any event, because it is neither permissi- what is rational for you to believe about the consequences of gen-
ble nor obligatory to increase utility by violating generalizability. eralization, not what the consequences would actually be.) Your
There is also a suggestion in your remark that by paying rationale for underpaying therefore fails the generalization test.
high tuition bills, you are “already paying for” the extra salad. This 1. Generalization test: Fail
is simply false. The tuition payment may be excessive, but it is in 2. Utilitarian test: Further study needed
exchange for educational services, not food. 3. Virtue ethics test: Not applied 䊏
Exercises
3. You buy a number of expensive items at a store. On arriving home and looking over the itemized receipt,
you realize that the cashier forgot to ring up a Sony DCR-HC46 MiniDV Digital Camcorder with Optical
Zoom, which retails for $599.95. What should you do?
4. Suppose that in the previous exercise, the cashier forgot to ring up a 50¢ pack of gum rather than the
camcorder. What should you do? Why should the value of the item make a difference? Hint. Sales agree-
ments can be modified with mutual consent.
CASE 5.3
The Boss’s Unauthorized Expenses

SYNOPSIS GENERALIZATION TEST
My boss asked me to accompany him on a business trip to San Some may say that employees have a duty to report irregularities,
Francisco. I agreed and asked the company travel agent to make even when they involve the boss. We can check this by asking
my reservation, charging it to my boss’s account. While confirming whether a failure to report is generalizable. Presumably, one reason
the transaction, the agent noticed that my boss had booked a third for not reporting is that you want to pursue a successful career with-
person for the trip. When I asked her who it was, I recognized the out risking retaliation. Suppose employees never reported fraud
name of my boss’s wife (who uses a different surname than my against their company when their careers could be at risk, including
boss). My boss was charging the company for all of his wife’s auditors and other employees who are charged with monitoring the
personal expenses. Should I report this to the company, speak to books. This would make it much easier to get away with fraudulent
my boss, or ignore it? behavior, perhaps to the point that business success would be more
difficult to achieve. A less-successful business could jeopardize your
THE BOSS’S CONDUCT career, thus defeating the purpose of your action.
However, we may assume that an important element in your
The first task is to determine whether your boss did something decision is that you have no specific responsibility to report irregulari-
wrong. If he did, then we can ask whether you should take some ties. If only those employees with no such responsibility failed to
kind of action. report minor infractions, then arguably company auditing mechanisms
The boss’s conduct is clearly unethical. It is deceptive, would still work well enough to allow you to pursue your career. At
because he led the company to believe that the third party was least, there is no clear reason to believe otherwise. Your failure to
a business traveler. For reasons already discussed, deception report therefore seems generalizable, assuming that you would be will-
for personal benefit is ungeneralizable. It also violates the ing to report your boss if it were your specific responsibility to do so.
boss’s promise to abide by company rules, a promise he made The picture could change if you witnessed a major accounting
(explicitly or implicitly) when he took the job. This is again irregularity. Business scandals over the last decade or so have taught
ungeneralizable. The issue before us, then, is whether you us that such misconduct not only threatens a company’s existence but
should report the boss’s unethical behavior or at least talk to can occur unchecked for surprisingly long periods when managers
him about it. fail to blow the whistle—including managers whom the company
has assigned no specific duty to report fraud. Thus if you witnessed
UTILITARIAN ANALYSIS serious misconduct, you would have to rethink your obligations.
The utilitarian fallout of reporting the boss is hard to assess. The situation may involve an element of virtue ethics,
This is a minor case of (internal) whistle-blowing, and the con- because you may have a loyalty obligation to your boss, depending
sequences of blowing the whistle are notoriously hard to on the relationship you have developed. However, this would only
predict. Reporting the boss could wreck your career while hav- provide an additional reason not to report him.
ing no perceptible effect on the company, or it could expose a To sum up our assessment of a failure to report:
widespread practice, thus improving the company and making 1. Generalization test: Pass
you a hero. We will have to view both reporting and not report- 2. Utilitarian test: Inconclusive, and therefore Pass
ing the boss as passing the utilitarian test, because there is no 3. Virtue ethics test: Pass
clear evidence that either results in more expected utility than A failure to talk with your boss about the situation would probably
the other. receive a similar assessment. 䊏
Exercises
5. Suppose your boss invites you to bring your wife along at company expense. What should you do?
6. Suppose the travel agent asks you who the third party is. What should you say?
7. No oversight at the brokerage. I was a retail stockbroker working on a team that catered to high net worth
speculative investors. One night I had some spare time, so when our team risk report arrived, I decided
I could do a favor for the teammate who normally signed off on risk reports and take care of it myself.
I was astonished to find that she had not done any oversight for weeks. As a result, we had been in
violation of New York Stock Exchange regulations for quite a while, and dozens of client accounts were
illegally overextended. Three accounts had no equity left, and our firm was stuck with hundreds of
thousands of dollars of customer losses. My teammate had signed off on all of the daily risk reports,
attesting to our accounts being in good standing. This was a shock, given that we were a tight-knit
group. The problem had to be corrected, but I didn’t want to be the one to expose it. Revealing the lapses
would embitter my manager and teammates and perhaps invite reprisals. It would do nothing for my
advancement and would poison the collegial atmosphere of our team. I wanted to look the other way
and let someone else discover the problem. Did I have an obligation to speak up? Hint: How does this
case differ from?
8. Reporting cheaters. While an undergraduate student I witnessed three friends cheating on an exam.
If caught, they would be expelled from school, which could bar them from finding a good job or
getting into another school. They were smart, and the exam was relatively easy, but they cheated
nonetheless. Should I have turned them during the exam or just let it pass and talk to them about it
later?
9. In the previous exercise, would it make a difference if the penalty for cheating were milder?
CASE 5.4
Accepting Free Tickets

A representative from of my company’s suppliers invited my girlfriend Even if you are not released from the agreement, your
and me to join him at a hockey game. It is common for suppliers to obligation under it is to listen to the sales talk. Whether the repre-
entertain employees on occasion, with the expectation that they will sentative watches the game or not is irrelevant. Perhaps you have
“talk shop” during the engagement. The representative gave me the an obligation to hear out the vendor at a later time, but this is
tickets, and my girlfriend and I were to meet him and his wife at the another matter.
game that evening. While we were on our way to the game, the rep- Some may object that accepting this sort of gift from
resentative rang my mobile phone to say that he could not make it potential suppliers is a violation of professional ethics. Although
due to a personal problem. He told us to go ahead and enjoy the you have already accepted the tickets, using the tickets could
game and take full advantage of the club level to which the tickets likewise violate professional ethics if such a practice creates an
entitled us. So, we watched the game. This wasn’t unethical, was it? appearance that purchasing agents are influenced by conflicts of
interest. The case description suggests, however, that accepting
occasional free entertainment is consistent with industry practice
ANALYSIS
and would therefore presumably meet the expectations of stock-
Attending the game clearly satisfies the utilitarian test. Your decision holders and other interested parties. This may or may not be true,
affects only you and your girlfriend (the tickets are not refundable), but if it is, and if the practice does not interfere with good busi-
and it is better to enjoy the game than waste the tickets. ness judgment, then there is no breach of professional ethics.
However, the situation seems to imply a kind of agree- Virtue ethics does not seem relevant in this case. It is there-
ment, and breaking an agreement is normally ungeneralizable. The fore ethical to use the tickets—unless, of course, you are so bur-
supplier gave you the tickets on the understanding that you will dened with uncertainty over the issue that you can’t enjoy yourself, in
listen to his sales pitch. Because the supplier won’t be at the which case watching the game violates the utilitarian test. However,
game, you are not sure you should use the tickets. your ability to apply the conditions of rational choice should avoid this
You might argue that the representative released you from problem.
the agreement when he told you to go ahead and enjoy the game. 1. Generalization test: Pass
This could be true if he has the authority to release you on behalf 2. Utilitarian test: Pass
of his company, which is paying for the tickets. 3. Virtue ethics test: Not applied 䊏
Exercises
10. Suppose the supplier representative phones you a couple of days before the game to say that he can’t
make it, but he will have his company purchase the tickets for you and your girlfriend. Is it ethical for
you to accept the tickets? Why would the timing of the ticket purchase make a difference?
11. Suppose you have already made a long-term contract with a competing supplier, and there is no chance
you will source from the supplier who invites you to the game. Yet he is unaware of this, and he phones
you a couple of days before the game to invite you and your girlfriend. You reveal the situation, but he
tells you not to worry about it. The company has already bought the tickets, and he and his wife would
like to enjoy the game with you. Should you and your girlfriend go along?
CASE 5.5
Unauthorized Salary Information

SYNOPSIS to salary levels already known to your boss. Furthermore, the
usefulness of the information does not depend on the fact that it
At one point in my previous job I came up for a performance review,
is confidential.
which included discussion of my salary. While searching the com-
You must nonetheless apply the generalization test to your sit-
pany’s HR intranet site to download the annual review form, I came
uation. We can suppose your reasons for using the information are
across a file containing salary and benefit information for almost
that it may help you negotiate a better salary, you came across the
every employee in the company. I viewed the file purely by acci-
information accidentally, and you won’t violate confidentiality by
dent and broke no company rules by accessing it. The HR department,
using it. Could you still achieve your purpose if everyone who came
which is responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of such infor-
across confidential information under these circumstances made use
mation, had mistakenly placed the file in an unprotected area. The
of it? There is no clear reason why not, particularly because acciden-
data revealed that I was receiving a considerably lower salary than
tal discoveries of this kind are rare. The action is generalizable.
my peers, many of whom held less responsibility. Should I use the
Nothing in the case description suggests that using the
salary information in my annual review?
information would reduce overall utility. It passes the utilitarian test.
You may have loyalty obligations to your coworkers.
However, it is hard to maintain that negotiating an equitable
CONFIDENTIALITY
salary would violate loyalty obligations, particularly when your
Violating confidentiality for personal benefit is ungeneralizable, coworkers already have higher salaries than you do.
at least when the benefit depends on the fact that the information We can now evaluate your proposal to use the information
is confidential. If people violated confidentiality at will, confiden- in your salary negotiations:
tiality would no longer exist, and the information would provide 1. Generalization test: Pass
no benefit. However, you can use the salary information without 2. Utilitarian test: Pass
violating confidentiality. You can make your point by referring only 3. Virtue ethics test: Pass 䊏
Exercises
12. If you decided not to use the salary information for negotiation, would you nonetheless have an obligation
to tell the company you discovered it?
13. A free online news service requires users to register by proving certain information, such as address,
gender, age, and salary bracket. The Web site promises that the information will remain confidential.
Despite this promise, the news service provides the information to some of its advertisers, with no
strings attached. Is this policy generalizable?
14. Suppose a sealed note is mistakenly placed in your office mailbox. You open it and start reading before you
realize it is addressed to your coworker Brad, who is married with three kids. It is a passionate message from
a lover in another division of the company with whom Brad is having an affair. They evidently exchange
love notes through company mail. Is it OK, or even obligatory, to inform his wife about this? Don’t just say,
“Of course not, it’s none of my business.” Provide an argument based on the conditions for rational choice.
15. A revealing plant visit. I visited a manufacturer’s facility to investigate its ability to scale up our manufac-
turing process for widgets. We didn’t sign a confidentiality agreement before entering the plant. During
the tour, we passed a production line that manufactured gadgets for a competitor. Gadgets are unrelated
to widgets, but the competitor had long undersold us on gadgets, and we had been trying to reduce our
manufacturing costs. The representative who was showing us around was unaware that this company
was our competitor and proceeded to tell us all about the gadget product line and its performance level.
Should I have stopped him?
CASE 5.6
Sacrificing the Old for the New

SYNOPSIS we will call SmallSoft). Nonetheless, we can address the issue of
what the owners should do.
I work for a small company that designs software for financial
institutions. We have the potential to attract a new client that is
much larger and more profitable to the company than any of our GENERALIZATION TEST
present clients. However, if we take on this new client, we will Let’s assume, as the case description seems to imply, that SmallSoft
have to provide a substantially lower level of service to our other can drop or neglect existing clients without violating its contractual
clients, because our entire workforce will be preoccupied with obligations. The company would simply decline to renew existing
projects for the new client. Due to the complexity of the software, contracts. Nonetheless, the clients could maintain that there is an
hiring more people won’t resolve the issue in the short term. If we implied agreement that is ethically, if not legally, binding. They might
drop everything and start working for the new client, we will lose say, “We made a commitment to you by building our businesses
some established clients that played a major role in the develop- around your software. We expect a similar commitment to us.”
ment of the company. The choice is between attracting the new However, it is normal practice in the business world to be
client and maintaining our relationship with the existing ones. We clear about commitments of this kind, normally by writing them in
can’t have it both ways. contracts. It is hard to see how the small clients can reasonably
claim that SmallSoft promised to keep them as clients beyond the
term of the current contract, unless such a commitment was dis-
WHY THIS CASE IS HARD
cussed orally or clearly implied in the conversation. It is therefore
It is interesting to think about why we find this an uncomfortable hard to ground an obligation on an implied agreement.
choice and why we are so keen to find the middle ground that you We can also apply a generalization test directly to the action
insist is not an option. For one thing, it may be a tough business of abandoning clients. Suppose that companies always abandoned
decision. There is risk in alienating established clients for the sake existing clients (legally) when they thought they could grow their
of a glamorous new client that may drop you like a hot potato in a business by doing so. Would they still be able to grow their business
year. Another reason may be that you feel that you “owe some- by doing so? It is hard to see why they would not.
thing” to the established clients that helped you build the firm, and There could also be a question of loyalty to clients. As
you are unsure whether such obligations should be sacrificed to always, the kind of loyalty that counts for our purposes is loyalty to
hard-nosed business considerations. We will deal with the latter human beings. Even if you have developed personal relationships
issue first by applying a generalization test. The former issue is with client representatives that would call for loyalty, what mat-
related to the more general question of which choice maximizes ters is whether the owners have such relationships, because they
utility, which will be the deciding factor for this case. make the decision. It seems unlikely that they have.
Before proceeding, we should clarify that this is not your SmallSoft therefore does not “owe” its existing clients a
decision to make. It is a company decision and therefore a deci- continued business relationship. This is not because hard-nosed
sion that is ultimately taken by the owners of the company (which business considerations are more important than feelings. We are
not trying to balance business with feelings. Rather, we are applying alone does not make the case. If SmallSoft fails to grow and provide
the generalization test, and we find that it does not establish an valuable services to many clients, probably some other firm will pro-
obligation in this particular case. vide these same services and reap the same rewards. The net utility
created could be the same. To make your case, you must show that
SmallSoft would provide significantly more valuable service than com-
UTILITARIAN TEST
petitors, valuable enough to outweigh the loss to your present clients.
It is important to distinguish the business decision from the utilitarian Thus, if SmallSoft has a truly unique contribution to make,
decision, if the business decision is understood as concerned solely you may have a case. But if not, and if abandoning its current
with the welfare of the firm. This is not because the business decision clients would cause substantial harm, SmallSoft must take care if
is irrelevant to a utilitarian assessment. It is very relevant, because if its clients first. This may seem perverse, because the overriding
SmallSoft suffers, this not only creates disutility in itself but also imperative in the business world is to grow and prosper. However,
hampers the firm from making positive contributions in the future. utilitarianism tells us that the ultimate purpose of rational busi-
Nonetheless, the utilitarian calculus must consider the whole picture. ness owners must be to make the world better off, not worse off.
Abandoning existing clients could cause them significant dam- If growth at the present time would cause net harm over the long
age. Unable to obtain continued maintenance, they may have to retool run, it must wait.
for different software, perhaps at considerable expense. If abandon- To sum up the permissibility of abandoning present clients:
ment is also a poor business decision for SmallSoft, because the risk 1. Generalization test: Pass
creates negative net expected utility for the firm, then the utilitarian 2. Utilitarian test: Pass, unless (a) abandoning clients is a poor
verdict is clear: Don’t do it. However, if abandoning small customers is business decision for SmallSoft in the long term, or (b) it is
good for SmallSoft and bad for them, then the choice becomes harder. a good business decision, but abandoning present clients
You might want to argue that by taking on a major new client, would cause them harm that outweighs any services that
SmallSoft will grow and create enough value to outweigh any loss only SmallSoft can provide after accepting the new client.
experienced by the abandoned clients. However, even if this is true, it 3. Virtue ethics test: Pass 䊏
Exercise
16. The above analysis rests on the assumption that there is no implied promise to continue servicing clients past
the legal period of the contract (unless such a promise is made orally). However, our analysis of Jennifer’s job
decision claims that there is an implied promise to work longer than the two-week notice period. Why are
the two situations different? Hint. Under what conditions would the agreements involved lose their point?
CASE 5.7
Interviews after Accepting a Job

SYNOPSIS1 investigate job opportunities in New York City. Rather than lose the
McClaren offer, Mike accepted it as the deadline was about to expire.
After an initial campus interview, MBA student Mike Anderson
Five days later, Thayer called Mike from New York City to
traveled to New York City for an on-site interview with the lead-
ask about his decision. Mike said that he was still thinking about
ing investment banking firm Morgan Baker Aldrich Inc. Shortly
it, without mentioning that he had signed with McClaren. Thayer
afterward, he interviewed in San Francisco with a second firm,
invited him and his girlfriend to New York for a second visit and
McClaren Manufacturing.
showed him some parts of the city where they might live. She
Both firms offered Mike a job. John Thayer at Morgan Baker
interviewed with a company there as well.
Aldrich (MBA) made the first offer and asked for a response within
After a few days, Mike turned down Thayer’s offer on the
two weeks. Two days later, McClaren offered Mike a position as
grounds that his girlfriend didn’t want to live in New York City. But
assistant to the vice president for finance. However, McClaren
as it happened the two companies had a long-standing relation-
insisted on an answer within five days, despite Mike’s request for
ship, and Thayer learned through the grapevine about Mike’s deal-
more time. This created a problem for Mike, because his girlfriend
ings with McClaren. He asked Mike why he visited New York a
was also looking for a job, and there was not enough time for her to
second time when he had already accepted a job offer in San to their companies and to society. It would be irrational, and there-
Francisco. Mike replied that he was prepared to renege on the fore unethical, to turn down better jobs when there is no obligation
McClaren offer if he preferred the MBA offer. to turn them down. So it is important to know whether Mike really
Three weeks later, Mike sent Thayer a $6,200 bill for reim- has an obligation to honor the contract with McClaren.
bursement of expenses incurred on his two trips to New York City. The case description is vague on exactly why Mike wants
to keep pursuing the New York job. To make the case interesting,
let’s suppose that it is because he sees a possibility that he and
THE ETHICAL ISSUES
his girlfriend could make substantially greater contributions in
Two issues stand out. One is whether it was ethical for Mike to visit New York. But they can’t really tell without further investigation.
Morgan Baker Aldrich after having already signed with McClaren. So the expected utility for all concerned is probably greater if they
The second is whether Thayer should reimburse his expenses. obtain more information. As it happened, they would have made
Neither question is as easy as it may seem. A theme of this the same decision with or without the additional information, but
case is the pressure created by the competitive market for MBAs. they didn’t know this in advance.
Mike might argue that although he would not ordinarily continue Naturally, Mike’s duplicity with Thayer could create prob-
to interview after signing, McClaren put undue pressure on him. By lems, and this must be factored into the expected utilities. It could
making an unreasonable demand on the response time, the com- establish a bad reputation for Mike, which would not only reduce
pany forfeited its right to a commitment from Mike. If it is unwill- his own utility but make it hard to realize his full potential as a
ing to treat Mike fairly, it should not expect fair treatment in return. contributor to society. Thayer might refuse to hire Mike anyway if
As for the expense claim, Mike can insist that he acted in he learns about Mike’s dealings with McClaren.2 These are seri-
good faith with Thayer all along, because he was willing to renege ous considerations, but again to make the case interesting, I will
on his McClaren contract if he preferred Thayer’s offer. As far as assume that the potential advantages of the New York jobs
Thayer is concerned, the situation is precisely what it would have outweigh these risks in a utilitarian calculation.
been if Mike had not signed with anyone else. Thayer therefore None of this is meant to imply that the only potential prob-
has no reason to reject the expense claim. lem with Mike’s conduct is its effect on his reputation. His behavior
These arguments are likely to sound convincing to some could be unethical for other reasons. Nonetheless, reputation must
and not to others, and nothing is resolved. To make some progress, be considered in a utilitarian analysis.
let’s apply the conditions of rational choice.
THE NEW YORK INTERVIEW—GENERALIZATION TEST
THE NEW YORK INTERVIEW—UTILITARIAN TEST
Let’s move on to the generalization test. We can begin by observing
The question is whether Mike should continue to interview in New that Mike never actually broke his contract with McClaren.
York City after having committed to McClaren. Let’s first apply the However, when he interviewed a second time, it was his intention to
utilitarian test. break the contract if he liked the New York job better. Otherwise
The utilitarian test requires Mike to select the option that there would be no point in talking further to Thayer. It is the intention
maximizes utility while passing the other tests for rational choice. So that makes the act what it is.
it is OK, in fact obligatory, for him to continue talking with Morgan Mike’s intention is ungeneralizable, because if everyone
Baker Aldrich if doing so maximizes expected utility and passes the kept interviewing after signing, the employment agreement would
other tests. This is what makes the case hard. Without the utilitarian lose its point. New hires would honor the agreement only if they
argument, Mike could just tell Thayer that he had already signed don’t find a better job, which they would do without an agreement.
with McClaren, and that would be the end of it. This would allow So employers wouldn’t bother to promise a job, and Mike would
him to come clean with both companies and honor his contract. have no agreement to break. So Mike has an obligation to honor
Many people would say Mike should do just that. He his employment agreement and to stop looking around.
should simply come clean and honor the contract. These people Mike can argue, however, that there is actually no agreement
say that ethics is simple. Just do what your mother would tell you (at least form an ethical point of view), because there is no mutual
to do. The hard part is not figuring out what to do, but doing it. consent. Mutual consent means that both parties freely chose to enter
There are certainly cases in which the right action is obvious into the agreement. This is why a legal contract signed under duress is
and doing it is hard. But it can be equally hard to tell what is right. It often considered void. In this case, the pressure comes in the form of
isn’t clear what Mike should do, and perhaps even less clear what a tight deadline. One might argue that the agreement is nonbinding
his mother would tell him to do! “Coming clean” and keeping the because Mike was given too little time for deliberation. U.S. con-
McClaren contract could cause Mike and his girlfriend to pass up sumer law recognizes this principle when it allows customers to can-
New York jobs in which they would make substantial contributions cel a purchase from a door-to-door salesperson within three days.3
Adequate deliberation is a condition for free action, because and offers to shovel the snow off your walk, and you say, “Sure,
without it, we cannot adequately explain the action as based on a please do.” A little while later he knocks on your door and asks for
coherent rationale. It is the existence of such an explanation that $10. Your response: “Oh, you want to be paid for this!” Legally,
distinguishes free action from mere behavior. If Mike’s signature there may be a quasi-contract, which means you may owe him $10
was not the result of free action, then there was no mutual consent. even though there was no mutual consent.
To sharpen the argument, let’s suppose for the moment that Let’s use the generalization test to see if this idea applies in
McClaren demanded a decision by the end of the day (rather than Mike’s case. Suppose everyone who hastily agrees to employment
within five days). Given the circumstances surrounding Mike and continues to look around, with the intention of taking a better offer
his girlfriend, there is no way he could make a rational choice so if it materializes. The purpose is to find a better job, if possible,
quickly. Perhaps it would be unethical for him to decide on impulse while retaining the security of the first offer. It is hard to say that
in the first place, because an ethical choice must be a rational Mike would be unable to achieve this purpose if everyone behaved
choice. But whether he should have signed is not the issue here. It similarly. Although employment agreements would lose their point
is too late to think about that. The issue is whether his signature if offered when the deadlines are tight, employers might continue
binds him to an agreement, and arguably it does not, because there to make meaningful offers by avoiding tight deadlines. Then Mike
was no mutual consent. would still be able to look around while retaining the security of an
Even if Mike can escape his agreement, perhaps he is still offer, because McClaren would give him more time. We can’t be
unethical, due to deception. He is not telling McClaren about his sure that employers would respond in this way, but we don’t have
second interview in New York, because if he does, McClaren may to be sure. We only have to establish that it is consistent with
withdraw its offer. Perhaps this is deceptive, and deception merely Mike’s belief system that they would continue to offer contracts. So
for convenience is ungeneralizable. Mike has no ethical duty to stick with the McClaren job.
Mike can respond that he didn’t actually cause anyone at
McClaren to believe that he has made up his mind. They know that
THE REIMBURSEMENT
Mike can’t make a rational job decision on the spot. Perhaps they
impose tight deadlines on the chance that some people will be The utilitarian test is of little relevance to the reimbursement
gullible enough to take them seriously, but with full knowledge that issue. Reimbursing Mike may increase total utility somewhat,
others will keep looking. If so, then Mike’s silence about his New York because the owners of Morgan Baker Aldrich are likely to be
interview didn’t cause them to believe that he had made up his mind. wealthier than Mike. The concavity of utility functions implies that
Things are different if the McClaren people gave Mike a a transfer from richer to poorer results in a net increase in utility.
plausible reason for requiring a fast response. Perhaps their sec- But it is clearly ungeneralizable to disperse company money sim-
ond-choice employee gave them a deadline before she takes a job ply because it increases net utility. Otherwise managers would
elsewhere, and the deadline is today. Then Mike’s silence could donate all their stockholders’ money to starving peasants around
genuinely lead them to believe that he has made up his mind, and the world, nobody would invest in companies, and there would be
it is therefore deceptive not to tell them he is still looking. no companies to donate.
Do these arguments apply when the time limit is five days? Presumably, the basis for reimbursing Mike is an agree-
With a longer time limit, they are less compelling. But we have estab- ment between the company and Mike. If the company has a gen-
lished the principle that excessive pressure in the form of a tight eral practice of reimbursing interviewees, then there is an implied
deadline can make an employment agreement voidable, at least from agreement that the company will cover Mike’s expenses in
an ethical point of view. If the agreement is still binding legally, and exchange for his continued interest. Normally, it is ungeneralizable
McClaren refuses to release Mike from the contract, then this may to break an agreement simply to save money. So Thayer would
change the picture. Illegal behavior is normally unethical, because it normally have an obligation to reimburse the cost.
is ungeneralizable. But I will assume that McClaren is willing to In this case, however, Mike’s willingness to interview again,
release Mike from all legal obligation if it comes to that. without mentioning that he had already accepted a job, clearly misled
Excessive pressure can also relieve Mike of the obligation to Thayer about his circumstances. This would ordinarily void the agree-
tell McClaren what he is doing, but this depends on what Mike ment because it implies lack of mutual consent as to the terms of the
knows about McClaren and its reasons for imposing a tight deadline. agreement. When Thayer invites Mike for a second interview, it is
I would like to wrap up the argument here, but there is because he believes there is a certain probability that Mike will ac-
more. Even if Mike is not ethically bound by a contract with mutual cept his offer. His assessment is based on Mike’s situation, including
consent, and even if there is no deception, he may nonetheless the presumption that Mike has not already accepted a job. Mike is
have an obligation to honor what McClaren thought was an agree- therefore deceiving Thayer as to what he is getting in this agreement.
ment. Contract law recognizes this principle in the idea of a quasi- Mike, however, insists that his prior acceptance has
contract. Suppose, for example, that someone knocks on your door absolutely no effect on the probability of his accepting Thayer’s
offer. If this is really true, it means that Thayer’s probability assess- point of view, provided McClaren would be willing to release Mike
ment is correct after all. For this reason, and for this reason only, from legal obligations if he reneged. Nor is there any reason to
the agreement is valid, and Thayer owes Mike the reimbursement. treat this as a quasi-contract that, despite the lack of mutual con-
Thayer might respond that the (implied) agreement is void sent, imposes an obligation on Mike to honor it.
because he was misled about Mike’s character. He would not have It is therefore ethical for Mike to make a second trip to
asked Mike for a second interview if he had known about Mike’s New York, if he sees a possibility that he and his girlfriend could
duplicity. Because an agreement requires mutual consent, decep- make substantially greater contributions there, and a second visit
tion about the consideration (i.e., what is exchanged under the would help resolve the matter as well as result in greater expected
agreement) can void the agreement. But Thayer’s consideration is utility. However, it would not result in greater expected utility if
an interview with Mike, not Mike’s services as an employee. More there is a significant chance that a second visit would create a bad
precisely, it is an interview with a candidate having Mike’s resume reputation for Mike or cause Thayer to withdraw his offer. In this
who is available for employment. If the resume falsified Mike’s event, the second visit is unethical on purely utilitarian grounds.
background, Thayer could claim failure of consideration, but we Mike has no obligation to tell McClaren that he is still con-
will presume the resume was accurate. Thayer might not have sidering the New York job, unless he has some reason to believe
arranged the interview if he had known more about Mike, but this that the people at McClaren would be genuinely surprised, despite
is often the case with interviews. The purpose of the interview is their tight deadline, to learn that he has not yet made up his mind.
to learn more about the candidate. So it is hard to make a case However, Mike must tell Thayer about his situation at
that Mike’s duplicity voids the interview agreement. McClaren when he accepts Thayer’s invitation for a second inter-
None of this says that it is ethical for Mike to deceive view, even though this may induce Thayer to withdraw his job of-
Thayer about his situation. It only says that the deception does not fer. To avoid this risk, Mike would have to go back to McClaren and
void the reimbursement agreement. Mike’s lack of candor is an tell them that he is declining their offer so that he can pursue an
ethical issue in its own right that we should address. The argument opportunity in New York City.
of the previous section established that, under certain conditions, it Because Mike’s deadline is five days rather than the close of
is OK to interview a second time in New York, but it did not estab- business today, the arguments in favor of a second visit become
lish that it is OK for Mike to interview and fail to mention his much weaker. They remain valid only if Mike had no time to make a
acceptance of the McClaren offer. deliberate and rational choice in five days, and perhaps he did.
Mike’s failure to mention his job acceptance is clearly Nonetheless, we have established that unreasonably tight deadlines
deceptive. When Mike accepts Thayer’s offer of a second inter- can, at least in principle, relieve job applicants of some contractual
view, Thayer will infer that Mike has not signed with anyone else. obligations, and this is the primary issue raised by the case.
Deception is ungeneralizable when achieving its purpose depends If Mike’s commitment to McClaren has absolutely no effect
on the fact that the other party is in fact deceived. In this case, the on the probability that he would accept a job from Thayer, then
purpose is clear. Mike doesn’t want Thayer to get ticked off when Thayer has an obligation to cover Mike’s expenses—even if Mike
he learns that Mike is double-dealing, because he might cancel fails to mention that he has signed with another company.
the interview and rescind the job offer. If it were not so, Mike To sum up the ethics of the second New York interview:
would be willing to reveal the McClaren commitment up front. The 1. Generalization test: Pass, if Mike had only a short time
deception must therefore work to achieve Mike’s purpose. to give McClaren an answer. The pass is clear for a one-
Thus, even if it is OK for Mike to interview a second time, day deadline, but less clear for five days. However, Mile
he must mention the McClaren job when accepting the invitation must tell Thayer about the McClaren job when he ac-
to interview. Mike can of course reassure Thayer that he will re- cepts the invitation for a second interview, and take the
nege on the McClaren commitment if he likes Thayer’s offer, and risk that Thayer will withdraw his job offer.
he can describe the haste with which he was required to respond 2. Utilitarian test: Pass, if the expected utility of Mike’s
to McClaren. Thayer may rescind his offer when he hears all this, career contribution is significantly greater in New York
but this is a chance Mike must take. City before his second visit, and there is no significant
probability that the second visit would create a bad rep-
utation for Mike or cause Thayer to withdraw the job
CONCLUSION offer.
The ethical obligations of job applicants can change if employers 3. Virtue ethics test: Not applied.
apply unreasonable pressure. If McClaren demands very fast re- None of this implies that it was OK for Mike to sign with McClaren
sponse from Mike—by the end of the day, for example—then before he was ready. It was probably unethical, but we did not ad-
Mike has no binding agreement with McClaren, from an ethical dress this issue because it was a done deed. 䊏
Exercises
17. Filching printer paper. When I take business school classes, I prefer to have a hard copy of the notes that
are distributed electronically by the professors. Because there is typically a long line of students at the
school printer, I print my notes at home. This not only makes better use of my time but reduces ink con-
sumption and wear and tear on the school printer. However, class notes require a great deal of printer
paper, and I would like to take home a pack of the paper that is stockpiled near the school printer. I
would use it only for printing class notes. Given that I would consume the same paper if I printed the
material at school, is there an ethical problem with this?
18. Vacation allowance. My previous employer allowed 10 vacation days a year, which could be used at any
time without management approval. In addition there were five personal days, for which there were very
specific restrictions. They could be used only to take care of a sick child, attend a funeral, or complete
the sale of real estate. My boss, however, told me to use personal days as though they were vacation days.
In fact, he said I should use personal days first, because they could not be rolled over from year to year
as vacation days could. Was it OK to follow his advice?
19. Unqualified intern. While a systems engineer at a bank, at one point I shared a cubicle with Michael, a
summer intern. I got to know him quite well, and we became friends. Near the end of the summer,
I learned from my supervisor that he was going to recommend Michael for a permanent position. I was
naturally happy for Michael, but disconcerted at the same time. Over the summer I had learned that
Michael didn’t have the ability for the job. In fact, I had to assist him with his internship duties several
times over the summer. Should I have informed my supervisor that Michael was unqualified?
20. Playing someone else’s shell game. I was working as a contractor for a company that had several concur-
rent projects with the same client. Each project had a budget, and some had more money left in the
budget than others. The company would face a penalty for each budget it exceeded, and it would collect
a bonus whenever it came in under budget. While I was working on project A, the company asked me to
charge some of my expenses to project B.
21. Too much sophistication. I was a relatively new associate in the sales and trading division of a major
investment bank. One of our tasks was to value and manage risk for structured securities, which can be
a very complicated affair. My particular job was to help prepare materials used by a sales force that sells
less-risky securities to such traditional investors as insurance companies, pension funds, and fixed-
income mutual funds. Riskier securities were sold to hedge funds. At one point I realized that a relatively
obscure valuation approach commonly used for another product could help traditional investors
understand specific types of risk associated with their investments. I wrote some materials to describe
the approach, but my director told me not to share them with the sales force. He said that he didn’t want
traditional investors to start viewing their securities in this way. It would complicate the sales process
and make it harder to create demand for new deals. However, I thought we owed it to our clients to pro-
vide a more sophisticated risk valuation method. Hint. Note that this case concerns a company decision,
rather than the decision of this individual.
22. Fraud in Armenia. I was a Peace Corps volunteer in a small Armenian mining town. I spent a year trying
to learn the language and local customs, and in the process I got to know the owner of a local poultry
farm. Aside from the mine, this farm was the largest employer in town, with roughly 300 employees,
although many of them worked only part time due to bad management. I estimated that if the farm
were managed properly, it could employ another 300. I began meeting with the farm’s accountant and
discovered that he owned a computer, at which point I began to teach him to use Excel. After a time he
began to realize the value of what I was teaching, and he stopped his heavy drinking before and during
our sessions. Although there was plausible deniability, I got the strong impression that he wanted to pre-
pare multiple sets of books: one for under-the-table investors in the United States, one for the relatively
corrupt Armenian government, and a true version for resource management. I concluded that if I
taught him enough to upgrade the poultry operation, he would use the same knowledge to commit
fraud. Should I discontinue my efforts?
23. Blaming the subcontractor. I worked for EPI, a contractor that specialized in the construction of manufac-
turing plants. EPI does most of its own work but subcontracts for electrical and instrumentation systems.
Engineers at EPI prepare the drawings, estimate the required hardware, and issue subcontracts to the
most competitive bidder. The subcontractor, generally a small company, orders the hardware three or
four months in advance, because of long lead times. It then completes the construction under the super-
vision of EPI engineers. Upon reaching the construction site, I found that the installation drawings were
wrong, and as a result the subcontractor had not procured some of the hardware. I reported this to
George, top boss at the site, who instructed me to correct the drawings and hand over a list of additional
hardware items to the subcontractor’s foreman. I was to tell the foreman that these items should have
been ordered by the subcontractor. George explained that I must make it appear that the items were
included in the initial hardware list, so that EPI could avoid paying the hefty cost (about $70,000) of
expedited delivery of these items. In other words, George wanted me to cover up EPI’s mistake and get the
subcontractor to pay the additional cost. Hint. First evaluate George’s action and then address the
decision his subordinate must make.
24. Inside information? Mr. Martin was, until recently, head of investor relations at Verband, a Fortune
500 company. He had risen steadily through company ranks, due to his infallible judgment and abil-
ity to tell the company story in a most marvelous way. This was not an easy task, as Verband had a
habit of covering up its blunders. The company had major discrepancies in its accounts and, in
particular, lied to stockholders over the years about the lack of progress in its overseas operations.
However, Martin was adept at putting the company in the best light while diverting attention from
any discrepancies. The private banking division at EuroBank, however, had been scrutinizing
Verband carefully on behalf of its clients. The research team contacted Martin numerous times with
penetrating questions, which he always skillfully deflected. The research team was so impressed that
they recommended that EuroBank try to hire Martin. Due to a very generous offer and rumors that
Verband was looking for a buyer, Martin transferred to EuroBank. He quickly became as successful as
he had been at Verband. On one occasion, the head of private banking offered a wealthy client with
large holdings in Verband a presentation by a former Verband insider, who of course was Martin.
Martin prepared the presentation carefully so as to use only data in the public domain to reveal the
serious discrepancies in Verband’s statements. Revelation of anything more would have violated his
contractual confidentiality obligations to Verband. The difference between Martin and any other
analyst is that, as a former insider, he knew exactly where to look for the discrepancies. Following the
presentation and a series of follow-up meetings with Verband management, the client sold his large
holdings, causing the share price to plummet. Verband was subsequently taken over at a much
reduced price. Martin and his colleagues at EuroBank are convinced that his presentation to the client
was entirely proper. After all, Martin’s judgment is infallible.
Notes
1. Based on the case study Arthur Johnson by John P. is not mentioned in the case, Thayer reportedly stated
Kotter, Harvard Case 9-483-064, 1996. The case that he would have refused to hire Mike because he
begins with a letter from an executive at fictitious didn’t want an employee he couldn’t trust. Hiring
firm Morgan Baker Aldrich to a business school dean Mike would also have created friction between MBA
who is given the name Arthur Johnson in the case. and McClaren, a valued client, because McClaren
The letter expresses concern over unethical recruiting would have regarded MBA as stealing an employee.
practices and includes a description of Mike But it is too easy to resolve the issue by pointing to
Anderson’s dilemma. My thanks to David Krackhardt these facts. If Mike knew them it would obviously
for suggesting this case. have tipped the utilitarian balance, but he didn’t
2. As it happens, Thayer did learn about Mike’s duplicity know them.
through personal contacts at McClaren. Although this 3. 16 CFR Part 429.
Chapter 6
Business Case Studies
M
ost of the case studies discussed in this chapter have been used by my business school
colleagues for teaching purposes. The cases were assigned reading in accounting, economet-
rics, marketing, operations management, organizational behavior, and strategy courses. The
instructors discerned ethical issues in the cases and suggested to me that an ethical analysis may be
beneficial.
The analysis is often more complicated than in previous chapters, due to the complexity of the
cases. At the end of the chapter are several additional exercises that present case summaries and ask for
an ethical analysis, using guidelines suggested in the exercise.
CASE 6.1
Nortel and Income Smoothing

SYNOPSIS1 To create the appearance that it met this condition, Nortel
offered several customers incentives to write letters requesting
Nortel Networks was a telecommunications company based in bill-and-hold transactions. The incentives included price discounts,
Toronto, Canada. During the period 2000–2003, some of its execu- interest deferments, and extended billing terms.
tives relied on income smoothing to help meet quarterly income
targets. This is the practice of transferring income expected in the
REVENUE MANAGEMENT
next quarter to the present quarter, to bring reported income up to
par. The executives feared that if the company came in below its Nortel is using revenue management, a euphemism for manipulat-
target, the market would punish it with a lower stock price. ing the books to make revenue or profit appear in certain periods
One of Nortel’s primary tactics was the questionable use of rather than others. The most common type of revenue management
bill-and-hold transactions. This is a transaction in which the cus- is income smoothing, which is the issue here. Income smoothing
tomer orders a product in the current period but does not take de- evens out the fluctuations in profit or revenue from one period to
livery until next period. U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting the next. Various motivations are cited for this practice. Perhaps the
Principles (GAAP) allow the seller to recognize the revenue from clearest is that a business that shows less volatility can generally
the sale in the current period, if certain strict guidelines are met. borrow money at lower interest rates, because lenders fear unpre-
One of these is that the buyer must initiate a request for the bill- dictability. Another factor is that stock prices tend to decline when
and-hold transaction and must have a substantial business the company fails to meet its announced target, whether the actual
purpose for doing so. performance is above or below the target.
59
60 Chapter 6 • Business Case Studies
Another type of revenue management, not mentioned in more problematic in Nortel’s case. Again, the smoothing may benefit
the case, is the big bath. If a company sees that it is going to come the firm in the short run, but it distorts investment and carries a
out below its target at the end of the current period, it uses this as significant risk of reputation backlash.
an opportunity to write off bad debts, depreciate aging equipment, A more basic analysis is also in order. The root idea of utili-
and so forth. This makes the results look even worse, but presum- tarianism is that we should get straight on what our ultimate goals
ably the market treats a 20% shortfall as not much worse than a are and act to achieve them rather than something else. Anything
10% shortfall. If the company is going to get wet, it may as well else is irrational. Nortel managers do not appear to be rational from
take a big bath and look better in the next period. this point of view. They are acting as though their overriding goal is
A good deal of revenue management is possible within the to meet certain numerical targets, no more and no less. But this is
confines of GAAP, although Nortel’s practices in this case appear surely not their true goal. Ultimately they want to run a successful
to violate GAAP. business, build a useful product, provide meaningful employment, or
One might argue that revenue management can serve a something of this sort. Achieving some degree of predictability in
legitimate purpose by providing a truer picture of the firm. The num- company performance may help achieve this goal, but it is only one
bers may be abnormally low this quarter because the company is just factor among many. An overriding concern with numerical targets
about to make a big sale next quarter and abnormally high next quar- doesn’t make sense.
ter for the same reason. Smoothing avoids this problem and may
avoid creating unwarranted alarm or euphoria. Given this, is it ethical?
The dilemma arises because we want a single number to GENERALIZATION TEST
sum up a more complicated situation. Ideally stakeholders and Nortel’s income smoothing is a clear violation of the generaliza-
investors would look at the context rather than fixate on a single tion test, because it is deceptive. Its purpose in smoothing
number. But the world is not ideal. revenue is to cause stakeholders to believe that revenue in a
As for Nortel, its purpose in smoothing income is not to given period is something other than what it actually is, in order
obtain a more accurate picture of the firm but to report perform- to benefit the firm in the short run. However, if firms always
ance that matches the projections. Is its conduct ethical? misstated revenue in this fashion whenever it would benefit
them, no one would believe the numbers. People cannot be
deceived if they don’t believe the deception. So, generalizing
UTILITARIAN ANALYSIS
the action defeats its purpose, which means that the action
When income smoothing provides a truer picture of the firm, it fails the generalization test.
may pass the utilitarian test. It gives a boost to the company at It is slightly harder to analyze smoothing when it is
least in the short term and therefore benefits its owners and designed to convey a truer picture of the firm’s performance. One
employees. The utilitarian test requires, of course, that everyone’s might argue that reporting literal numbers is as deceptive as
utility be considered, not just the firm’s. Yet income smoothing of reporting smoothed numbers. Reporting smoothed numbers is
this sort may result in more rational investment, which would ben- deceptive because it misleads stakeholders about what actually
efit society at large. If so, it passes the utilitarian test. occurred in a given period. Reporting literal numbers is deceptive
However, there is a risk that the practice may be exposed, because it can give stakeholders an inaccurate understanding of
which could harm the company’s reputation, particularly if it violates the firm’s overall performance, which is the main purpose of finan-
GAAP. This reduces utility in general because of the disruption and cial reporting, after all. What is one to do?
waste it creates—company initiatives are shut down, employees One must run the generalization test on both actions and
laid off, customers disappointed, investment capital squandered, see how it comes out. The easier case is reporting the literal
and so forth. Managers must judge whether this risk is high enough numbers. It is deceptive in a way, but the purpose of the action
that income smoothing results in a lower expected utility than literal does not depend on deception. The purpose is to convey what
reporting. The point here is not that income smoothing is ethical if actually happened in a given period. If all companies reported the
the company can get away with it. The point is that the utilitarian literal numbers, they would continue to convey what actually
calculation is affected by whether the company can get away with happened. Literal reporting may mislead stakeholders about the
it. The other conditions for rational choice must be met as well. overall state of the firm, but they would continue to be misled if
One alternative is to report the literal numbers but explain everyone reported the literal numbers. Even if they would no
the context as prominently as possible. This could result in the longer be misled, this would not defeat the purpose of the action,
greatest overall utility, depending on the circumstances. because misleading people is not part of its purpose.
There is no indication in this case that Nortel’s smoothing However, reporting smoothed numbers for the purpose of
provides a truer picture of the firm. It is intended simply to bring providing a truer picture of the firm’s performance may not be gen-
revenue in line with the target. The utilitarian trade-off is therefore eralizable. Suppose firms always smoothed income when it would
Chapter 6 • Business Case Studies 61
provide a truer picture. The problem is that there is no standard for number, whether smoothed or not, cannot unambiguously convey
how, and how much, firms will smooth their income for this pur- the state of the firm. While struggling with this issue, the account-
pose. Some firms may be very conservative, and others may abuse ant may come down on one side or the other (ideally while passing
the privilege. As a result, the stakeholder doesn’t really know what the utilitarian and generalization tests). But so long as the account-
is going on in the firm. Generalizing the smoothing practice there- ant makes a good faith effort to convey the true state of the firm,
fore defeats its purpose of giving people a truer picture of the firm. there is no violation of virtue ethics.
If there were guidelines for how to smooth, that would be a
different matter. In fact, one might argue that staying within GAAP CONCLUSION
provides enough limits on smoothing that the stakeholder can still
infer meaningful information about the firm from the smoothed Nortel’s income soothing practices probably violate the utilitarian
numbers. If so, then smoothing within GAAP is generalizable—but test by failing to maximize utility, but they certainly violate it on a
only if it is smoothing for the purpose of giving a truer picture of more fundamental level because Nortel’s actions are not rationally
the firm, not for the purpose of meeting predefined targets. aligned with its goals. The smoothing practices definitely violate
the generalization test as well as virtue ethics. In a word, they are
unethical.
VIRTUE ETHICS
Income smoothing for the purpose of providing a truer pic-
Nortel’s income smoothing practices seriously compromise the virtue ture of the firm may pass the utilitarian test, but only under certain
of its accountants, because it is inconsistent with who they are as conditions, because there is a risk it can harm the firm as well as
professionals. An accountant is someone who makes a firm visible to society at large. It fails the generalization test if the smoothing is
managers and stakeholders. By instructing them to conceal what is inconsistent with GAAP. It passes the test if (a) it is consistent
happening in the firm, Nortel is asking its accountants not to be with GAAP, (b) GAAP standards are strict enough that stakeholders
accountants. This is fundamentally inconsistent and intolerable. The would be able to infer the true state of the firm if all firms were to
only rational course for an accountant is to get out of this situation. use smoothing within GAAP. Smoothing to provide a truer picture
Income smoothing for the sake of providing a truer picture of of the firm is consistent with virtue ethics if the accountant makes
the firm is a different matter. The accountant realizes that a single a good faith effort to provide the least misleading numbers. 䊏
CASE 6.2
Tires and Rollovers

SYNOPSIS2 plant, Bridgestone Firestone eventually won the dispute and
installed the long shifts.
Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, founded by Harvey Firestone Ford wasn’t innocent, either, because its SUVs had been
in 1900, was a pioneer in the mass production of tires and the orig- rolling over since the 1980s, due in part to a high center of gravity.
inal supplier to Ford Motor Company. Despite its distinguished Bridgestone Firestone recalled 6.5 million tires in 2000 and closed
history, the company lost its competitive edge in the 1970s and the Decatur plant in 2001. Ford redesigned the Explorer in 2001.
eventually sold out to the Japanese firm Bridgestone in 1988.
Bridgestone Firestone continued to encounter quality prob-
THE ISSUES
lems, however. The trouble began when Ford Explorer SUVs started
having rollover accidents in the 1990s due to tread separation in their This well-publicized case raises at least three ethical issues. One is
Firestone tires. It was at first unclear whether the problems were due the direct and obvious issue of what to do when your company’s
to improper inflation, hot weather, defects in the tires, or design prob- tires are defective. A second concerns the labor relations practices
lems with Ford’s SUVs. Now we know that all four factors played a that apparently underlay many of the quality problems at
role. Although tire pressure and heat exacerbated the situation, Bridgestone Firestone. A third is how to deal with the cross-cultural
Firestone tires clearly had quality problems, particularly tires manufac- dynamic that arose when Japanese managers and board members
tured during a labor dispute at the Firestone plant in Decatur, Illinois. were involved in running a subsidiary in the United States.
One issue in the dispute was Bridgestone Firestone’s pro- This particular case study does not tell the cross-cultural
posal to switch to 12-hour shifts. Line managers warned of a story, and so we will not address it here. Nonetheless, it is an
decline in quality, because it is well established that long hours interesting story, in part because Bridgestone Firestone’s
compromise both quality and efficiency. Despite a strike at the Japanese executives had a history of behaving as inappropriately
in Japan, as measured by Japanese norms, as they did in the You can promise something only if it is under your control.
United States, as measured by American norms. The pizza chef can promise me a safe pizza because the ingredients
are under his control. He knows what is in the pizza because he
PRODUCT RECALL—UTILITARIAN TEST made it. In manufacturing, some factors can be controlled and
some cannot. This is addressed by designing the production
To focus the safety issue, let’s deal specifically with the tire recall. process so that the uncontrollable factors are random, and the
When is there an ethical obligation to recall an unsafe product? defects occur according to a known distribution. Statistical
The utilitarian test balances the cost of a recall against the sampling can then estimate the probability of a random defect. The
risk of injuries. Risk is notoriously hard to assess, and there is no same sampling procedure can detect whether the defects become
really satisfactory way to do it. For product safety issues, one sim- nonrandom, which indicates a malfunction in the controllable part
ple and reasonable approach is to compute the expected number of the process. Thus quality can be assured by controlling what one
of injuries, assume that this many people will actually be injured, can control, verifying that the remaining variations are random, and
and try to measure the disutility that results. If one tire in 100,000 reducing the probability of a random defect almost to zero. This is
causes a rollover (just to pick a number), and 6.5 million tires are the principle behind quality control techniques, which allow manu-
subject to recall, we can assume that 65 accidents will result if the facturers to keep their promise to deliver a safe product.
tires are not recalled, perhaps spanning the range from minor to Bridgestone Firestone therefore has a duty is to remove all
more serious. To weigh this against the cost of a recall, we can causes of defects over which it has control. To this day, no one can put
ask: How much would we be willing to pay to avoid each type of a finger on a specific defect in the tires that Firestone could control.
injury to ourselves? Or we could estimate all the medical and other Yet their failure rates were much higher than the industry average,
expenses incurred by such an injury, and add in a penalty for pain perhaps due to Firestone’s handling of labor relations. We will argue
and suffering that might be assessed in a typical lawsuit. If the below that Firestone could have improved quality through good
cost of the recall is greater than the total cost of the 65 injuries, management, which means it had some degree of control over the
then failure to recall passes the utilitarian test. risk. It must therefore recall the tires to keep its promise to customers.
This approach may seem suspect, because it brings to The argument is not that Firestone broke a promise simply
mind the infamous Ford Pinto affair of the 1960s. Ford refused to because it had a poorer safety record than its competitors. The
fix the gasoline tank because this would cost the company more fact that other brands were safer is relevant only because it sug-
than the lawsuits that would result from exploding tanks. This gests that Firestone had enough control to make its tires safer. If
decision resulted in criminal prosecution of some Ford executives nothing else, it could have mimicked the quality procedures and
for manslaughter, although they were acquitted due to lack of evi- labor management practices of its competitors.
dence. There is no suggestion here, however, that we should treat One might propose a separate and additional argument that
tires as Ford treated the Pinto. We are considering the costs to Bridgestone Firestone made an implied promise to sell a product as
everyone, not just to the company. Furthermore, the utilitarian test safe as competing products, or at least as safe as products with a
is only one of the tests we are applying. Even if a failure to recall similar price. In general, this sort of argument is problematic. The
passes the utilitarian test, it may be unethical on other grounds. mere act of selling a product does not imply that it is as safe as
Nonetheless, the utilitarian test is important, since it is irrational competing products. No one expects a Ferrari to be as safe as a
to spend a king’s fortune to reduce a minuscule risk to zero. At Hummer, even if the price is the same. If a Ferrari were sold as an
some point, we must weigh the risk against the cost of avoiding it. automobile that is as safe as any, and if this were part of the
marketing, then that would be another matter. In Bridgestone
GENERALIZATION TEST Firestone’s case, one might argue that a tire is nothing if it is not a
safe tire, and marketing a tire sends an implied message that it is
Selling someone a product implies a promise. If a restaurant as safe as other tires. Even if this argument fails, however, one can
serves me a pizza, the cook promises me that it is safe to eat. This argue as above that the company broke its implied warranty, which
promise is reflected in the legal doctrine of implied warranty: Any does not depend on what other manufacturers were doing.
product sold carries the guarantee that it is fit for the purpose for
which it is sold.
LABOR RELATIONS
It is unethical to break this promise because breaking prom-
ises in general, merely to benefit oneself, fails the generalization The generalizability argument above relies on the assumption that
test. Breaking an implied warranty in particular is ungeneralizable, the defects were largely due to bad management practices over
because the only reason you can sell someone a defective product which Firestone had control. Let’s have a look at these practices.
is that merchants normally sell products that do what they are sup- As already noted, some managers on the plant floor feared
posed to do. Otherwise the customer would check out the product that a switch to 12-hour shifts would compromise quality. Although
carefully and refuse to buy it. some labor leaders claimed that scabs were responsible for the
defective tires, a study of the Decatur plant by two Princeton VIRTUE ETHICS
economists found that most of the bad tires were manufactured
before the strike began and when the unionized workers joined There is another issue at stake. Virtue ethics argues that our actions
replacement workers after the strike.3 The study concluded that should be consistent with who we are. Yet Bridgestone Firestone
poor labor relations, more than untrained replacement workers, put its Decatur employees in a position that was fundamentally
resulted in substandard tires.4 inconsistent. The company asked them to be tire manufacturers,
Firestone was known as a well-managed company prior to which means that they worked in an industry that is all about safety.
the 1970s but stumbled badly when Michelin introduced radial tires A tire is a tire is a tire, but it must be a safe tire. At the same time,
in 1972. John Nevin took over as CEO to turn Firestone around after the company would not allow the employees to be serious about
the company’s first huge recall in the late 1970s. It was an era when safe tires. It made them work long shifts that compromised quality, it
downsizing and restructuring were the rage—and Japanese compa- hired unqualified replacement workers, and it denied them technol-
nies were rising stars. Nevin ordered massive layoffs and broke long- ogy and quality control practices available in other plants. In a word,
standing relationships with employees, suppliers, and customers. He the company was asking employees to make safe tires and not to
was initially successful, but the company succumbed to the wave of make safe tires. This is not only bad in a utilitarian sense, because
Japanese takeovers in the industry when it sold out to Bridgestone. it ads to sour attitudes and unsafe tires, but it is fundamentally
Twelve-hour shifts became trendy with executives in the inconsistent and unethical on that ground alone.
1990s, and Firestone jumped on this bandwagon as well. The union
CONCLUSION
charged that Bridgestone Firestone’s investment in U.S. plants was
inadequate, another legacy of the 1980s. Management denied this, Bridgestone Firestone’s conduct was ungeneralizable because it
but the Decatur plant was clearly behind the times. Tires were man- violated an implied warranty, and it was contrary to virtue ethics.
ufactured largely by hand, and quality control was substandard. Further study is required to determine whether it complied with
The net result was a disgruntled workforce, particularly in the utilitarian principle.
the five U.S. plants that were struck in the mid-1990s. Employees The company should have applied all measures under its
got the message that the company was more concerned about the control to ensure the safety of its product, including the upgrading
latest cost-cutting fads than product quality. All of this was within of its Decatur plant and adoption of management practices known
management control. to be conducive to quality. 䊏
CASE 6.3
The Bullard Houses

SYNOPSIS5 Is it ethical for the Absentia representatives to conceal the
true intention behind their bid?
The Bullard Houses are a group of connected townhouses next to the
downtown financial district. They were once residences for the rich GOOD FAITH NEGOTIATION
and fashionable but fell into dereliction. Now that the inner city has
begun to gentrify again, the property is an attractive location for To determine what sort of information should be conveyed during
development. Surviving members of the Bullard family own the prop- negotiation, we must recall the purpose of negotiation. The purpose
erty and want it to be developed in a way that preserves the houses is to arrive at a mutually beneficial agreement. I am willing to sell
and avoids what they see as distasteful commercial use. They would you a car when the car is worth less to me than the money I get from
particularly like to see them renovated as luxury condominiums. you. Conversely, the money must be worth less to you than the car.
Four firms are bidding for the property with various plans Negotiation therefore presupposes that we can both assess the
for its redevelopment. The firm most relevant here is Absentia, value of the items we will receive in the exchange. I don’t have to tell
Ltd., a Bahamian blind trust. It is working through a local and re- you everything about the car. It is enough to tell you where the car is and
spected real estate firm, Jones & Jones, but it secretly repre- give you an opportunity to check it out. On the other hand, I shouldn’t
sents the Conrad Milton Hotel Group. Milton wants to build a deceive you about the car, because deception is ungeneralizable.
high-rise hotel on the garden next to the houses and convert the I shouldn’t tell you that the car gets 30 miles per gallon when it does not.
historical building into a lobby and meeting rooms. The Absentia Good faith negotiation therefore requires the following:
representatives have explicit instructions not to reveal these • Principle 1. Each party should (a) tell the other
plans during negotiation. exactly what will be conveyed, (b) provide
enough information about the items conveyed The case description is unclear about whether a sales
to allow the other to assess their worth, and (c) contract between Absentia and the Bullards would actually spec-
avoid deceiving the other party. ify the use of the property. Perhaps the contract is not explicit on
this point, but the Bullards are willing to sell because they
Anything less is ungeneralizable and unethical.
believe that the property will not be developed commercially.
There are at least two scenarios: (a) The Bullards ask how the
WHAT CAN BE CONCEALED property will be developed, and Absentia lies—it says develop-
ment plans are noncommercial, undecided, unknown, or what-
Interestingly, there is no obligation for me to tell you what the car
ever. (b) The Bullards don’t ask, but Absentia knows that they are
is worth to me. Perhaps I can’t drive, and I would be willing to sell
willing to close the deal because they falsely believe the develop-
the car at any price to get rid of it. But I have no obligation to say
ment will probably be noncommercial.
anything about this. The reason is that negotiation is still possible
Scenario (a) involves an out-and-out lie. Lying, simply to
when, as a general practice, neither party reveals anything about
benefit oneself, is normally unethical because it is deceptive, and
what the deal is worth to himself or herself. In fact, negotiation is
deception is ungeneralizable.
possible only when both parties are reticent about this.
One might argue that there is a special rationale for
Think about it this way. I have a minimum price at which I
deception in this case, a rationale that may be generalizable—
will sell, and you have a maximum price at which you will buy. If
namely, Principle 2 requires it. However, Principle 2 requires only
my minimum is less than or equal to your maximum, a deal is pos-
that Absentia reveal as little as possible about what deal it would
sible. But negotiation must somehow arrive at a particular price. If
find acceptable. It is possible to do this without deception.
I reveal my minimum and you your maximum, I will insist on the
Consider the car sale. If you ask me what my lowest price is, I can
minimum price and you will insist on the maximum—and there is
answer vaguely or dodge the question. I can even repeat my
no deal. So I will offer a price above my minimum, which reveals
current offer and say “this is my best offer” without necessarily
limited information about what my minimum actually is. You will
deceiving you. Deception is causing you to believe something that
bid a lower price that is below your maximum, which reveals lim-
I know is false. Such remarks don’t deceive because no one takes
ited information about your maximum. Perhaps the process contin-
them seriously in negotiation. They are part of the signaling
ues until the offers meet in the middle. Negotiation is therefore an
game. Everyone knows that negotiation can’t work if such infor-
exchange of signals that reveal just enough information to reach
mation is fully revealed. Similarly, Absentia can state that it has
mutually agreeable terms.
not been authorized to discuss plans for the property. This is liter-
Exactly how this proceeds varies widely depending on the
ally true, and it is not deceptive—unless it causes the Bullards to
context, but then it always requires concealing a certain amount of
believe that the development will be noncommercial, which
information about what is acceptable to the parties. The possibility
seems unlikely.
of negotiation in general presupposes that the parties adhere to the
Absentia might respond that if the car dealer can say “this
prevailing signaling practices. We conclude:
is my best offer” without deception, because such remarks are
• Principle 2. Negotiation is ethical only if the part of the game, then Absentia should be able to say, “We have
parties conceal information about what is no plans for commercial development.” But the remarks are not
acceptable to them—the amount and nature of parallel. “This is my best offer” creates no deception because it
concealment depending on the context in which speaks only to the terms that the dealer is willing to accept. It has
the negotiation takes place. no further implications that are relevant to whether the other
party will make a deal. However, “we have no plans for commer-
cial development” does more than speak to the terms Absentia is
GENERALIZATION TEST
willing to accept. It has implications for whether the Bullards will
Milton’s plans to build a hotel affect the price it is willing to offer, make a deal.
but this fact imposes no obligation on Absentia to say anything Because Principle 2 does not require lying, there is no
about the intended use. In fact, Principle 2 implies that Absentia apparent rationale for Absentia to lie in this case, other than the
has an obligation to say as little as possible about it, consistent fact that it benefits Absentia. The lie is therefore ungeneralizable
with the possibility of making a deal. and unethical.
On the other hand, if the sales contract will promise that Scenario (b) is trickier to analyze. Because the Bullards
Milton won’t build a hotel (or similar commercial enterprise), then already believe that Absentia probably won’t develop the site
Principle 1 says that Milton must be straightforward about its commercially, Absentia might argue that what it says or doesn’t say
plans. Anything else would misinform the Bullards about the terms cannot cause them to believe this. So it can keep quiet without
of the agreement. deceiving them.
However, Absentia’s silence may deceive the Bullards One might argue that Western-style business makes a dis-
about the evidence base for their beliefs. To take an analogy, sup- tinction between business relationships and personal relation-
pose Joe has an abdominal pain but believes it is nothing serious. ships. It is true that other, relationship-based business cultures
The doctor performs a battery of tests and shows all but one test may not make this distinction, and in them it is important to relate
result to Joe. He says nothing about the one test that indicates to all business associates on a personal level. (Interestingly, direct
cancer. In this case, silence is deception, because Joe expects the eye contact is normally inappropriate in these cultures.) But this is
doctor to show him any relevant test results, and the doctor knows not necessary in Western business culture. One can in fact make a
that Joe expects this. The doctor doesn’t cause Joe to believe case that the Western style of business relationship pressures
falsely that his illness is minor, because Joe already believes this. people to neglect such virtues as loyalty, friendship, and authen-
But it causes him to believe falsely that there is no evidence of a ticity. Yet virtue requires that we resist this pressure.
serious illness. The basic rule of virtue ethics is that it is inconsistent and
Thus, we can ask whether the Bullards would expect therefore unethical to compromise a virtue, except for the sake of
Absentia to reveal any commercial development plans, and if so, another virtue. There is no general competing virtue at stake for
whether Absentia knows that they expect it. The case descrip- the Absentia negotiator. There is a fiduciary duty to advance the
tion doesn’t make this clear, but there is no reason a priori to interests of the Conrad Milton Company, but this is not required by
suppose that the Bullards would expect Absentia to reveal plans loyalty in the Aristotelian sense—which is owed to human beings,
it is not asked about. The Bullards presumably base their judg- not to business firms. There may be competing loyalties at stake
ment on their knowledge of the situation, the reputation of for particular negotiators, for instance, if they cannot support their
Jones & Jones, and so forth. So it is hard to say that Absentia’s families unless this particular deal goes through. In such cases,
silence causes the Bullards to have false beliefs about the inauthenticity may pass the virtue test, although it must meet the
evidence base for their expectations. Its silence therefore other conditions for rational choice as well.
passes the generalization test. One might question whether negotiation itself compromises
authenticity, because we have argued that it requires a certain
amount of concealment. It is interesting to note that some relation-
VIRTUE ETHICS ship-based cultures try to avoid Western-style negotiation between
Negotiation takes place not only between companies but also business partners, because it disrupts personal relationships or
between human beings who represent the companies. We group harmony. Yet negotiation need not compromise virtue if the
concluded that Absentia can ethically fail to correct the Bullards’ parties withhold information only to the extent necessary to make
expectations about development of their property. This is negotiation possible, and if both understand that this is going on
because the Bullards would not expect a company to volunteer and why.
such information.
When human beings sit down to talk, however, the equa- CONCLUSION
tion changes. If the Bullards could sell the property by going to
the Absentia Web site and clicking the right boxes, then human It is ethical for Absentia to withhold information about its develop-
relationships would not enter the picture. But a deal of this ment plans from the Bullards, if the sole effect is to conceal the
magnitude requires that human beings work it out. The possibil- price and other terms to which Absentia would be willing to agree.
ity of human engagement, even communication, presupposes a It is unethical, however, to tell the Bullards that there are no plans
certain amount of honesty and candor. It presupposes not only for commercial development of their property, whether or not this
that people avoid deceiving each other, but that they in some becomes part of the contract.
sense level with each other. As we say in Western cultures, If the Bullards agree to sell on the basis of their mistaken
they must be willing to look each other in the eye. Relating belief that Absentia will not develop it commercially, then Absentia
authentically with others is part of being human, and therefore can fail to correct their belief without violating generalizability. Yet
a virtue. individual Absentia negotiators should mention the development
When Absentia representatives sit down with negotia- plans to their counterparts to avoid compromising personal virtue,
tors for the Bullards, it is hard to imagine how they could look unless this obligation is overridden by conflicting loyalties.
them in the eye, knowing their concern about the future of their This is not meant to imply that there are different stan-
property, without saying what they know about the hotel plans. dards for personal morality and professional morality. There is one
Or to put it differently, the Bullards may not expect a company to morality, and all moral actions must meet the three conditions of
volunteer information, but their representatives might very well rational choice. In the present case, the action in question may fail
expect fellow human beings to relate to them authentically.6 the virtue test while passing the others. 䊏
CASE 6.4
Marketing Prozac and Paxil

SYNOPSIS7 explosive properties of fertilizer, which seems perfectly innocent
unless it causes terrorists to make bombs. In other words, dissemina-
The antidepressant drugs Prozac and Paxil are “selective serotonin tion of information seems all right unless it fails a utilitarian test.
reuptake inhibitors.” Low levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin However, an advertising campaign for Prozac may seem
are associated with depression and other psychological disorders. suspect even if it passes the utilitarian test. It may psychologically
The drugs slow the rate at which serotonin is reabsorbed, which “manipulate” consumers to want something they wouldn’t other-
means that it is present longer and in greater quantity. Partly due wise desire. This kind of advertising may seem wrong—even if it
to direct-to-consumer marketing by the pharmaceutical firm Lilly, causes as much benefit as nonmanipulative advertising.
Prozac became widely used not only as an antidepressant but also So we distinguish two issues: Does public awareness of
as a means to “improve” one’s personality. GlaxoSmithKline’s Paxil Prozac pass the utilitarian test? Even if it does, can Prozac adver-
took on a similar role when the U.S. FDA approved it as a treat- tising still be wrong, perhaps because it “manipulates” consumers
ment for social anxiety disorder. Some Paxil advertisements con- by creating desire?
tained a questionnaire that consumers could use to “determine” First, the utilitarian issue. The publicity surrounding Prozac
whether they have such a disorder. was enormous, due in part to the book Listening to Prozac and general
“buzz” in the media. This led to abuse of the drug, but it also brought
ISSUES relief to many people who were clinically depressed and would other-
wise have gone untreated. So Prozac ads may well have maximized
The case raises several ethical issues, including the following:
utility. Until someone presents evidence to the contrary, there is no
• Is direct-to-consumer marketing of prescription drugs ethical? clear utilitarian case against direct-to-consumer marketing of Prozac.8
It is much less regulated in the United States than in some If the ads are to maximize utility, however, they must be
other countries. designed to minimize abuse by honestly reporting the limitations
• Is it ethical to encourage consumers to use a drug that and side effects of the drug—and above all, the complications of
makes them more socially acceptable? People some- withdrawal. Prozac requires months to take effect, can have seri-
times use Prozac or Paxil to make them less shy or more ous side effects, is no more effective than its predecessors, and
extroverted. creates a dependency that causes problems if one stops taking it.
• Is it ethical for marketing campaigns to encourage self- Too many warnings could of course deter legitimate users, but an
diagnosis? ethical ad must present a balanced picture that maximizes overall
utility. The same applies to media coverage.
DIRECT-TO-CONSUMER MARKETING
CREATING DESIRE
Direct-to-consumer marketing of prescription drugs is a “pull”
strategy that encourages consumers to ask their physicians for the Now let’s examine whether it is ethical to create desire for Prozac.
drugs. One can ask whether physicians should be influenced by No one questions that it is OK to create desire among clinically
patients’ requests for a drug, but that is another issue. The issue is depressed individuals. They don’t desire Prozac until they know it
whether a pharmaceutical company should encourage people to exists, and they learn from advertising that it exists. Advertising cre-
go to the doctor’s office and ask for it. ates a desire for Prozac in this sense, and this is perfectly ethical.
It may be helpful to look at an analogous case. Suppose The ethical problem lies in creating a desire for the benefits
the news media widely report the benefits of Prozac, and as a of Prozac as well as for Prozac itself. Clinically depressed people
result many people become aware of it and ask their physicians already desire the benefits of Prozac. But advertising convinces peo-
for it. This seems rather innocent, since the media are only provid- ple who are not clinically depressed that they shouldn’t be so shy, that
ing information. Yet an advertising campaign that creates a desire they should be more extroverted, that they should be the life of the
for Prozac may seem suspect. party, and that Prozac can fix them. The advertising does more than
Reasoning by analogy cannot resolve an ethical issue. At provide information. In popular parlance, it works “subconsciously.”
some point, one must apply the criteria for rational choice. But an This is obviously a general issue with advertising, which
analogy can be “therapeutic” by helping us to think more clearly. people often describe as operating at a “subconscious” level. This
Let’s first think about media coverage of Prozac. It seems all is deeply problematic in Western ethics because it fails to respect
right, unless it leads to such widespread abuse of Prozac that public individual autonomy. It is not so much that psychological manipula-
knowledge causes more harm than good. It is similar to reporting the tion is ungeneralizable; it is irrational in a deeper sense. In the
Western tradition, a moral agent is someone who acts on the basis they make a perfectly rational case for extroverted behavior, they
of a consciously formulated rationale. Psychological manipulation, imply that consumers need this kind of behavior to achieve their
if it means anything, refers to an attempt to subvert this kind of goals, when they do not. They are like ads for breast enlargement
decision making. It therefore takes away someone’s agency. It is or hair transplant. They perpetuate the myth that people cannot
basically murder—albeit temporary murder, because agency can obtain satisfaction without socially admired physical traits.
normally be recovered as soon as the manipulation stops. Ads for Prozac and other self-enhancing products are clearly
There is also an element of deception in psychological unethical if they perpetuate what the advertisers know to be a myth,
manipulation.9 If ads were not deceptive, then advertisers would because this is a form of deception. However, an ad that makes an
be willing to warn consumers that ads are manipulative. But they honest and unexaggerated case for the benefits of a product does not
are not willing to do so. Deception is normally wrong because it is have this problem. While big breasts or hair may not change anyone’s
ungeneralizable. life, a less-shy personality could have career advantages for some
One can argue that “advertising speech” can lie without people.
deceiving and is therefore ethical. An ad that calls its product “the Yet some would object to Prozac ads even when they make
best buy on the market,” when it is not, doesn’t deceive anyone an honest case for its benefits. They believe people should be less
because people expect hyperbole from ads. OK, if people expect concerned about social acceptability. If they are shy, they should
Prozac ads to be hyperbolic and as a result are neither deceived accept themselves as they are, other people should accept them,
nor manipulated, then the ads are ethical. and so forth.
One can create desire without manipulation. A doctor can This appears to be a utilitarian argument, because it suggests
create a strong desire for cancer treatment, for example, by showing that marketing Prozac supports social norms that make us less happy
a patient some test results. This is not manipulation because the or satisfied. The utilitarian test, however, is not whether we would be
desire is the psychological result of rational persuasion. So a Prozac better off in a different kind of society. The test is whether we would
ad that makes a rational, above-board, and honest case for extro- be better off without direct-to-consumer marketing of Prozac in par-
verted behavior—it is good for your career, or whatever—can ticular. One would have to make a case that Lilly can single-handedly
create desire without violating autonomy. However, an ad that affect social norms. Given the sensation that Prozac created, this idea
appeals subconsciously to insecurities or longings is unethical. is not completely implausible. But to establish a utilitarian obligation,
This sounds rather stern, since it appears to rule out one would have to make a stronger case than we have now.
appealing to emotions for any purpose. Is it wrong for an ad to
appeal to sympathy to solicit contributions for starving children? If
TEMPTATION
sympathy means an emotional reaction, yes. An emotional
reaction may be the inevitable result of rational persuasion, but Another potential problem with Prozac ads is that even when they
this is another matter. It is OK to describe what it is like to be hun- are honest and nonmanipulative, they nonetheless tempt people
gry and to portray poverty in graphic detail, even though this to take a drug that is not good for them.
portrayal may cause emotional distress, because this kind of infor- Many people who are not clinically depressed want to feel
mation is relevant to making a rational choice. But the appeal better about themselves. They know that feeling better is not worth
should ultimately be to the rational mind. the risk of taking a psychoactive drug that creates dependence. Yet
There are cases in which autonomy can be overridden for a they are tempted by the Prozac ads—not because the ads play on
greater cause, as when someone may use an emotional appeal to get their emotions, but because the ads simply lay out the facts. It is like
hostages released. One might argue in such cases that the hostage a waiter in a restaurant who tells you about the delicious chocolate
taker had already sacrificed autonomy, since, in Western ethics, one cake you can order for dessert. The waiter is simply stating the facts;
is an agent only to the extent that one acts ethically. None of this dis- the cake is delicious. Nonetheless, the suggestion may tempt you to
cussion, incidentally, is meant to imply that it is wrong for eat something you rationally decided you should avoid.
Shakespeare to work on the emotions of his audience. His intent is Temptation is a major issue in marketing. Restaurants con-
not to induce action but to deepen our understanding of ourselves. stantly push high-calorie hamburgers, French fries, and desserts.
So far, we have found no reason to conclude that direct-to- They cover the table with photos of these sinful indulgences to
consumer marketing of Prozac is in itself unethical. Manipulative make sure the temptation is constant. We can’t even go through
Prozac ads, however, are unethical—not because they create a the checkout line at a bookstore without resisting the chocolate
desire for Prozac, but because they are manipulative. candy displays at the register.
Snack foods are loaded with salt and sugar to make sure
we can’t eat just one. Then there are products that create a physi-
BEING SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE
ological dependence, such as cigarettes, alcohol, and recreational
One may view Prozac ads as objectionable even when they do not drugs. One the user is hooked, they create a temptation that is
manipulate, because they are deceptive in another way. Even if particularly hard to resist.
Temptation can be manipulative and deceptive, but it need People with social anxiety disorder have a strong fear of
not be. It may simply make us aware of a product that happens to embarrassment or being judged in social situations. Their fear can
be very tempting. It does not deny autonomy, but only makes us result in debilitating symptoms, such as panic attacks, and it can
work harder to maintain autonomy. The waiter’s recommendation substantially restrict their activities and success in life. A self-test
makes it harder to stick to my decision to avoid dessert, but it can identify people with this disorder, people who would other-
doesn’t prevent me from sticking to it. So temptation must be ana- wise not go to a doctor because they are unaware that effective
lyzed differently than manipulative or deceptive advertising. treatment exists.
The argument against temptation seems to be utilitarian. If GlaxoSmithKline has been accused of building a self-test
temptation works, people may do things that are bad for them. If it that too readily identifies people as having social anxi-
doesn’t work, people must nonetheless struggle to resist tempta- ety disorder. To be ethical, a self-test must obviously avoid
tion, which makes life less pleasant. Either way we lose. On the deception and an excessive number of false positives. But it is hard
other hand, it is perfectly OK to tempt people to eat celery (provided to see why encouraging self-diagnosis is necessarily deceptive or
the temptation is not manipulative) because it passes a utilitarian otherwise ungeneralizable, or why it would necessarily fail a utili-
test. If only we could find ad wizards who could tempt us in this tarian test. People must self-diagnose to some extent whenever
way. Temptation becomes wrong only when it reduces utility. they call the doctor. They decide whether they have a routine virus
The usual response to this argument is that marketers don’t that will pass in a few days, or something more serious that
force people to eat French fries or take Prozac, but only give them the requires medical attention. Some guidance in this area only im-
choice. (Marketing to children is another matter.) There is no proves a process that already occurs. In fact, one might make a util-
obligation to protect people from themselves. The problem with this itarian case that there should be more information on self-diagno-
response is that it begs the question. The issue is precisely whether sis, as well as professional standards for such information.
there is an obligation to protect people from themselves. Simply to On the other hand, the practice of giving a test is somewhat
state a position without argument gets us nowhere. Actually we have suspect. Why not just tell the consumer, “If you have symptoms
an argument, a utilitarian argument, that temptation can be unethi- X, Y, Z, then you ought to see your doctor about possible social anx-
cal. As far as Prozac is concerned, we concluded above that there is iety disorder.” Probably because there is something magical about
no clear utilitarian argument against marketing Prozac directly to con- a test score. It carries authority, much as a physician’s diagnosis.
sumers, due to the benefits for clinically depressed individuals. So One might say that a test score is common sense in a white coat.
tempting people with Prozac passes the utilitarian test. The outcome So the test is basically smoke and mirrors. It is deceptive because it
could be different with other products, however. gives a false impression of authority.
CONCLUSION
SELF-DIAGNOSIS
Direct-to-consumer marketing of Prozac is ethical if it is nonmanipu-
Once it received approval to market Paxil as a treatment for social lative in the sense explained above and if it balances the benefits
anxiety disorder, GlaxoSmithKline publicized a self-test for the dis- with possible side effects and withdrawal difficulties. Marketing of
order. Consumers answer questions about their behavior and are Paxil can ethically include honest advice for when one ought to see a
told that if they receive a certain score on the test, they may have physician about possible social anxiety disorder. However, a self-test
social anxiety disorder and should ask their doctor about Paxil. that generates a score is a bit of humbug and should be avoided. 䊏
CASE 6.5
Countrywide Financial and Subprime Mortgages
SYNOPSIS10 Within 18 months, the mortgage crisis metastasized into a
global financial crisis. Credit markets froze in the last half of 2008,
In 2007, Countrywide Financial was the largest mortgage lender in due to the repackaging of subprime loans into “poison” mortgage-
the United States. About 9% of its loans were subprime, meaning backed securities. Outstanding credit default swaps amounting to
that the borrower paid higher interest rates and fees due to a bad $62 trillion, often backed by inadequate capital reserves, magnified
credit history. Many of the subprime loans were going bad the problem. Stock values fell precipitously worldwide. Foreclosure
because of falling house prices, and the company found itself at rates and bank failures rose sharply. Massive government bailouts
the center of the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis.
and related actions were undertaken. The U.S., EU, and Japanese cash in on this lucrative market. Rating agencies gave the highest
economies quickly went into recession. ratings to these securities, despite the obvious risk they entailed.
As for Countrywide, its CEO, Angelo Mozilo, initially spoke Banks and insurance companies sold trillions of dollars worth of
of an “over-reaction” to the subprime lending crisis and to his credit default swaps on mortgage-backed securities without ade-
company’s role.11 He noted that some 20–25% of U.S. mortgage quate capital reserves, a practice that lulled even conservative
loans were subprime at the time, compared to less than 10% at Swiss banks into buying the securities. As the crisis deepened,
Countrywide. Yet the company began an unstoppable slide and some financial institutions whose risky investments led them to the
finally sold out to Bank of America in July 2008 for one-sixth of its brink of collapse accepted massive taxpayer-funded bailouts. After
value a year earlier. receiving these bailouts, they acquired a new reluctance to lend
Many critics questioned the ethics of subprime lending at money to businesses, despite the need for economic stimulus, their
Countrywide and elsewhere. A common practice was to offer own record profits, and their willingness to lend to almost anyone a
“2/28” loans that have a low, fixed interest rate for the first two year earlier. All of these issues deserve attention but go beyond the
years but much higher, floating interest rates for the remaining 28 scope of the current analysis.
years of the loan. Borrowers were told that they could refinance
after two years to reduce monthly payments. This might have SUBPRIME LENDING: UTILITARIAN TEST
worked if house prices kept rising, but they fell. Many loans were
soon “under water,” meaning that borrower owed more than the We can begin by asking whether Countrywide’s subprime loans re-
house was worth. Thousands of borrowers were unable to refi- sulted in greater expected utility than not making them.
nance and were stuck with payments that were sometimes twice The most directly affected are borrowers and company
as high as before. If they could not the make the payments, stockholders. If subprime loans were risky enough to result in an
lenders generally foreclose, in many cases taking a loss. expected loss for the borrowers (i.e., the net expected value was
negative), then the loans probably failed the utilitarian test and
THE ISSUES should not have been granted—even if they maximized expected
revenue for the company. A loss for borrowers more than offsets
Two main issues arise with respect to subprime mortgages. Should an equal gain for stockholders, due to concave utility curves.
Countrywide and other lenders have sold subprime mortgages, at Things get more interesting if the expected value for bor-
least in the way they did, or was this an unethical form of predatory rowers was positive. This could have been the situation for
lending? Should banks have foreclosed when borrowers could nei- Countrywide. Everyone seemed to think that house prices would
ther refinance nor meet ballooning payments, or should they have continue to rise. After all, they had not fallen significantly in the
renegotiated the loans on terms more favorable to the borrower? United States since 1920. The relevant issue for the utilitarian test
Defenders of subprime mortgages say that they give would- is not whether a rise in house prices was in fact probable, but
be homeowners a chance to redeem themselves and recover from whether it was rational to believe a rise was probable. As it hap-
past mistakes by establishing a new credit record. Critics say that pened, the market went sour, the company failed, and everybody
the loans are predatory because customers are misled about the lost. But this doesn’t show that such an outcome was likely, much
risks or are tempted into borrowing money they cannot repay. less that people were irrational in believing it was unlikely.
The foreclosure issue is equally confusing. Some point out In any case, subprime loans in principle passed the utilitar-
that borrowers are adults and should not take money they cannot ian test if people were rational in believing that prices would, with
repay. If we give them a break, it will only encourage borrowers to high probability, continue to rise.
be irresponsible in the future. Others say that lenders should make The design of the loans is another matter, however. The
accommodation to borrowers they exploited and misled for the 2/28 scheme was quite draconian from the borrower’s point of
sake of collecting high fees and interest rates. view. Terms that are kinder to the borrower, while still being finan-
We will try to shed some light on these issues by applying cially viable, would have resulted in greater overall utility. Anyone
the principles of rational choice. The analysis isn’t particularly with common sense knows this. So there was an ethical obligation
short or simple, but why should we expect ethics to be easier than to structure a different kind of loan.
other fields? One can ask whether it is consistent with the other ethical
The financial crisis exposed a number of ethically question- tests to make a loan with substantial risk, even when the expected
able practices in addition to subprime lending. Mortgage companies return is positive. We will deal with this next.
sold loans as soon as they made them, relieving themselves of any
responsibility to collect payments and therefore of a clear incentive SUBPRIME LENDING: GENERALIZATION TEST
to award the loans responsibly. Financial institutions repackaged the
loans onto mortgage-backed securities and sold them worldwide, in Even if we grant that subprime loans had positive expected value
some cases leveraging themselves beyond all precedent in order to for customers, there was a great deal of risk. We can ask whether
Countrywide should have made sure customers understood the customers generally assumed that if a lender
risk, and even if they understood it, whether the company should were willing to grant a loan, the risk must be
have tempted customers with risky loans. The company’s actions manageable.
may have failed the generalization test. • Scenario 4. This is the same as the previous
We don’t know exactly how Countrywide dealt with its cus- scenario, except that the lender had no particu-
tomers, but let’s analyze the issue by applying the generalization lar reason to suspect that the customer was
test to some possible scenarios. unaware of the risk.
• Scenario 5. The lender gave explicit warnings
• Scenario 1. The lender told the customer that about all the risks, whether or not there was
the payments would double after two years, but reason to believe that the customer was aware of
said, “You can always refinance to reduce the them. In particular, the officer warned that refi-
payments.” nancing would probably be necessary and could
be impossible for the lender unless house prices
This was an outright lie, because the customer could not continue to rise.
“always” refinance. Refinancing would be impossible if prices fell,
or even if they didn’t rise enough. Lying to a customer to make a
sale fails the generalization test, because if salespeople always There is no deception in Scenarios 4 and 5, because the lender did
did this, customers would not believe them, and the lies would not not cause the borrower to have a false belief. As for Scenario 3, we
achieve their purpose. might again want to say caveat emptor, because buyers should take
responsibility for themselves rather than relying on the seller to spell
• Scenario 2. The lender told the customer about everything out. But we need an argument, not just an assertion.
the ballooning payments but said that “borrow- It is helpful to look at the issue in general, since it comes
ers with this type of loan are refinancing after up in all sales negotiation. The possibility of commerce as we
two years.” The statement, we will suppose, was know it requires a certain amount of trust between buyer and
true at the time. But the customer inferred seller. In particular, the buyer must trust the seller to point out
(incorrectly) from this remark that the option to important facts about the product, particularly when the buyer is
refinance was a sure thing in the future. The unlikely to be aware of them. Otherwise, the burden of trying to
lender knew that the customer misunderstood understand every product one buys would be too great. The seller,
the risk but said nothing to correct the misun- after all, is most familiar with the product. Similarly, the seller
derstanding. must trust buyers to choose a product that is right for them. Buyers
are most familiar with their needs, and it is impractical for the
In this case, there was no outright lie, but there was deception. To seller to investigate the personal circumstances of every customer.
deceive is to cause someone to believe something you know is The seller’s actions are ungeneralizable if they presup-
false. The lender’s remark about refinancing was the cause of the pose a level of trust that would not exist if all sellers behaved
false belief. Deception is ungeneralizable because if salespeople similarly. In Scenario 3, the seller was silent about a key risk fac-
always caused people to have false beliefs to make a sale, cus- tor that he or she had reason to believe the buyer misunder-
tomers would not be deceived. They would be on guard, ask ques- stood. Arguably, many subprime borrowers went ahead with
tions, do some independent research, and so forth. their loans in such cases because they trusted the lender to exer-
One might claim that the customer should have been on cise due diligence. They assumed the lender would raise any
guard and done some research in any case, but this is only a claim, serious issues about their ability to repay. This trust would evap-
not an argument. Even if we establish that the customer “should” orate if lenders consistently failed to raise such issues.
have done these things, this is not the same as showing that it is Borrowers would become wary of lenders, particularly as they
ethical for the lender to deceive him. The fact remains that decep- come to realize that the loan originators lose nothing if the
tion fails the generalization test. borrower defaults. Many would back away from a loan, which
would defeat the lender’s purpose. As it happened, many sub-
• Scenario 3. The lender warned about larger pay- prime lenders in fact failed to exercise due diligence. The
ments in the future but, this time, said nothing subprime market collapsed, perhaps even before customer trust
about refinancing. However, there was reason for could evaporate, but this only demonstrates ungeneralizability
the lender to believe that the customer planned to for a second reason. The lender’s action in Scenario 4, on the
refinance and was unaware of the risk—perhaps other hand, is probably generalizable, even though the lender
because the customer talked about it, or because failed to provide key information. If sellers always failed to
provide key information when there is no reason to believe that FORECLOSURE: GENERALIZATION TEST
buyers are uninformed, then commerce could still proceed. It
There is a seemingly obvious generalization argument that lenders
may be less efficient than it is now, because sellers often volun-
should not give people a break when they can’t make the payments.
teer such information, but efficiency is a utilitarian criterion and
It would create moral hazard. If lenders always relaxed the repay-
not the issue in a generalization test. What matters is that the
ment terms, borrowers would take out loans they can’t afford.
level of trust could still be high enough to allow subprime mort-
This went by a little too quickly (as moral hazard arguments
gage loans to go through—or, strictly speaking, whether it is
often do). The generalization test asks whether Countrywide
consistent with the seller’s beliefs that the level of trust would
would have been able to achieve the purpose of relaxing the terms
be high enough under these circumstances.
if all lenders relaxed terms when borrowers can’t pay.12 Actually,
On the other hand, it seems likely that Scenario 4 rarely, if
one can imagine a mortgage loan industry in which lenders regu-
ever, applied during the subprime mortgage frenzy. Lenders proba-
larly relax the terms when necessary. It is true that, in this system,
bly had reason to suspect that few customers fully appreciated the
borrowers will “agree” to written terms they cannot meet. But
risk. This is particularly the case because the practice of repackag-
everyone knows they are actually agreeing to the more favorable
ing loans was relatively new. Many customers were probably
terms that will be negotiated if necessary. Everyone makes adjust-
unaware that lenders no longer had a clear incentive to make sure
ments for this, and the system works.
that loans were well secured. The situation therefore reverts to
However, Countrywide could not have achieved the purpose
Scenario 3, where a failure to point out the risk is unethical.
of relaxing the terms in this kind of system, and this is what counts
Even when the customer is aware of the risk, it may be
for the generalization test. The purpose of relaxing the terms is to
unethical to tempt customers with this type of loan. Suppose the
avoid foreclosure. If everyone relaxed the terms, then borrowers
loan officer learns from experience that customers frequently take
would have already anticipated easier terms, and borrowers in trou-
out subprime loans when they know it is too risky for them. They do
ble would be unable to meet even these. So Countrywide wouldn’t
it because they really want that house. Is it OK to offer such a person
have been able to avoid foreclosure by relaxing the terms.13 Thus
a subprime loan, knowing that the customer will probably make the
the ethical problem is not simply moral hazard, but specifically the
wrong decision?
impossibility of achieving the purpose of renegotiating the loan if
We discussed temptation in Case 6.4 and concluded that
everyone did so when borrowers can’t make the payments.
the issue boils down to a utilitarian test: Temptation is wrong if it
This argument shows that, at least under normal circum-
reduces overall expected utility. Presenting subprime loans to cus-
stances, it is not only permissible for lenders to get tough when
tomers could tempt them to take out loans they cannot repay and
borrowers can’t pay, but they have an ethical obligation to do so.
thereby do much harm. The harm is due to the borrower’s own
Renegotiating the loan passes the utilitarian test but not the gen-
choices, but this is irrelevant to the utilitarian test. What matters
eralization test.
is whether harm results from the loan. If tempting the customer
However, renegotiation is permissible if the lender would
reduces expected utility, the temptation is unethical. If we assume
benefit from renegotiating the loan, during a crisis or otherwise.
as before, however, that the subprime loans in question boost
This was the situation for many lenders, for whom foreclosure
expected utility, the temptation is ethical.
resulted in a major loss due to rock-bottom house prices. It is not
unusual for parties to a contract to renegotiate when both would
benefit, and no one raises eyebrows about this. Why are mortgage
FORECLOSURE: UTILITARIAN TEST
loans any different? Probably they aren’t. If all lenders regularly
As for the ethics of foreclosure, one might again argue that in typ- renegotiated loans when both lender and borrower would benefit,
ical cases the impact on the borrower dominates this utilitarian the lenders would still benefit. There is no reason to suppose that
calculation. The alternative to foreclosure is to negotiate more borrowers would take on too much risk, on the chance that it
favorable terms for the borrower. This may or may not be better for would benefit the lender to renegotiate the terms. So renegotia-
the company than foreclosure, but in typical cases, it is much bet- tion is permissible if it would benefit both parties and is therefore
ter for the borrower. It is true that the borrower has already obligatory because it maximizes utility.
enjoyed a rent-free house for two years at low payments, and one One might argue that renegotiation is permissible in
may say that he/she “deserves” nothing more (whatever that extraordinary situations like a financial crisis, even if it doesn’t
means). But all this is irrelevant to the utilitarian calculation. benefit the lender. This seems generalizable, because most
Renegotiating the loan probably maximizes utility because it is borrowers wouldn’t anticipate easier terms in cases of financial
better for the borrower, or if it doesn’t, we need to understand why hardship, if loans were negotiated only in times of crisis. But we
the borrower’s marginal interests don’t dominate the calculation. must carefully examine the reason for renegotiation before testing
Now let’s look at the other tests. for generalizability. One possible reason is that it benefits the
lender, but we have already acknowledged that renegotiation is The same applies if the loan originator sold the mortgage
permissible in this case. If it doesn’t benefit the lender, then a pos- to a third party, which is the usual situation. The originator sold a
sible reason is simply that it increases utility. But renegotiation contract that is not a contract. The sale may have been unethical
would increase utility whether or not it is a time of crisis. The and the purchaser (assignee) may have a right to compensation
lender has no apparent rationale for renegotiating in one case and from the originator. Yet the fact remains that the borrower is not
not in the other. If the government incentivizes renegotiation, as in bound by a valid contract, and the loan purchaser is ethically obli-
fact has occurred, then this could provide a rationale—either gated to settle the matter in a way that maximizes total utility.
because the incentives make renegotiation in the lender’s interest We have found that the loan contract is binding in
or because the company wants to create positive public image by Scenarios 1–5 but not in Scenario 1a. This means that in Scenarios
showing cooperation during a crisis. But in these cases, the 1–5, the borrower is ethically obligated to repay the complete loan,
company renegotiates because it benefits the company, which we or surrender the house. It does not necessarily follow, however,
have judged to be permissible. If the lender has received govern- that the lender can ethically foreclose on the loan—that is, compel
ment bailout money or subsidies, this may carry a legal or ethical the borrower to surrender the house through legal process. If the
obligation to restructure loans. lender would benefit from renegotiation, there is an obligation to
Let’s now examine whether it is permissible for the lender renegotiate, because it maximizes utility and is generalizable.
to foreclose if it deceived the borrower about the risk of the loan
(Scenarios 1 and 2) or acted unethically for some other reason
(Scenario 3). Opponents of foreclosure claim that these circum- JUST COMPENSATION
stances call for flexibility in working with the borrower.
Even if the lender wouldn’t benefit from renegotiation, we can ask
If deception was involved in negotiating the loan contract
whether the lender owes the client some kind of restitution to
(Scenarios 1 and 2), one might argue that the contract is void.
compensate for the deceptive or unethical behavior in Scenarios
There is a similar principle in the law. From an ethical point of
1–3 and 1a. This compensation could take the form of renegotiat-
view, a contract clearly requires mutual consent. If one party
ing the loan or postponing some payments, rather than foreclos-
deceives the other about the nature of the product being sold, we
ing. After all, the lender’s behavior harmed the client. We have a
can argue that there is no mutual consent and no contract.
strong intuition that if we harm someone, particularly through
However, this is not what happened in Scenarios 1 and 2.
unethical conduct, then we ought to make up for it somehow. The
The lender deceived the customer about the risk, and the risk was
entire law of torts is based on this idea.
a key element in deciding whether to take out the loan, but the
Just compensation is tricky to analyze, however. We prob-
terms of the loan itself were clear and mutually understood. It is
ably have a strong intuition on this topic because we are accus-
just that the lender deceived the borrower about the advisability of
tomed to legal remedies. It may in fact be good social policy for
taking out the loan. However unethical it may be to deceive the
the law to require people to compensate those they harm, because
customer, the deception does not nullify the contract, from an eth-
this deters harmful acts and thereby increases utility. But social
ical point of view. The same point applies even more strongly in
policy is not the issue before us. The issue is what an individual
Scenarios 3 and 4, where there was no deception.
mortgage lender’s policy should be. So we ask whether failure to
There is one possible situation that voids the contract,
compensate violates a condition of rational choice.
however:
We have already found that failure to compensate in
• Scenario 1a. The lender led the borrower to Scenarios 1–5 passes the generalization test, because foreclosure
believe that the lender would renegotiate the loan (without compensation) passes the test. However, the utilitarian
after two years (and that there is no risk that it principle seems to require compensation, at least if the borrower is
would not). The possibility of renegotiation could financially distressed. Due to the concavity of utility functions men-
therefore be interpreted as part of the contract. tioned earlier, compensating financially distressed borrowers in
Scenarios 1–5 would create more utility for the borrowers than it
In this scenario, the lender genuinely deceived the borrower would lose for the lenders. Yet this doesn’t explain why a company
about the product being sold, and there was no mutual consent. should help out victims of its own deception rather than victims of
There was no contract and therefore no contractual obligation. someone else’s deception, or both. The utilitarian argument doesn’t
A particular law court may not care to recognize this fact and may justify compensation in the sense of making up for one’s own wrong-
order the borrower to pay under the original terms, but the fact doing. Again, it may be good for the law to require it, and a company
remains that there was no contract from an ethical point of view, should compensate when required by law.14 Yet utilitarian and gen-
and the lender should voluntarily restructure the loan in a way that eralization arguments don’t require compensation from the lenders
maximizes overall utility. simply on the basis that they are the perpetrators of the damage.
VIRTUE ETHICS CONCLUSION

The actions of loan officers should be consistent with who they are Subprime lending can be perfectly ethical under the right circum-
as professionals. Presumably, the mission of a mortgage loan officer stances. However, if making a subprime loan creates less
is to make home ownership possible. Subprime loans, properly expected utility than not making it, the loan is unethical. Because
designed and administered, are entirely consistent with this mission the utility calculation is dominated by the customer’s welfare, a
because they help more people to own a home. It is hard to believe, loan that reduces expected utility for the borrower is unethical.
however, that a 2/28 loan could be designed with the goal of making If the loan results in greater expected utility for the borrower,
home ownership possible. Rather, it seems designed to entice bor- it may be ethical even if the downside risk is large. The loan terms
rowers with unnaturally low payments up front. A loan officer con- should be crafted to maximize utility for the borrower, however. The
cerned with promoting home ownership should offer realistic loan harsh 2/28 scheme and similar plans don’t qualify, because they
products that help the client work toward a good credit rating. may force many borrowers to refinance after a few years—which
In particular, a loan officer should not make a loan when may be impossible if real estate prices drop.
there is a substantial risk of foreclosure, because this obviously In addition, the ethics of subprime lending depends on
frustrates the mission of the profession. We have already found exactly how the lender interacts with its customers. It is unethical
that subprime loans are unethical in Scenarios 1–3. If loan officers to say or do anything that leads customers to believe that they can
avoid making subprime loans in these situations and recommend count on the possibility of refinancing to reduce large payments in
the loans only when they maximize the borrower’s utility, then they the future. If the lender has reason to believe that the customer
will probably act consistently with their mission. misunderstands the risk of being unable to refinance, then the
We have so far found no obligation for a loan officer to lender should clearly explain the risk.
warn customers that refinancing may be impossible, if there is no If there is no particular reason to believe that the customer
particular reason to believe that the customer is unaware of this. It is unaware of the risk, then there is no obligation to point it out.
is unclear whether virtue ethics imposes an obligation of this sort, However, one might argue that during the heyday of subprime
because it is not obviously part of the loan officer’s professional lending, there was almost always a reason to believe that the cus-
role. The situation is different for a financial advisor, or a real tomer didn’t fully appreciate the risk.
estate broker that is working for the buyer. Real estate brokers Renegotiating an ethically valid subprime loan contract
have in fact been criticized for abdicating their responsibility in is neither obligatory nor permissible, unless it would benefit
this area. Perhaps they do so because, in the peculiar U.S. system, both borrower and lender. The contract is ethically valid even if
brokers advising the buyer are typically paid by the seller and have the lender deceived the borrower about the risk, although the
an incentive to push up the house price—a situation that clearly deception is itself unethical. However, if both borrower and
requires ethical examination. lender would benefit from renegotiation, then renegotiation is
One can argue, however, that virtue ethics requires some obligatory. In addition, if the loan originator still holds a loan
kind of compensation in Scenarios 1–3, perhaps in the form of a that was made without full discussion of the risk, virtue ethics
renegotiated loan. Virtue ethics is vague and generally does not requires the lender to make some sort of effort to compensate
justify precise courses of action. But if the loan officer’s mission is the borrower. Compensation can take the form of renegotiation
to assist people to finance their own home, then it makes no sense for the purpose of fulfilling the lender’s professional duty to
for the loan officers to forget about their clients after deceiving its clients. There is also an ethical duty to compensate when
them or otherwise unethically inducing them to sign the wrong required by law.
loan. They should want to correct their mistakes and put their In addition, if the lender led customers to believe that they
clients back on the path to home ownership. This could include could count on the possibility of refinancing through the lender,
renegotiation, which is generalizable in Scenarios 1–3 if done to then the loan contract is void for ethical purposes. The mortgage
fulfill a professional duty that is not yet fulfilled. Loan officers owner, whether the originator or not, is obligated to renegotiate
would still be able to complete their duty in this fashion if all payments in a way that maximizes overall utility.
lenders did likewise. The ethical landscape is complicated, and these conclu-
The problem is that practically none of the troubled loans sions are summarized in Table 6.1.
are still held by the mortgage companies that made them, because The design of public policy to deal with the subprime crisis,
they were sold off. The loan officers can claim that the matter is regulate future lending, and govern financial markets pose further
out of their hands. It is hard to argue that the current owners of the issues that are not addressed here. There may be an ethical obli-
mortgages have a professional duty to correct the mistakes of the gation for the government to work with lenders to rescue borrow-
loan originators, particularly when they often don’t know which ers, provide greater oversight of financial markets, or restructure
loans were negotiated in an unethical manner. the financial system. 䊏
TABLE 6.1 Ethical evaluation of subprime lending, foreclosure, and renegotiation

Pass Utilitarian Pass Generalization Pass Virtue Ethics
Action Test? Test? Test?* Pass all the Tests?
Subprime Yes, if the Yes, in Scenarios Yes, in Scenarios Yes, in Scenarios

lending expected net 4–5** 4–5, if expected net 4–5, if expected
benefit for the No, in Scenarios benefit for the net benefit for the
borrower is 1–3 and 1a borrower is borrower is positive
positive, and in positive. No, in Scenarios
particular the No, in Scenarios 1–3 and 1a, or if
loans are properly 1–3 and 1a, or if expected net
designed (e.g., expected net benefit for the
no 2/28 loans) benefit for the borrower is
borrower is negative
negative
Foreclosure Yes, if Yes, in Scenarios Yes Yes, in Scenarios
renegotiating fails 1–5, unless 1–5, unless
generalization test renegotiation renegotiation
No, otherwise benefits the lender benefits the
No, in Scenario lender
1a, or if No, in Scenario
renegotiation benefits 1a, or if
the lender renegotiation
benefits the
lender
Renegotiation Yes Yes, in Scenario Yes Yes, in Scenario 1a,
1a, or if renegotiation or if renegotiation
benefits the lender benefits the
No, in Scenarios lender
1–5, or unless No, in Scenarios
renegotiation benefits 1–5, or unless
the lender renegotiation
benefits the lender
*It is assumed that the loan originator no longer owns the mortgage. Otherwise, the lender has obligations as discussed in the text.
**Arguably, Scenario 4 rarely occurred during the heyday of subprime lending.
CASE 6.6
Super Size Me
SYNOPSIS15 food for a month, while three physicians monitor the effect on his
The documentary film Super Size Me examines whether body. He eats jumbo portions when asked if he wants to “Super
McDonald’s restaurants cause obesity and other unhealthy condi- Size it.” He also restricts his exercise during this period to some-
tions. The director Morgan Spurlock eats nothing but McDonald’s thing close to the U.S. average.
Spurlock reports that, during the month, he added 24 pounds question of fact and cannot be resolved by ethical analysis. Yet it
to his starting weight of 185 pounds. Blood tests revealed substan- seems reasonable, and in any case, we should explore the ethical
tially higher cholesterol levels and adverse effects on his liver. consequences if it is true.
Spurlock also reported lethargy, depression, and heart palpitations This is a rather weak assumption. We are not supposing
during the period, perhaps in part because he was worried about that McDonald’s is the cause of or even a major contributor to
possible long-term damage to his health. obesity, as suggested by the film. We propose only that
The film also examines the rise in U.S. obesity levels; the McDonald’s could make a more positive contribution to society
nutritional content of processed food; McDonald’s marketing strat- than it is making now by making at least marginal changes to its
egy toward children; the role of schools in providing sugary soft menu or marketing approach.
drinks, French fries, and other junk food; views of the U.S. Surgeon On the other hand, we are not simply assuming that
General; and the response of the fast-food lobby. Spurlock was McDonald’s food is unhealthy. It is conceivable that McDonald’s
unable to obtain an interview with McDonald’s representatives. could increase net utility by selling unhealthy food, perhaps
McDonald’s removed the Super Size option from its menu shortly because its customers would not overindulge, and the pleasure of
before the film was released, although the company denied that it eating a few Big Macs would outweigh the negative health
did so in response to the film. effects. Rather, we are supposing that greater net overall utility
After his McDonald’s binge, Spurlock went on a “detox” would result if McDonald’s sold and promoted healthier food.
diet designed by his vegan girlfriend. He lost 20 of the extra Given this assumption, McDonald’s fails the utilitarian
pounds in five months and the remaining four pounds in nine addi- test—unless selling healthier food or changing its marketing tech-
tional months. niques would violate some other condition for rational choice,
such as the generalization test. We will examine this possibility in
a moment, but let’s suppose for the moment that it doesn’t and see
THE ETHICAL ISSUES
where this gets us.
The main ethical issue raised in the film is whether McDonald’s is It brings us to the inevitable conclusion that McDonald’s
doing something wrong by selling and promoting its menu of fast conduct is unethical. It is true that customers freely choose to eat
food. Other issues include whether schools should serve junk food; hamburgers and French fries, but this is irrelevant to the utilitarian
whether the government should regulate fast food, require clearer test. If McDonald’s menu and marketing techniques result in free
labeling, or restrict how junk food is marketed to children; and customer choices that cause more net harm than if they chose oth-
whether obese plaintiffs who sue McDonald’s should win compen- erwise, then utility is not maximized. It doesn’t matter whether
sation. We will focus on McDonald’s ethical obligations, because customers make a free choice, whether they are aware or should
this is enough to keep us thinking for a long time. It also raises a be aware of the health risks, whether they are adults or children,
basic issue for marketing: Is it ethical to sell products that customers or whether parents should be responsible for their children. All
sometimes misuse or overuse, resulting in harm? that matters is the total utility that results.
The basic case against McDonald’s is that its food is This may seem to demand too much from McDonald’s.
unhealthy, and it is unethical so sell products that harm the cus- Profit-making firms can’t afford to behave like welfare agen-
tomer. Defenders of McDonald’s respond that (a) no one is forced cies. If they are required to maximize social good, they will go
to eat hamburgers and French fries, (b) consenting adults should broke. Perhaps, but the utilitarian calculation takes account of
have the right to eat what they want, and besides, (c) McDonald’s this. If offering healthier food would drive McDonald’s out of
offers salads. Critics respond that McDonald’s entices children business, and if this would result in less net overall utility, then
into its restaurants with play areas and kids meals in order to its unhealthy food passes the utilitarian test. If going out of
hook them on unhealthy food. Defenders reply that parents are business would result in more net utility, then McDonald’s
responsible for their children and should take them somewhere should go out of business. No company that does more harm
else if they don’t like McDonald’s practices. The debate never than good should exist.
gets far above this level, and nothing is resolved. Let’s see if we We are not assuming, however, that McDonald’s does
can make some progress on the issue by applying the conditions more harm than good. We are only assuming that it could create
of rational choice. more utility by modifying its menu or marketing strategy, taking
into account any effect this may have on its profitability.
UTILITARIAN TEST
GENERALIZATION TEST
Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that McDonald’s menu and
marketing techniques cause greater harm than would result if Many defenders of McDonald’s worry that if all businesses self-
McDonald’s changed its ways. Whether this is really true is a regulated in the way that critics ask McDonald’s to self-regulate,
we would lose our freedom. We would live in a dreary Soviet-like utility because many of these kids get more exercise than they
society where all choices are made for us. otherwise would.
This has the flavor of a generalization test, which states However, let’s suppose that some kids are not so lucky.
that the reason for an action should be consistent with the They don’t exercise, and their parents let them eat all the burgers
assumption that everyone with the same reason acts the same and fries they want. So they continue to get fat. We want to know
way. It is not really a generalization test, however, because the if it is wrong for McDonald’s to manipulate these kids, even
test doesn’t ask whether generalization would result in a better though it is maximizing net utility (due to all the other kids who get
world. It only asks whether the results of generalization would be more exercise). It is perhaps unlikely that McDonald’s could really
consistent with the reasons for the action. maximize utility in this way, but let’s suppose it could.
It is true that the reason for changing the McDonald’s menu The typical response to this kind of dilemma is that it is OK
is to make the world better, and we can apply the generalization to entice consenting adults with harmful foods, but not children.
test to this reason. As it happens, the reason passes the test. But nothing in our ethical toolbox supports this idea. Tempting peo-
Selling healthier food would continue to make the world better if all ple is wrong if it results in less utility, whether they are consenting
businesses sold a product line that maximizes utility. Perhaps it adults or not. As for the kids, we set up the scenario so that
wouldn’t make the world better if other businesses sold only McDonald’s is already maximizing utility, which means there can be
healthy products. In such a boring world, removing the few remain- no utilitarian objection to tempting them with unhealthy food. We
ing unhealthy products (McDonald’s hamburgers and French fries) have to find some other ground for objection. We might argue that
could create enough additional misery to offset improved health. manipulating kids in this way is roughly analogous to slipping a
But there is no reason to believe that every business must restrict drug into Mom’s coffee that makes her crave Big Macs, because
itself to healthy products to maximize utility. A Mom and Pop candy kids are naïve and don’t see what is going on. It is a violation of
store arguably maximizes utility by selling sinfully luscious fudge autonomy, which is normally ungeneralizable. But if violation of
brownies rather than celery sticks. This results only in an occa- autonomy is the problem, we have to say that manipulating kids for
sional indulgence for customers, and the pleasure probably any reason is wrong. For example, a manipulative marketing cam-
outweighs the small fat and cholesterol deposits that result. paign that induces kids to eat their broccoli would be wrong—or, to
McDonald’s is different, because its prominence in the market push the issue harder, a campaign that inspires them to do their
leads too many people to indulge too often, or so we are assuming. homework. So the typical response again misses the point. It is not
Its menu is a victim of its own success. harmfulness of the food that makes it wrong to entice the kids, but
So a world in which all businesses maximize utility need the manipulative nature of the enticement.
not be a dreary Soviet-like society at all. There could be plenty of Even this is hard to defend. We say it is all right for parents to
temptations to make bad choices. It is just that people would yield manipulate their children, because children aren’t ready for autonomy
to temptation less often than in a society in which businesses are and need guidance, but it is not all right for a corporation to do it.
like McDonald’s. Why? If it is merely because parental guidance is better for the kids
or society than corporate guidance, then the argument is utilitarian,
and there is nothing wrong with corporate manipulation of kids if the
MARKETING TO CHILDREN net outcome is positive. One can argue that manipulating kids is
The issue of marketing to children has had little relevance to the unethical for other reasons, and we will examine that case in a
analysis so far. If McDonald’s menu and marketing techniques fail moment, but we can already say one thing for sure. The common
the utilitarian test, as I have argued, then its behavior is unethical notion that tempting adults with harmful products is OK, but tempting
whether or not children are involved. kids is not, is indefensible and useless as a guideline.
However, the ethics of marketing to children may
become relevant when McDonald’s reforms its behavior. Let’s
UNDERMINING PARENTS
suppose that the company puts appealing, healthy food on the
menu and conspicuously warns customers about the nutritional One problem with manipulating children through marketing cam-
content of its burgers and fries. As a result, customers only paigns is that it undermines parental influence. Kids in the United
occasionally order junk food, just enough to maximize pleasure States spend more than 20 hours a week in front of computer and
without compromising their health. The play areas provide a TV screens and are exposed to countless promotional messages,
place where kids can get healthy exercise while under the not only in ads but in the programming itself. Some marketing
supervision of parents (as already claimed by McDonald’s cor- firms interview kids to find out what kind of nagging techniques
porate PR). The company continues to target kids with advertis- are most effective with their parents, and then demonstrate these
ing that induces them to nag their parents to take them to techniques in ads. In theory, parents can take away the screens
McDonald’s, but we will suppose that even this adds to net and ignore the nagging. But forbidding screens is a draconian
measure in our day and age. The creation of frivolous desires CONCLUSION
substitutes corporate persuasion for parental guidance and
If one assumes that McDonald’s could create more net utility by
reduces the ability of parents to transmit their values to their kids.
changing its menu or its marketing techniques, taking into account
The problem with this is that our society assigns parents
any financial effect on the corporation, then its behavior is unethi-
and guardians primary responsibility for raising their children. No
cal. It makes no difference whether the company is marketing to
other person or institution is willing or able to take on this burden,
consenting adults or to children, whether it currently offers salads,
aside from orphanages and juvenile detention centers in special
or whether parents are exercising their responsibility. It doesn’t
cases (and it’s not clear that they are able). But parents cannot be
matter whether McDonald’s is a major cause of obesity. All that
held responsible for raising their kids if outside forces constantly
matters is that McDonald’s could have at least a marginally more
frustrate their efforts. If corporate advertisers were willing to
positive impact by changing its approach.
assume parental responsibility, then their interference could be
The truth or falsehood of this assumption is a question
tolerated, but they are not willing.
of fact that must be resolved by empirical investigation, not by
Manipulative children’s marketing therefore appears to fail
ethical reasoning. Yet the assumption seems reasonable, and
the generalization test, if it is intrusive enough. It assumes that
in any case, McDonald’s cannot know that its current behavior
children have a caregiver they can nag but refuses to take on a
is ethical unless it determines that there is no clear evidence
caregiver’s responsibilities. If its policy of interfering with parental
for the truth of the assumption.
guidance were generalized, there would be no effective caregiver
McDonald’s obligations in this area are likely to be differ-
unless the marketers themselves were willing to take on this role,
ent from those of many other food vendors, due to its dominant
which they are not. In a nutshell, manipulative marketing that is
position in the industry. Even if the McDonald’s menu is unethical,
sufficiently aggressive would, if generalized, undermine the family
this does not imply that unhealthy menus in other establishments
structure on which it relies for its effectiveness.
are necessarily unethical. Nor is self-regulation by McDonald’s in
This does not mean that it is always unethical for institutions
this area inconsistent with freedom of choice.
outside the family to interfere with parental guidance. For example,
The common notion that it is permissible to tempt consent-
a government that requires childhood education can pass the gener-
ing adults with harmful products, but not children, is indefensible
alization test if it is willing to take commensurate responsibility for
and useless as an ethical guideline.
raising children, in this case by providing high-quality education. But
Marketing techniques that manipulate children in a suffi-
aggressive corporate marketing firms are unwilling and ill-equipped
ciently intrusive way are unethical, regardless of whether they
to take on child care responsibilities that are commensurate with
maximize utility. 䊏
the degree to which they intrude in family life.
CASE 6.7
Conoco’s “Green” Oil Strategy

SYNOPSIS16 buried. Access roads allowed landless peasants to settle and clear
large areas of the forest, initially with government encourage-
In the late 1980s, Conoco, a division of DuPont, began to investigate
ment. This in turn threatened the extraordinary biodiversity of the
the possibility of drilling for oil in the Ecuadorian rain forest. Conoco
region. Although Block 16 lay almost entirely within Yasuni
held 35% of a consortium formed for this purpose that included
National Park, it was difficult to keep settlers out. In particular, the
several smaller oil companies. Although Ecuador produces relatively
increased access and activity in the region threatened the unique
little oil by world standards, its output is crucial for the country’s
culture of the Huaorani people, one of the world’s few traditional
economy. The national oil company Petroecuador would receive
societies that had been little affected by outside contact. The
80% of the profits earned by the consortium, after the investment
Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund accused oil companies of “ethno-
cost was recovered. Conoco focused on “Block 16,” where test drills
cide” for their disruption of the culture.
showed significant oil reserves.
To deal with these issues, Conoco drew up a plan that
However, previous drilling in this region had created envi-
would minimize environmental damage, at a cost of increasing the
ronmental and cultural problems. Seventeen million gallons of oil
investment by 5–10%. It was justified to stockholders on the
had been spilled, four million gallons of hazardous waste dumped
grounds that if Conoco were required to add environmental controls
into rivers every day, and unknown amounts of toxic drilling mud
later, the cost could be much greater. The plan called for the collec- greater pollution than would occur anyway, and it avoids the adjust-
tion and treatment of oil runoff and hazardous wastes, and the ment costs incurred by employees who are laid off.
reuse and safe deposit of drilling mud. Encroachment on the area One often hears the comment, “if I don’t do it, somebody else
would be restricted by posting guards and accessing it via ferries will.” We discussed this response in Case 4.5 and concluded that, if
rather than bridges built across the Rio Napo. Employees would be true, it shows at most that the action in question is consistent with the
forbidden from trading with the Huaorani or fishing on their land, utilitarian principle. It doesn’t show that the actions satisfies the other
and so forth. In 1990, Conoco convened a meeting at which it conditions for rational choice, and therefore doesn’t show it is ethical.
presented its plan to environmental and other interested groups.17 In the present case, it seems reasonable that if Conoco
doesn’t do it, some other company will. We therefore conclude
that pollution to the extent necessary to stay in business passes
THE ISSUES
the utilitarian test. Apparently, in Conoco’s case, not much pollu-
The issues in this case are fundamental. What are a private corpo- tion is necessary to stay in business, because the company is seri-
ration’s obligations to protect the environment, over and above ously proposing an aggressive cleanup effort. If Conoco can
what is required by law? What are its obligations to protect survive with a clean operation, and if a clean operation generates
indigenous cultures? more utility on balance than a dirty one, then the utilitarian test
The government’s duty to protect the environment is not says that Conoco must have a clean operation.
the issue before us. People often say that environmental protec-
tion is the government’s responsibility and therefore not the
GENERALIZATION TEST
responsibility of private business. The problem here is with the
“therefore.” Environmental protection may well be the govern- Let’s suppose for the sake of argument, however, that a significant
ment’s responsibility, but this does not imply that business has no amount of pollution is necessary to keep Conoco in business
responsibility, particularly when the government does not act. The in Ecuador. Does this level of pollution pass the other tests for
obligations of business must be addressed directly. We will do so rational choice, such as the generalization test?
by applying the conditions of rational choice. An analogy may be useful at this point. Analogical reason-
ing cannot settle ethical issues, but it can help direct one’s atten-
tion to the relevant arguments. Suppose I decide to dump my
UTILITARIAN TEST
garbage on the property next door. We can suppose the dumping
The utilitarian test is straightforward, at least in principle. If passes the utilitarian test, because the garbage causes equal
polluting the environment does more harm to more people than harm whether it is on my property or next door. Yet something
not polluting, then it is wrong. Pollution controls may not maximize seems wrong about burdening someone else with my garbage.
utility for the company and its stockholders, but this is a different At the most elementary level, it is a violation of property
matter. Typically, the cost of pollution to all concerned is not fully rights. But exactly what property rights do people have? For exam-
reflected in costs to the corporation. Unfortunately, it is difficult to ple, is the use of eminent domain to obtain land for highways a
determine whether the overall benefits of a given level of pollu- violation of property rights? To answer these questions, we end up
tion—cheap energy for consumers, revenue for Ecuador, profit for going back to the basic conditions of rational choice, and so we
stockholders, and so forth—exceed the overall costs. This is may as well start there.
a question of fact, not ethics. It requires environmental and Spoiling someone else’s property, solely for my own conven-
economic analysis, which we cannot conduct here. Ethical analy- ience, is normally unethical because it is ungeneralizable—even
sis tells us what to do once the facts are in. when it results in no net less loss of utility. The reason is that the
Conoco executives may protest that they have a fiduciary whole point of my action is to spoil someone else’s property rather
duty to maximize profit for the owners, within the law. Legally than my property. So I cannot accomplish my aim unless the institu-
dumping waste into the river may be the way to maximize profit. tion of property exists. However, if people always defaced another’s
The issue here, however, is what the corporation should do; that is, property whenever it is convenient, there would be no institution of
what its owners should do. If it is ethical for the owners to pollute, property. The purpose of owning property is to have some control
then presumably it is ethical for their executives to do it for them. over it and to prevent people from doing whatever they want to
Conoco owners may protest that even if pollution does more it. There would be no point in buying or owning property if no one
harm than good, they must compete with firms that have no scruples respected it.
about pollution. If Conoco pays for pollution controls, the competi- If Conoco dumps oil or hazardous wastes on someone
tion will force them out of Ecuador. Then some other firm will pollute else’s property, then this is clearly ungeneralizable and unethical.
anyway. So, on balance, Conoco can maximize utility by polluting as Block 16 is presumably some else’s property because it is part of a
much as necessary to keep the firm in business. This results in no national park and therefore belongs to the government of Ecuador.
Conoco might argue that it has permission to pollute Block 16, utilitarianism does not require this in any obvious way. Perhaps
because the government has imposed no regulations. Defacing we can argue that it is inconsistent to value one’s own culture but
another’s property with permission seems clearly generalizable. not another, but it would take some time and reflection to develop
It is not so obvious that Conoco actually has permission to such an argument.
pollute Block 16, but let’s grant that it does. The larger issue Even if we could establish that Conoco should value Huaorani
concerns pollution damage to the region as a whole. Dumping culture for its own sake, there is no utilitarian imperative for Conoco
wastes on neighboring property is unethical, and Conoco is acting to try to protect the culture if doing so would allow an uncaring
unethically if it is doing this. Yet what can we say about more competitor to replace Conoco. Naturally, if extinction of Huaorani
general pollution of the environment, such as rivers, groundwater, culture reduces the well-being of these people in more conventional
the air, and so forth? Is this an infringement of property rights? ways (wealth, happiness, etc.) without a compensating rise in utility
Again, the test is whether the institution of property would elsewhere, then the utilitarian test requires Conoco to protect the
survive in a form that makes it possible for Conoco to achieve its culture—not for its own sake, but for the sake of the people in it.
purposes if companies regularly fouled the earth whenever it Perhaps the generalization test, however, can require
suited their purpose. Perhaps it would. Pollution was rampant in Conoco to protect an indigenous culture. Is ethnocide ethically
the early days of the Industrial Revolution, to the point of trans- equivalent to homicide? As viewed in the classical Western tradi-
forming some areas into hellholes that were scarcely inhabitable. tion, it is not. Homicide is ungeneralizable and wrong because it
Yet property was still being bought and sold. It is therefore hard to destroys agency. Ethnocide does not destroy individuals, on the
make an ethical case against general environmental pollution on traditional Western view, and therefore does not destroy agency.
the basis of property rights. However, this traditional view may be mistaken in suppos-
Even if generalizing pollution does not undermine the institu- ing that agency is always exercised by individuals. Many cultures
tion of property, perhaps it undermines Conoco’s purposes in a are communal, meaning that humans do not exist apart from their
broader sense. There is a reason that the sort of pollution oil compa- membership in a group, such as the family or community. In these
nies practice in Ecuador is illegal in Europe and North America. It is cultures, one might argue that a community is an agent in the
because this level of pollution may be incompatible with the first- same sense that an individual is an agent in the Western world-
world infrastructure that makes a company like Conoco possible. The view. Ethnocide therefore becomes murder.
purpose behind Conoco’s pollution is higher profits, but if everyone in A related line of argument is that one’s culture defines to a
the world polluted this much, business would be less profitable, due great extent who one is. One who converts to a radically different
to the degraded environment and the depressed economy that would culture literally becomes someone else. A biography18 of an aborigi-
result. This was perhaps untrue in the nineteenth century, when the nal Australian named Waipuldanya recounts how he spent part of his
total potential for pollution was much smaller. But it may be true life in an isolated indigenous community but was later converted to
today. If so, generalizing Conoco’s behavior defeats the purpose of Western culture by missionaries. In interviews with the biographer,
the behavior, and the generalization test is failed. Waipuldanya spoke of his former life as that of a different person. If
Western companies sometimes adopt practices in third- this view is correct, replacing someone’s culture with a radically
world countries that are illegal at home. This has been criticized on different one is a form of murder.
the ground that it is hypocritical or inconsistent. Yet such comments These viewpoints represent new frontiers for Western
prove little. The proper test is whether a company’s purposes would ethics that are likely to be explored in coming years.
be undermined if companies always behaved in the same way. In the
case of Ecuador, past practices of oil companies may fail the test.
VIRTUE ETHICS
I recently had some conversations with two managers in a major
ETHNOCIDE?
electric power company. It soon became clear that they and their
A century ago, the dominant view in the United States was that colleagues view their work not just as a job but as an opportunity
indigenous peoples should be absorbed into Western culture. The to make a contribution. They didn’t see themselves as corporate
Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania was the first U.S. school villains who pollute the world. They see them themselves as
established to do just this. It required native children to wear making life better by providing energy that everyone wants,
European clothes, speak English, and forget about their traditional including their critics, while minimizing pollution.
culture. It was for their own good. Today, there are strong indigenous Their company may not minimize pollution, but I wish to
people’s movements worldwide, which maintain that traditional cul- make a different point. These managers define who they are in
tures are intrinsically valuable and should be protected. Who is right? part by their mission at work. To be consistent, they must not only
A utilitarian analysis can easily accommodate the idea maximize utility by producing clean power, but they must shape
that distinctive cultures are intrinsically valuable. But the logic of their lives around this imperative. These are not the same. If they
stepped aside and let someone else do their jobs, utility could still in Ecuador. The case description suggests that both (a) and (b) are
be maximized. Utilitarian consistency does not require them to much less than the typical pollution level of oil companies operat-
produce clean power as long as someone else does it equally well. ing in the country.
But their definition of who they are requires them to occupy their There is no clear utilitarian argument that Conoco must
own working lives with this mission. protect indigenous cultures for their own sake. Conoco must of
Similarly, the people at Conoco might view themselves as course consider the welfare of the individuals in the cultures, and
having a mission of making life better with energy. Excessive it must protect these cultures if their extinction would result in a
pollution makes life worse and is therefore inconsistent with this net decrease in overall wealth or happiness.
mission. If excessive pollution is necessary to do business compet- If Conoco passes the utilitarian test, it nonetheless fails the
itively in Ecuador, then from a utilitarian point of view they might generalization test if it dumps pollution on property belonging to
as well stay in business, because the next company will be just as others, without their permission. It also fails the test if its pollution
dirty. But from the viewpoint of virtue ethics, this is inconsistent of rivers, ground water, and so forth is great enough that if all
with who they are. They should get out of Ecuador, even though companies polluted to this degree, the world economy would be
their departure has no effect on the situation there. The criterion is degraded to the point that Conoco could no longer benefit finan-
not whether they “feel bad” about polluting, because we some- cially from the lack of pollution controls. Thus Conoco probably fails
times feel bad about doing the right thing. The criterion is a logical the test if its pollution is significantly greater than that allowed by
one, whether their actions are consistent with who they are. law in first-world nations.
This is an instance, by the way, in which the duties of There are reasonable arguments that the generalization
owners and manager must be analyzed separately. The owners may test imposes obligations to protect indigenous cultures for their
be holders of mutual funds who don’t even know what their money own sake. However, this issue lies on the frontier of ethical theory
is doing. Perhaps they should know, but the point here is that the and requires more exploration.
virtue ethics argument may not apply to them in the way it applies Finally, virtue ethics suggests that career oil executives
to managers who have built a career around producing energy. may have an obligation to get out of Ecuador if economic survival
there requires significant pollution, even if their departure has no
net effect on the pollution level. This specific obligation may not
CONCLUSION
apply to the owners or stockholders of the firm.
It has been a long argument, and the conclusion is a little compli- In summary, Conoco should reduce its pollution to a level
cated. Welcome to the real world. substantially less than that of oil companies previously operating
Conoco’s environmental policy passes the utilitarian test if in Ecuador, if this allows it to stay in business there. If staying in
its pollution level is, at most, the greater of (a) the minimum business requires a pollution level significantly greater than that
amount of pollution that allows Conoco to operate cheaply enough allowed by law in Europe and North America, it should get out of
to stay in business in Ecuador and (b) the amount of pollution that Ecuador in any case. Its executives may have an obligation to get
results in the greatest net benefit created by Conoco’s operations out even if a lower level of pollution is possible. 䊏
Exercises
1. Too much pressure.19 Hank Kolb was put in charge of quality assurance at a plant where practices were
not up to par. The most immediate issue facing him was what to do about some pressurized cans of
lubricant that had just been shipped out. The cans had been overpressurized by faulty equipment.
When this was discovered, one of the production supervisors vented the excess by hand without taking
measurements to make sure the pressure was within tolerances. One option was to recall the cans and
check them systematically, but this would be an expensive and time-consuming process, and it would
antagonize customers. Should Kolb recall the cans?
Hints. See Case 6.2 for guidance on how to analyze this case. The utilitarian test can perhaps be
applied by the use of statistical sampling to estimate the cost of possible injuries. Kolb could recall a
random sample of the cans for this purpose. However, you must ask whether statistical sampling alone
can enable Kolb to promise safety, as required by the generalization principle, or whether a complete
recall is necessary. Statistical sampling presupposes that uncontrolled defects are random.
2. Fraud at Interspeed Corporation.20 Interspeed Corporation had just gone public, and Senior Vice-President
for Sales Arthur Goodwin was keen to meet annual revenue targets. The fourth quarter target, for
example, was $3 million, but the books showed only $1.9 in revenue. Goodwin decided he had to do
something. He persuaded Solunet Inc. to take delivery of $1.2 million in inventory and hold it until
another Interspeed customer bought it shortly after the new year began. Solunet was allowed to return
the goods to InterSpeed if it couldn’t sell them to the third party. Goodwin counted the $1.2 million as
revenue and so pushed fourth-quarter revenue to $3.1 million, slightly above the target. Goodwin’s
conduct was a clear violation of GAAP. Solunet didn’t actually buy the goods, because it didn’t commit
itself to paying for them. So there was no revenue to report.
As it turned out, the customer Goodwin counted on wouldn’t buy the inventory. So Goodwin
arranged for another company, I-Way, to buy or lease the equipment. When I-Way could not come
up with the money, Goodwin transferred funds to I-Way, which leased the goods from a leasing
agent. The leasing agent bought the goods from Solunet, which used the money to pay Interspeed,
completing the circle.
Goodwin kept digging himself into a hole. In another incident, he forged a signature on an altered
contract to create the impression that Interspeed had made a $6.4 million sale. Before it was all over, he
had overstated the company’s revenues by 60%, or $9 million. In a June 2006 Federal jury trial, Goodwin
was convicted of securities fraud for his activities at Interspeed. He was sentenced to 30 months in jail,
followed by a three-year supervised release. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also
brought a civil action against Goodwin for the same offenses. In May 2007, he settled with the SEC by
agreeing never to serve as an officer or director of a public corporation and by turning over $100,521 in
earnings that resulted from his fraud. The payment was waived on grounds of financial hardship.
It doesn’t take rocket science to show that Goodwin’s conduct was unethical. In fact, the business
scandals we hear so much about may give the false impression that it is normally easy to recognize the
right decision. We hear about these scandals precisely because they make a sensational story of egregious
wrongdoing. Many real-life decisions are murky and difficult to sort out even when one has the best of
intentions. In the Interspeed case, for example, there are several hypothetical scenarios in which the right
decisions would not be so clear:
a. Interspeed would be forced into bankruptcy if it didn’t show additional revenue in the current
period, but it has very good prospects for the future.
b. In addition to the previous scenario, Interspeed makes products that save lives.
c. There is a signed contract in which the third party agrees to buy the goods at the beginning of
the new year.
d. Interspeed offers Solunet a percentage of the final sales for buying the product before the end of
the year and passing it on to the other customer at the beginning of the new year.
Your task is to analyze the case under each of these scenarios.
Hints. For Scenario (a), look at the conditions under which income smoothing can be ethical in
the analysis of Case 6.1. Scenario (b) asks in effect whether the end justifies the means, an issue dis-
cussed in Chapter 2. You must test the generalizability of fudging numbers when saving lives is part of
the rationale (i.e., part of the scope). Note that saving lives is part of the scope only if Interspeed would
avoid fudging numbers if its existence as a company were at stake, but lives were not. You may assume
that the scheme in Scenario (d) is consistent with GAAP.
3. Celebrity endorsement.21 L&L Advertising just signed a contract with movie star Lance Willard for
celebrity endorsements of Bud’s Best bacon. The president of the firm assigns the account to Annie, who
soon learns the awkward fact that Lance has just become a vegetarian. The president assures her that all
legal requirements for the endorsement are satisfied, but Annie is uneasy and consults the American
Advertising Federation’s Advertising Ethics and Principles. It states that “advertising containing testimo-
nials shall be limited to those of competent witnesses who are reflecting a real and honest opinion or
experience.” When Annie interviews Lance, he assures her that Bud’s Best has been his favorite brand of
bacon since he was a kid. However, he learned during a recent medical checkup that his cholesterol is
dangerously high, and his doctor advised him to avoid such high-cholesterol foods as bacon and eggs.
He decided to avoid all meat, for good measure. Annie diplomatically asks Lance if he is comfortable
endorsing bacon. Lance responds that his conscience is clean, because he will describe only the taste and
quality of the product, which he genuinely believes are tops, and say nothing about whether bacon is
healthy. If consumers are going to eat bacon, they may as well eat the best. Besides, many persons can eat
a reasonable amount of bacon without adverse health effects. It is up to consumers to decide what kind
of diet is right for them. Is it ethical for L&L to use Lance’s endorsement? Is it ethical for Lance to give it?
4. Deterring car theft with Lojack.22 Lojack is a hidden radio transmitter device used for retrieving stolen
vehicles. Because a potential thief cannot tell whether Lojack has been installed, it is not a deterrent to
stealing a particular car. However, statistical analysis shows that the presence of Lojack in many cars
deters theft generally. Automobile insurance companies can provide an incentive for car owners to
install Lojack by giving a price break to those who do. This benefits the community as well as the
insurance companies.
However, an individual insurance company does not have a clear incentive to provide a rate differ-
ential. Unless it dominates the market, the reduced premium will reduce its own revenues while having
only a small effect on theft—probably not enough to compensate for the revenue loss. Customers with
Lojack are more likely to get their car back, and this may result in smaller claims to the company. But
this doesn’t justify a rate differential large enough to reduce the rate of car theft. Thus in the absence of
a dominant player, none of the insurance companies have an incentive to take an action that would be
mutually beneficial if they all took it. Do insurance companies have an obligation to provide a rate
differential when such a pricing scheme, generally adopted, would make everyone better off?
Hints. Don’t just say, “This is the government’s responsibility.” Such a claim requires argument,
and even if it is true, private insurers may be obligated to take on the responsibility if the government
doesn’t act. Also, recall that the utilitarian test doesn’t ask how much utility is created if all companies
provide a rate differential, but how much is created if one company (the decision maker) does so.
5. The MasterDept lockbox problem.23 MasterDebt, a credit card company, receives thousands of payment
checks from cardholders every month. The company wants to exploit float so as to earn as much as
possible in interest and fees. Float is the time lapse between the deposit of a payment check and credit-
ing the amount to MasterDept. Cardholders pay interest on any outstanding balance, and MasterDebt
wants to maximize float to collect more interest from them, and perhaps late fees as well.
The plan is to maximize float by establishing lockboxes in several cities. Cardholders in each region
will be instructed to send their checks to a certain lockbox, perhaps a distant one to maximize float. The
company is considering six cities as possible lockbox locations, each of which carries a certain annual
fixed cost. The company asked its technical staff to select lockbox locations and assignments that maxi-
mize the difference between interest earned from float and the cost of the lockboxes. The solution is far
from obvious, but the lockbox problem can be formulated as an uncapacitated facility location problem,
a well-known mathematical model used in operations research. Solution of the problem reveals that the
location of the lockboxes makes a substantial difference in net benefit to the company.
Lockbox location problems have been solved for many years but raise ethical issues. The interest gained
by MasterDebt is interest lost by its customers. One can ask whether MasterDebt has the right to collect this
interest at the customer’s expense. But this is only an assertion, not an argument. Even if we accept it, we must
decide how much delay is artificial. Two days? Three days? There are also legal issues involved, partly due to
new credit card regulations recently enacted in the United States.24 We take it for granted that credit card
companies should abide by regulations. Let’s focus here on what would be their ethical obligations without
specific laws governing the float period.Your task: arrive at an ethical lockbox location and assignment policy.
Hint. Delay in processing checks incurs social costs because it introduces uncertainty, makes it more
difficult for people to manage cash flow, and may result in less-than-optimal use of their funds. The
interest earned by the credit card company due to delay may be a rough indication of these social costs,
which can be balanced against the cost of locating lockboxes close to customers. Utility might be
roughly maximized by modifying the facility location model so that it minimizes the sum of the interest
cost to consumers and the cost of the lockboxes. You should also apply the generalization principle and
virtue ethics (think about why we have financial services professionals).
6. Insider trading.25 On November 17, 2008, the SEC filed charges against Mark Cuban for insider trading.
The SEC complaint said that Momma.com, an Internet search engine firm, gave Cuban advance notice
of a stock offering at below-market price, on the condition that he would keep this information confi-
dential. Cuban already held a good deal of stock in the company and predicted that the new offering
would bring down the market price. As a result, he sold all of his stock. The market price in fact fell the
day after the offering was announced to the public. Cuban’s early sale allowed him to avoid losses of
$750,000. An SEC official stated, “Mamma.com entrusted Mr. Cuban with nonpublic information after
he promised to keep the information confidential. Less than four hours later, Mr. Cuban betrayed that
trust by placing an order to sell all his shares. It is fundamentally unfair for someone to use access to
nonpublic information to improperly gain an edge on the market.”
Mark Cuban (allegedly) broke the insider trading law, which is unethical because breaking the law
is normally ungeneralizable. But is there anything inherently wrong with insider trading? Would it be
ethical if it were legal?
Hints. Several arguments, summarized below, have been advanced against insider trading. Do valid
applications of the conditions for rational choice underlie any of these arguments?
• It reduces utility. If the trade affects the stock price, a major stockholder can dump his holdings just
before bad news is released to the public. This could depress the stock price even more and harm the
company. Yet some economists argue that insider trades make everyone better off in the long run
because the market has more and earlier information about the company, which leads to more
rational investment. If an insider trade has no effect on the stock price, then the trade benefits the
trader and presumably hurts no one. (Remember that the utilitarian test is not whether a general
practice of insider trading maximizes utility, but whether a particular investor’s trade does so.)
• It results in an “unlevel playing field” or, to quote the SEC official, is “fundamentally unfair.” Should
we treat investment as a competition or sports event that has to be “fair” in some sense? Some argue
that if inside trading were standard practice, fewer ordinary investors would buy stocks, because
insiders would reap a greater share of the rewards of investing, and less capital would be raised.
(Note that the generalization test doesn’t ask whether the market would be less efficient, but whether
one can rationally believe that inside traders would still be able to achieve their purpose of making
more money.)
• It is misappropriation of company information, which is shareholder property, and is therefore essen-
tially theft. Can information about company plans be viewed as property?
• It violates fiduciary duty when the insider is a company officer, because insider trading can harm the
company more than it benefits the trader. This doesn’t apply to Mark Cuban, but is it a valid argu-
ment for company officers?
• It redistributes wealth unjustly because it benefits wealthy inside traders at the expense of small
investors.
7. Consulting for Carnegie Foods.26 The Pet Food Division of Carnegie Foods operates the world’s second
largest pet food cannery at Allentown, Pennsylvania. It ships to five regional distribution centers,
which serve such customers as Wal-Mart (40% of its business), BJs, Target, Costco, and others. Despite
inventory levels that are substantially higher than the industry average, the company has experienced
difficulty maintaining the service levels its customers want. Wal-Mart, in particular, demands a high
service level, and it usually gets what it wants due to its market dominance.
Adroit Consulting has been engaged to advise the Pet Food Division on how to manage its
supply chain to reduce inventory and improve service. One option that is being pushed internally is
to install a two-tier system in which a holding warehouse is placed between the cannery and the
distribution centers. Adroit must evaluate this proposal as part of its recommendations. In the
meantime, Carnegie Foods has authorized its chief information officer (CIO) to acquire Advanced
Planning and Scheduling (APS) software to manage its supply chain. Due to limited resources, the
company will not implement APS and Adroit’s recommendations simultaneously, and Adroit must
advise which to do first.
The case raises at least two ethical issues:

• Should Adroit advise Carnegie to use APS, perhaps at the cost of losing a customer? Supply chain
systems like APS are well developed; it is very possible that once Carnegie implements APS, it will
have no further need for Adroit’s supply chain recommendations.
• Is it ethical to provide Wal-Mart better service than other clients simply because Wal-Mart has the
clout to demand it—even though Wal-Mart is paying the same price as the others, or even less?
8. Writers’ strike.27 On November 5, 2007, the Writers Guild of America, representing 12,000 writers,
struck the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. A key issue in the strike was the writers’
demand for residuals from distribution of their work in “new media”—Internet downloads, Internet
Protocol TV (IPTV), streaming video, smart phones, and on-demand cable/satellite programming. The
Writers Guild asked for 2.5% of gross income from new media. Writers are normally paid a percentage
of future revenues, but excluding those from new media. Is it ethical for a recording studio to keep
making money on their work without compensating them?
Hints. It is not enough simply to say that fair compensation is whatever the market dictates. Any
such claim should be defended by appeal to the conditions of rational choice. The outcome may depend
on some factual issues. To deal with this, analyze the case under the four scenarios in Table 6.2, where
the propositions (a) and (b) are:
a. There is reason to believe that paying writers the 2.5% would create more overall utility, because they
are currently underpaid and spend much of their time making ends meet by other means.
b. There is reason to believe that the movie/television industry as a whole would not be profitable
enough to attract investors if all executives paid writers the 2.5%.
9. Retrocession.28 A large private bank employs relationship managers (RMs) who work with high net
worth individuals. The RMs help their clients to manage their substantial wealth, avoid taxes, and so
forth. When the clients invest in certain funds, the fund owners remit retrocession payments to the
bank as a reward. Consequently, the bank provides its RMs a financial incentive to recommend funds
that provide retrocession. In theory, this need not create a conflict of interest for the RMs, because it
could incentivize them to recommend a fund with retrocession only when there is a choice among
equally attractive investments. It is widely suspected, however, that some RMs bias their recommenda-
tions to favor investments that yield them a higher commission. Is it ethical for the bank to provide this
kind of incentive?
10. Tax avoidance. The private bank mentioned in the previous exercise has a number of European clients
for whom it provides substantial tax savings. By exploiting loopholes in complex tax laws, the bank
allows some of its wealthy clients to avoid the high tax rates prevalent in their home countries. In
some cases, clients pay only a small fraction of the tax they would otherwise owe. Yet these clients
achieved their success due, in part, to services provided by their home country. They benefited from
an excellent state-funded education and from a stable and productive economy that is highly subsi-
dized and regulated by the state. Is it ethical for the bank to provide this kind of advice?
Hint. First analyze the taxpayer’s obligation, and then address the bank’s dilemma. Keep in mind that
a private bank that fails to provide competitive tax advice is at a severe disadvantage for attracting clients.
Four factual scenarios for analyzing the

TABLE 6.2
writer’s strike dilemma in Exercise 8
(b) is false (b) is true
(a) is true
(a) is false
11. The Empire Globe Corporation.29 Susan Bond is Corporate Economist at Empire Globe Corporation, a
chemicals company. CEO John Treadstone created the position so that he could have someone to help
him with economic analysis of market trends and company proposals. Bond was attracted to the
company by Treadstone’s professed philosophy of creating a partnership with stakeholders. He created a
“Partnership Conduct Team,” consisting of four experienced managers, to develop ethical guidelines
that exceed legal requirements and monitor compliance with them. Ten years ago, Treadstone located a
processing plant in economically depressed Feldport, Oklahoma, against the advice of his staff, because
he believed the company could create an effective partnership with the local players. In fact, they were
so eager to attract jobs that the bank offered financing at discounted rates, the town council granted a
five-year exemption from real estate taxes, the union (reluctantly) negotiated a no-strike clause, and the
power company agreed to a low rate.
The Feldport plant has recently become an issue, however. As the special concessions expired,
profit margins at the plant began to shrink. Treadstone set out to obtain similar concessions for the
next few years. He indicated that if the company could not obtain adequate return on its capital
investment, it would be obliged to relocate. The company managed to obtain most of what it wanted.
The town agreed to a partial tax concession, the union ceded a cap on wages and reinstated the
no-strike clause, and the bank provided further financing at below-market rates. However, Empire
has not yet obtained the 4.25 cents per kwh rate it wants from the power company. To address this,
Treadstone scheduled a negotiation session with the power company, involving himself, Bond, and
Jim Doran, the VP for finance.
It is the day before the session. Bond is already concerned that the company is demanding excessive
concessions from the community, but her discomfort grows when she receives a late-afternoon message
from Treadstone. It states that he and Doran won’t be present for the meeting, due to a commitment in
Washington, DC, and that she is on her own. Furthermore, there’s a change in strategy. She must obtain
a rate of 3.80 cents per kwh.
The next morning, Bond cancels the meeting and contacts Ted Bates in the finance department to
ask for data that might justify demanding a lower rate. Ted lets slip in the conversation that Empire has
just landed a lucrative contract with the Defense Department that calls for a 25% increase in production
at Feldport. She realizes that this was the agenda for the Washington meeting and that the threat to relo-
cate is a bluff. She first tries to reach Doran, head of the negotiating team, but he finds himself too busy
to talk about the issue. She finally calls Treadstone, who acknowledges the Defense contract when Bond
brings it up. Bond asks him about his commitment to partnership, whereupon Treadstone responds that
the low rate is necessary to justify his bid to Defense, and the added production will mean more jobs in
Feldport. Besides, there is nothing wrong with making a profit, and they have obligations to their stock-
holders. Bond asks what happens if she is unable to get the 3.80 cents per kwh rate. Treadstone responds,
“Susan, negotiating means getting agreements. Anything else on your mind?”
Hints. The negotiation principles discussed in Case 6.3 may be useful. A utilitarian analysis can also
be central to this case.
12. Opt in or opt out.30 Countries typically use an opt-in or opt-out approach to organ donation. Opt-in
countries give people an opportunity to sign a donor card to grant permission to us their organs.
Opt-out countries assume that people give permission unless they fill out a form or make a phone call
to revoke consent. Johnson and Goldstein31 report that organ donor consent is much higher in opt-out
countries. If permission to donate is the default, people tend to let it stand. They are much more reluc-
tant to give permission by overriding a default. Table 6.3 shows the rates for European countries. (The
Netherlands’ relatively high opt-in rate is due to an aggressive public campaign.) In the United States, an
opt-in country, 85% of people “approve” of organ donation but only 28% grant permission. The article
states that more than 45,000 people in the United States died in 1995 while awaiting a donor organ.
It suggests that many lives could be saved by switching to an opt-out policy.
Because opting out requires some effort in Europe, one may ask whether the inconvenience of
opting out explains the low rates. Johnson and Goldstein conducted an online survey of 161 U.S.
respondents, who were asked to assume that they had just moved to a new state. Question 1 asked them
TABLE 6.3 Effective consent rates (percent) for organ donation, by country
Opt-In Countries % Opt-Out Countries %
The Netherlands 27.5 Austria 99.98

United Kingdom 17.2 Hungary 99.97
Germany 12 France 99.91
Denmark 4.25 Portugal 99.64
— — Poland 99.5
— — Belgium 98
— — Sweden 85.9
Source: Based on Eric J. Johnson and Daniel Goldstein, “Do defaults save lives?” Science, 302, November 21,
2003, pp. 1338–1339.
if they would opt in to organ donation if given the opportunity. Question 2 asked if they would opt out.
Question 3 asked how they would respond if required to choose whether to donate (with no default).
The results (Table 6.4) show that only half as many people donate when required to opt in. Defaults
therefore remain a key factor even when no effort is involved.
Is it ethical to use an opt-out system to save lives? Or is it dishonest? A rational agent would presum-
ably make the same choice regardless of the default. The low opt-out rate suggests that an opt-out sys-
tem plays on psychological factors that distort the agent’s true intent. There are substantial opt-in/opt-
out differences for online privacy,32 selection of insurance coverage,33 and the level of pension savings.34
Hints. There are several possible explanations for why people opt out, such as:
1. It is too much trouble to opt out.
2. People don’t want to think about the choice because of its emotional content.
3. People overlook the matter, perhaps because it is in “fine print,” they are busy, or some other reason.
Analyze the issue under each scenario.
13. Preserving a culture.35 Bob Littman is owner of a series of galleries and a major client of Artifacts, an
importer of ethnic arts. While having lunch with Mary, a manager at Artifacts, he is introduced to Len.
A buyer for Artifacts, Len has traveled widely in South America in search of native artwork. One of his
major sources is the Amazonia36 people, whom he has gotten to know quite well, even learning their
language. Bob is very interested in Amazonia basketry and indicates that he would like to place a series
of large orders, provided the Amazonia will make certain changes in the patterns and colors of their
baskets to suit the tastes of his customers. A deal of this magnitude would be highly profitable both for
Artifacts and the Amazonia. Mary is enthusiastic about the idea. She proposes that Len return to South
America and convince the Amazonia to modify their designs, which should be a minor matter given
their obvious skills. Len, however, was an anthropology major in college and understands that the
Amazonia basket designs are not just pleasing patterns. Symbolism plays a central and powerful role in
Consent rates for organ donation

TABLE 6.4
as measured by an online survey
Opt-in default 42%
Opt-out default 82%
Neutral 79%
Source: Based on Eric J. Johnson and Daniel Goldstein, “Do defaults
save lives?” Science, 302, November 21, 2003, pp. 1338–1339.
many traditional cultures. The design elements that displease Bob contain symbols that denote impor-
tant events in the group’s long history. Even if the Amazonia agree to change their designs, he fears that
they may not appreciate the risk of losing their symbolic tradition and the long-term impact on their
culture. To make matters worse, meeting the production quotas would require that both men and
women work on the baskets. Basket weaving is an integral part of a woman’s role in Amazonia culture
and never undertaken by men. The honor of preserving and celebrating the history of their people
inspires women to spend a lifetime mastering the intricate designs. If Len explains all this to Mary,
should she ask him to take this assignment? If she does, how should Len deal with the request?
Hint. A principle stated at the beginning of the next chapter may be helpful in analyzing this case.
Notes
1. Based on SEC Litigation Release 20333, SEC v. Nortel different issue. It is possible that when direct-to-
Networks Corporation and Nortel Networks Limited, consumer marketing is legal, companies inevitably
October 15, 2007; E. Mathieu and S. Freeman, “Three abuse the privilege by making ads that mislead. It
ex-Nortel executives charged,” Toronto Star, June 19, may also be impractical to regulate the content of the
2008; and other news reports. My thanks to Caroline ads well enough to prevent abuse. A utilitarian
Levine for suggesting this case. test may therefore require laws against direct-to-
2. Based on The Ford-Firestone Case, by Michael Pinedo, consumer marketing, unless such laws are unethical
Sridhar Seshadri, and Eitan Zemel, Stern School of on other grounds.
Business, 2001. My thanks to Alan Scheller-Wolf for 9. One can “manipulate” without deception, as when
suggesting this case. one seduces a lover, and the lover knows what is going
3. Alan B. Krueger and Alexandre Mas, “Strikes, scabs on. But this kind of “manipulation” is perfectly OK!
and tread separations: Labor strife and the produc- 10. Based on various news reports. My thanks to Bryan
tion of defective Bridgestone/Firestone tires,” Journal Routledge for suggesting this case.
of Political Economy, 112(2), 2004, pp. 253–289. 11. In an interview with Maria Bartiromo of CNBC on
4. Although the strike also affected the Oklahoma City March 13, 2007.
plant, it largely escaped the quality problems of the 12. Ignoring the loan contract altogether is clearly
Decatur plant. It would be interesting to look at ungeneralizable. Contracts could not exist if people
whether and how management practices differed ignored them whenever its suits their purpose. But
there. the proposal here is to work out a modification of the
5. Based on the case study Bullard Houses, by Ron Karp, contract. The borrower is still going to pay off the
David Gold, and Mox Tan, Program on Negotiation mortgage, but in smaller installments.
at Harvard University, 2004. My thanks to Don 13. Countrywide could avoid foreclosure by relaxing the
Moore for suggesting this case. terms more that everyone else does, but this is clearly
6. Years ago, while working for a national laboratory, I was ungeneralizable. It is impossible for all lenders to
asked to present a report at the Department of Energy in relax terms more than all other lenders.
Washington, D.C. Some lobbyists presented the indus- 14. Compensation may in fact be required by law for
try side at the same meeting. When I talked informally many of the subprime loans, and many lawsuits
with them afterward, they told me that they didn’t have been filed. But I won’t try to resolve the legal
believe a word of what they said in the meeting room. issue.
They said what they were paid to say. They apparently 15. Based on the film Super Size Me, written and directed
felt an obligation to level with me as a human being, but by Morgan Spurlock, Kathbur Pictures, 2004. My
not with the organization I represented. thanks to Anita Woolley for suggesting this case.
7. Based on the case study, Marketing Antidepressants: 16. Based on the case study, Block 16: Conoco’s “Green”
Prozac and Paxil, Harvard Case 9-502-055, by Y. Moon Oil Strategy, by Susan E. A. Hall and Malcolm S.
and K. Herman, 2002. My thanks to Joachim Vosgerau Salter, Harvard Case 9-394-001 (1993). My thanks to
for suggesting this case. Lester Lave for suggesting this case.
8. There may be a utilitarian case against legalizing 17. Due to opposition of indigenous and environmental
direct-to-consumer marketing of drugs, which is a groups, Conoco later sold its Block 16 rights to Maxus
Corporation, a relatively small U.S operation. Maxus against Mark Cuban, November 17, 2008. My thanks
was then eventually bought out by YPF (Argentina). to Bryan Routledge for suggesting this case.
But ConocoPhillips was back in Ecuador in 2006 26. Based on the case study, Production and Inventory
when it bought Burlington Resources. It has drilling Strategy: Developing a Production and Inventory Plan
rights in two blocks and in many respects faces again for Carnegie Foods, developed for classroom use by
the issues raised in this case. Burlington had not been Deloitte Consulting, 2008. Carnegie Foods is a ficti-
able to move forward with drilling due to local and in- tious name. My thanks to Sunder Kekre for suggest-
ternational opposition. ing this case.
18. Douglas Lockwood, I, the Aboriginal. Sydney, 27. My thanks to Bryan Routledge for suggesting this case.
Lansdowne Publishing, 2000. 28. Based on case studies provided by executive work-
19. Based on the case study Hank Kolb, Director, Quality shop participants.
Assurance, by Frank S. Leonard, Harvard Case 29. Based on the Arthur Andersen case study The Empire
9-681-083, 1981. My thanks to Alan Scheller-Wolf Globe Corporation by Clarence Walton and Edwin M.
for suggesting this case. Epstein.
20. Based on news reports and SEC Litigation Release 30. My thanks to Joachim Vosgerau for suggesting this case.
20126, Securities and Exchange Commission v. Arthur 31. Eric J. Johnson and Daniel Goldstein, “Do defaults
A. Goodwin, May 23, 2007. My thanks to Caroline save lives?” Science, 302, November 21, 2003,
Levine for suggesting this case and the four hypothet- pp. 1338–1339.
ical scenarios described here. 32. S. Bellman, E. J. Johnson, and G. L. Lohse, “On site: to
21. Based on the Arthur Andersen mini-case The opt-in or opt-out? It depends on the question,”
Nonuser Celebrity Endorser by Geoffrey P. Lantos. Communications of the ACM, 44(2), February 2001,
22. Based on Ian Ayres and Steven D. Levitt, pp. 25–27. E. J. Johnson, S. Bellman, and G. L. Lohse,
“Measuring positive externalities from unobserv- “Defaults, framing and privacy: Why opting in-opting
able victim precaution: An empirical analysis of out?” Marketing Letters, 13(1), February 2002, pp. 5–15.
Lojack,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 113, 33. E. J. Johnson, J. Hershey, J. Meszaros, and
February 1998, pp. 43–77. My thanks to Dennis H. Kunreuther, “Framing, probability, distortions,
Epple for suggesting this case. and insurance decisions,” Journal of Risk Uncertainty,
23. Based on Case 6.3 in Cliff T. Ragsdale, Spreadsheet 7(1), 1993, pp. 35–51.
Modeling and Decision Analysis, 5th ed., Thomson, 34. B. C. Madrian and D. Shea, “The power of suggestion:
2007, pp. 293–294. My thanks to François Margot for Inertia in 401(k) participation and savings behavior,”
suggesting this case. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116(4), 2001,
24. Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and pp. 1149–1187.
Disclosure Act (Credit CARD Act) of 2009. 35. Based on the Arthur Andersen mini-case Societal
25. Based on U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Impacts of Marketing by Judy Cohen.
press release, SEC Files Insider Trading Charges 36. A fictitious group.
Chapter 7
Cross-Cultural Ethics
U
p to this point, our analysis has been grounded in the Western ethical tradition. In this final
chapter, we broaden our perspective by briefly examining other ethical systems. The purpose is
twofold. One is to alert you to the fact that ethical norms can be very different around the
world. A single chapter can scarcely provide an adequate treatment of world ethical cultures, but
perhaps an initial exposure to their variety will inspire you to learn more before your next assignment
abroad. A second purpose is to throw more light on the Western tradition by contrasting it with other
systems. A useful way to understand who you are is to learn who you are not.
It is essential to avoid two mistakes from the outset. One is the prevalent idea that the great ethical
systems are at root very similar, and they differ only in details that reflect differences in regional environ-
ments. This is simply untrue. Normative systems around the world are based on radically different
presuppositions, ultimately on different ontological conceptions of human nature. The implications for
everyday life are sometimes similar, because all the systems must enable human beings to live together,
but they can be very different as well. There are many ways to structure a society, and they are reflected in
different ethical norms.
A second and related mistake is that some cultures are simply less ethical than others, as
witnessed by high levels of corruption and social dysfunction. The reality is more complicated. All
cultures suffer from corruption, but the corruption takes different forms. Corruption is activity that
corrupts: It tends to undermine the cultural system in which it occurs. Because different cultures have
different ways of getting things done, different kinds of activity corrupt them. Nepotism and cronyism,
for example, tend to be corrupting in Western cultures but can, in the right circumstances, represent
high moral virtue in other cultures. What appears to be corruption may be entirely functional.
Another complication is that all cultures have weak points that lead them to break down in
different ways. Bribery tends to be more prevalent in some non-Western cultures, but cheating poses
an equally grave risk to Western cultures. Westerners tend to notice the bribery abroad and to forget
about the serious threat of cheating at home.
Finally, cultures may fall into dysfunction due to such disruptions as famine, economic hardship,
military defeat, and external domination. It is easy to think of many historical cases in which both
Western and non-Western cultures have abandoned their ethical norms when under stress.
We focus here on the phenomenon of corruption because it provides a useful introduction to
cross-cultural ethics. Not only does it illustrate the difference among cultural systems but is also a very
practical issue that confronts many business people. The chapter is organized around a series of case
89
90 Chapter 7 • Cross-Cultural Ethics
studies that illustrate various kinds of corruption.1 There are no exercises, because the chapter
provides insufficient background to build skills in cross-cultural decision making. The material
here is intended only as a starting point.
CROSS-CULTURAL DECISIONS
Understanding another normative system is one thing, but how do we make ethical decisions when
another system is different than our own? Should we stick to our principles, or do as the Romans do?
Actually, each culture has its own ethical resources for cross-cultural interaction. Peoples
have related to each other, and done business with each other, since prehistoric times. Western
cultures present a peculiar problem in this respect, because they tend to be universalizing
cultures. For reasons we will discuss shortly, Westerners tend to believe that there can be only one
rational approach to life and, in particular, only one legitimate ethical system. This is perhaps
why Westerners so readily find commonality across the world’s ethical norms. Nonetheless, even
Western ethics has a principle that can help us navigate cross-cultural encounters.
That principle is Corollary 1 of the generalization test: An action is unethical if its general
adoption would undermine a practice it presupposes. It can be paraphrased for cross-cultural
situations as follows:
• An action is unethical if its general adoption in the host culture would undermine a practice
it presupposes.
We will use this principle as a basis for analyzing case studies. It is by no means a complete
guide, but it can take us a long way and help us to avoid many blunders that are often made in
cross-cultural encounters.
RELATIONSHIPS VS. RULES

A first step toward understanding cultural difference is to distinguish rule-based cultures from
relationship-based cultures. Whereas Western cultures are primarily rule based, most of the world’s
cultures are relationship based. Westerners tend to trust the system, while people elsewhere trust
their friends and family. Westerners organize their business around contracts or agreements that are
enforced by a legal system. Other cultures may organize their business around human relationships
that are cemented by personal honor, filial duty, friendship, or long-term mutual obligation.
Rule-based cultures are universalizing because this is necessary to make the system work.
Westerners see themselves as autonomous individuals, none of whom has inherent authority over
others. Rulers and bosses inherit authority from rules or contracts that specify their powers and
how they are selected for office. Westerners must therefore respect the rules for their own sake. Rules
command this kind of obedience only when they are seen as inherently logical and reasonable.
Because logic is universal, legitimate rules are viewed as universally valid. For example, Westerners
expect everyone to see the internal logic of a laissez-faire market system, or of democratic politics
based on elections and majority rule.
Westerners are often taught to feel guilty when they violate rules whose internal logic they
recognize. Western societies may therefore rely heavily on guilt feelings, along with fear of
punishment if caught, to encourage good behavior. Personal supervision tends to be relatively
light. Transparency is important, because it helps to verify that everyone is going by the book.
Relationship-based cultures have rules, but the rules are legitimized and enforced in a differ-
ent way. People tend to respect authority figures rather than rules for their own sake. Rules obtain
Chapter 7 • Cross-Cultural Ethics 91
their legitimacy from the authority figures who issue them. Enforcement, both in the family and at
the workplace, tends to take the form of constant personal supervision. Bad behavior can result in
shame or loss of face, as opposed to guilt.
Naturally, legal systems and other rule-based mechanisms may operate in a relationship-based
culture, especially when there is Western influence. Conversely, personal connections are important in
Western cultures. Yet in either case, one can distinguish the main system from auxiliary mechanisms.
Equipped with the broad distinction between rule-based and relationship-based cultures,
we can begin to investigate why corruption can take different forms in Western and non-Western
countries.
Cronyism and the Purchasing Agent

Purchasing agents in a Western company are expected to award contracts based on the quality of
bids and transparently available financial information about the bidders. An agent who favors
personal friends is viewed as corrupt, because cronyism creates a conflict of interest. A choice that
is good for the agent and his or her cronies may not be good for the company.
In much of the world, however, cronyism is a foundation for trust. A purchasing agent does
business with friends because friends can be trusted. It is assumed that cronies will follow
through on the deal, not because they fear a lawsuit, but because they don’t wish to sacrifice a
valuable relationship in an economy where relationships are the key to business. In such a system,
it is in the company’s interest for the agent to do business with friends.
Responsible cronyism may therefore present no conflict of interest. Far from being a form
of corruption, it may be essential to good business. Cronyism becomes irresponsible when the
agent does business with friends simply because they are friends and not because they are trust-
worthy business partners. Rule-based behavior can likewise be irresponsible, as when the agent
doesn’t exercise due diligence in comparing bids and researching the vendors.
Inappropriate Lawsuits
Lawsuits are routine and necessary in the West, which relies on rules and individual responsibility.
In Japan, however, they can be corrupting. Japan is a strongly relationship-based culture in which
interpersonal relations are based on maintaining harmony. Harmony is preserved by elaborate
courtesies, humility, deference to superiors, and avoidance of confrontation. After a 1985 Japan Air
Lines crash, CEO Yasumoto Tagaki traveled the country to apologize personally to families of the
victims and offered educational benefits to children who lost their parents. He subsequently
resigned.2 The apology and resignation don’t indicate personal guilt as in the West, and the benefits
were not the result of a lawsuit. In fact, Boeing repairs were apparently at fault, not the airline. The
intent was to make amends. Another dramatic illustration of this principle was provided when
Shohei Nozawa made a tearful apology to employees and stockholders shortly after Yamaichi
Securities declared bankruptcy in 1997. Nozawa was not admitting guilt and in fact had just
assumed his position as CEO in order to clean up a mess left by others. His aim was to restore
harmony among the stakeholders.
Even Western-style negotiation can disrupt harmony in Confucian cultures. Westerners tend
to organize their affairs around agreements, deals, or contracts, relying on a concept of covenant
that traces back to the ancient Middle East. These agreements are worked out in negotiation, for
example, when labor and management sit across the table from each other. This practice is
functional and constructive, so long as it proceeds according to rules of fair play and good faith.
Confucian cultures, by contrast, are based primarily on loyalty and obligation to friends,
family, or superiors rather than on a system of rules. There is a traditional preference for building
relationships rather than making deals. Bargaining across the table tends to be regarded as
confrontation rather than negotiation, even when it is strictly regulated by protocol, as in Japan.
Bargaining is confrontational in street markets precisely because the parties typically don’t have a
working relationship. This kind of bargaining is acceptable when long-term collaboration is not
required. But when undertaking long-term projects, it is best to develop harmony and trust
among the parties rather than rely on Western-style negotiation.
Bribery
Bribery is corrupting in the West because it induces people to depart from the rules. If bribes
become common enough, people in general may lose faith in the system and flout the rules
routinely. Bribery is normally corrupting in relationship-based cultures as well, but for a different
reason: It shortcuts the building of stable relationships on which society relies. A bribe “buys” a
relationship only until the next bribe is required.
Bribery tends to be more prevalent in relationship-based cultures, because a genuine
relationship requires time and effort to build, and there is a temptation to take shortcuts. There
can also be a fine line between legitimate relationships and quid pro quo bribery, which makes it
easier to slip from one to the other.
Rule-based systems, on the other hand, are particularly vulnerable to cheating, because
behavior is much less likely to be regulated by direct personal supervision. Minimal supervision
imposes less social and economic overhead, but it also carries risks. Rule-based institutions rely
largely on voluntary good behavior, and when a critical mass of people fall short, stability is
threatened. The financial crisis of 2008–2009 provides an excellent example, because irresponsi-
ble behavior on the part of relatively few lightly supervised actors precipitated a worldwide credit
freeze in a Western-oriented financial system.
By contrast, business in relationship-based cultures is organized around relationships with
families, friends, and bosses, who constantly monitor behavior. This kind of supervision carries a
higher social cost, and it takes longer to get things done, but a distributed system of personal
relationships can be more stable.
CASE 7.1
Kickbacks in Taiwan
SYNOPSIS3 returning lost property. The owner undoubtedly got the cash from his
boss, and Don didn’t want him to keep it and leave his boss with the
Don, a manager for a U.S.-based manufacturer, was assigned to his
impression that the money had been delivered. The boss was actu-
company’s Taiwan branch. Shortly after his assignment, he met with
ally relieved that, in this case at least, no kickback was expected.
a team representing a potential local supplier. After the team
departed, he noticed that one of them had left behind a briefcase.
While looking for the owner’s name, he found the valise to be full of
ANALYSIS
cash. He immediately realized that the cash was intended as a kick-
back, or a bribe to induce him to source from this particular firm. He China and Taiwan rely on the stability provided by long-term rela-
decided to refuse it, partly due to a clearly articulated company tionships of mutual obligation known as guānxì̀ (Mandarin Chinese
policy against receiving such payments. He dispatched a trusted for “connection”). Guānxì̀ comes into play when business requires
subordinate to return the briefcase to the owner. He then sent a trust relationships between people who are not part of the same
vaguely worded message to the owner’s boss stating that he was family or organization. The relationship may begin with a gift,
which might be reciprocated with a fine dinner. The process contin- mon family or organization were based on such payments, there
ues, until eventually one party is securing customers for the other, would be too little predictability to support a successful economy.
or the second is finding jobs for relatives of the first. These favors The economic system on which Don relies to do business in Taiwan
are neither quid pro quo nor bribes. If they were quid pro quo, the would be undermined. Accepting the kickback would therefore
relationship would evaporate as soon as one party failed to recipro- violate the generalization principle articulated above.
cate. Yet dishonesty or failure to follow through on a promise can On the other hand, cronyism can be functional in this con-
endanger the relationship, and both parties therefore have reason text. It may not be a corrupt act for Don to award the contract to a
to trust the other in business dealings. Neither party wants to risk trusted friend with whom he had done business for years, even if
losing valuable gu ānxì̀ in which he or she has invested over the that person’s bid is not the lowest. This could be in the company’s
years. interest, because personal trust in the vendor may be well worth
Kickbacks are common in Taiwan but are corrupting nonethe- the premium the company must pay. Company policy may not
less. They are attempts to create a relationship without the hard recognize this fact, of course, and Don would have to take this into
work of building guānxì̀. If all business relationships outside a com- account. 䊏
CASE 7.2
Bribery in India
SYNOPSIS ANALYSIS
The Indian economy in 1992 was on the threshold of becoming the Bribery is a fact of life in India, and one could take the attitude that one
information-age powerhouse it is today. India’s Congress party had should “do as the Romans do.” Yet the previous case study shows that
just introduced sweeping market reforms, under the leadership of common practice is not a reliable indicator of what is corrupting and
Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao and his finance minister what is not. The system may operate in spite of prevalent behavior
Manmohan Singh (later to become Prime Minister). One firm that rather than because of it. Conversely, one could infer that bribery is
foresaw India’s potential was Enron, which predicted that reliable corrupting in such cases from the fact that Indians widely disapprove
electric power would play a central role in the country’s new infor- of it—at least when bribery is understood as high-level influence
mation economy. The company joined with Bechtel and General peddling, as opposed to small “grease” payments. Yet what people
Electric to finance a gigantic power plant at Dabhol, in Maharashtra say or think about a practice is not the relevant test. The test for
State. It was to be India’s largest-ever private foreign investment. corruption is whether the practice tends to undermine the system.
However, the cost of generating power at the plant was India is a relationship-based culture that relies only to some
projected to be substantially greater than the prevailing rate, extent on imported Western institutions. The primary mechanism
partly because it would be fueled by liquefied natural gas from for getting things done is a highly developed skill for working
Qatar. Despite this liability, the Indian government guaranteed through social and family networks. The government is parliamen-
Enron a very generous return on investment. There were sugges- tary, but power is often exercised through a remarkably resilient
tions, particularly from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party web of personal and family connections. The country can weather
(BJP), that bribery was involved.4 This and other accusations of widespread riots and communal violence, as occurred after the
corruption in the Congress Party, along with a Hindu nationalist 1992 destruction of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya, without a serious
uprising, thrust the BJP into power in 1998. Meanwhile, prominent threat to its stability.
journalist Raghu Dhar claimed that Enron tried to bribe him to Bribery threatens social stability to the extent that it displaces
withdraw his opposition to the Dabhol plant.5 Public opinion traditional networking. If Enron had established itself in India by work-
turned against the project, and protestors descended on the con- ing through connections with influential people, its conduct would
struction site. have been consistent with the cultural system—even if Westerners
The BJP eventually backed off from the Enron deal when it (and many Indians) might prefer a transparent approach involving bids
took power, despite appeals from U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and contracts. But bribery is a double liability, because it corrupts
and Secretary of State Colin Powell to honor the commitment. A India’s quasi-Western institutions, particularly the judicial system, as
small portion of the plant finally began operating in 1999, but only well as its traditional social networking. If Enron executives actually
in fits and starts, and most of the plant sits idle to this day. paid bribes, they violated the generalization principle. 䊏
CASE 7.3
Nepotism in China
SYNOPSIS6 everyone puts family before self. This tradition is very much alive
today, particularly in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and many overseas
Lee Kam Sheung founded an oyster sauce business in rural Chinese communities, although it is evolving in the large cities.
Guangdong Province, China, in 1888. By 2005, the family-owned Westerners associate nepotism with the lazy or incompe-
company had become a major food and health products firm, Lee tent relative on the staff, but it can have advantages in a
Kum Kee (LKK) Ltd., based in Hong Kong. It operated plants in Confucian setting. A Chinese manager may extract more work
China, Malaysia, Philippines, and the United States. It sold its from his sons, grandsons, and nephews than from nonfamily mem-
products in 80 countries and employed 3,900 workers. Lee’s grand- bers. Relatives may not be the most talented available candidates
son Man Tat was Group Chairman and had appointed his four sons for the job, but grandfather or uncle knows their strengths and
to serve as chairmen and/or CEOs of various divisions. weaknesses intimately and can make the best use of their skills.
Lee Man Tat recognized the importance of bringing profes- Nepotism, no less than cronyism, must be used responsibly to
sional managerial expertise into his company. He sent his sons to benefit the firm as well as the individuals concerned. Lee Man Tat
college in the United States and then persuaded them (primarily by evidently succeeded in this. As a result, there is no obvious reason
an appeal to filial duty) to join the company as top managers. By that Western managers should have ethical reservations about
2005, the board of directors contained two outsiders, in addition to working for LKK.
himself and his sons. He planned to add two more outsiders to the Chinese have long recognized that nepotism can be problem-
board and to recruit high-level managers. He explicitly stated that atic in government. The Sui Dynasty introduced civil service exams
he sought professional managers who were comfortable with the for the state bureaucracy 14 centuries ago. Today, nepotism is often
fact that the firm’s top executives were family members. illegal, or at least officially discouraged, in government agencies
and state-owned enterprises. Inappropriate nepotism can therefore
be corrupting even in a Confucian context. Nonetheless, family busi-
ANALYSIS
ness, and the nepotism that often goes with it, remains a central
Some Western managers would be uncomfortable with the obvious Chinese institution outside the mainland and is increasingly
nepotism in LKK. Should they be uncomfortable with it? Is it reasserting itself in the mainland, as nonstate firms proliferate.
corrupting? LKK also demonstrates that nepotism can adjust itself to
Actually, nepotism can be functional in a Confucian setting. global business. Although the family members expect to maintain
The extended family is historically the primary unit of economic sur- control, they are aware of possible cultural complications. They
vival in China. It exhibits the discipline and loyalty necessary to intentionally avoid antagonizing outside professionals with the
scrape out a living in a harsh environment. The parents and grand- kind of close supervision that is characteristic of relationship-
parents exercise a degree of authority unusual in the West, and based cultures. 䊏
CASE 7.4
Accounting Fraud in North America

SYNOPSIS sold the goods to customers who were required to source a
Case 6.1, “Nortel and Income Smoothing,” illustrates corruption certain percentage of their supplies from minority- or women-
in its most prevalent Western form: cheating. The case owned businesses. Nortel recognized the revenue from sale of
describes how executives at Nortel improperly used bill-and- the goods when it delivered them to Telamon. This is permitted
hold transactions as an income smoothing device. Actually, this by U.S. GAAP, however, only if Telamon accepts the risk of own-
is only one of their unethical activities. For example, Nortel ership, which it did not, because it routinely returned unsold
delivered goods to a minority-owned business Telamon, which goods to Nortel.
These and other schemes led the U.S. Securities and they can channel investment capital. On the contrary, it is common
Exchange Commission to file civil charges, and some executives advice not to get financially involved with friends and families,
eventually paid fines in an out-of-court settlement. The Ontario because of the friction that can result. It is therefore necessary to
Securities Commission subsequently pressed fraud charges against invest in companies whose managers are essentially strangers.
three executives, who were arrested in June 2008.7 Nortel filed for This, in turn, requires some reliable way to obtain information
bankruptcy in January 2009. Five months later, it announced its about the firm. Professional accounting practices meet this need
intention to cease business operations and sell off all assets. by making the firm transparent to investors.
The case illustrates the ease with which rules can be vio-
lated in the limited-oversight environment of a rule-based system.
ANALYSIS
These Nortel executives were deterred neither by guilt feelings
Nortel’s behavior is corrupting because transparency is a founda- nor by fear of being caught. In fact, one suspects that they were
tion of the system in which the company operates. By and large, eventually caught only because they perpetrated sustained and
North American investors have not developed a tradition of culti- rather egregious violations of accounting standards over a period
vating friends and extended family relationships through which of three years. 䊏
CASE 7.5
Corruption in Sub-Saharan Africa

SYNOPSIS8 license. Due to poor telephone service in Guinea, the headquarters
staff could not alert him to the fax.
Dr. Mo Ibrahim and Terry Rhodes founded Celtel International, a wire-
less service provider, in 1998. They recognized that sub-Saharan
Africa was a largely untapped market for mobile phone service. In
ANALYSIS
addition, Ibrahim (Sudanese by origin) wanted to contribute to African
economic development. He was personally aware of the obstacles of Much of the bribery that is so common in sub-Saharan Africa can
doing business in the region but believed they could be overcome. be traced to cultural disruption. It is hard to make generalizations
Ibrahim and Rhodes resolved to play it clean if at all possi- about a region that contains hundreds of cultures and languages,
ble. In some cases, they avoided side payments simply by waiting but a common theme across many of them is their traditional
out customs and other officials who demanded money in exchange village orientation. The coming of colonialism, and later globaliza-
for timely approval. On one occasion, they transformed the arrival tion, undermined the role of leaders in village life. Leaders tradi-
of their equipment into a public relations event, so that the tionally retained power by judicious redistribution of resources.
customs officer could not delay matters without personal embar- Their privileges allow them to accumulate wealth, and they in turn
rassment. On another occasion, they contributed to a school rather endow their subjects with gifts and favors. Anthropologists refer to
than bribe the local chief directly. this as a “big man” institution, first described as such in Melanesia.
However, in Guinea they encountered an impasse.9 Celtel The big man system may have evolved because a community
had purchased a $750,000 operating license from the Guinean has greater survival advantage when the chief can rationally redis-
government, but there were delays in the steps necessary to imple- tribute wealth to where it is most needed.
ment the license. Finally, Rhodes and colleagues set up a meeting When colonial powers brought Western practices to sub-
with key government officials who could clear the way. When they Saharan Africa, many men left villages to take jobs at commercial
arrived at the meeting, however, there was an awkward silence. The farms and mines, while leaders often got government positions in
Guinean officials looked as though they were expecting something, cities. They took with them the practice of obtaining influence
and when disappointed, the meeting reached a deadlock. through generosity, but they left behind the village context that
Rhodes learned afterward that a fax had arrived in Celtel’s structured and guided this practice. To oversimplify a complicated
Amsterdam headquarters before the meeting. It listed the officials story, responsible distribution of wealth to maintain influence
who would be present. Next to the names were monetary amounts, degenerated into payment of bribes to buy influence.
totaling about $50,000, demanded in exchange for setting up the Africans with whom I have worked are intensely aware of
meeting. Further bribes would be necessary to implement the this dynamic and resent the fact that foreign corporations often
acquiesce in paying bribes. They point out that bribery requires a company can try to distribute resources to where they are most
briber as well as a bribee. Bribery is not so much a form of corrup- needed without passing them through corrupt channels. This
tion as a particularly visible symptom of a deeper corruption. could mean investments in schools and infrastructure, as well as
Paying bribes is nonetheless ungeneralizable to the extent that it economic development through the funding of microloans. More
contributes to an already corrupted social order. importantly, foreign investors can establish business operations
One way to align one’s business with the generalization that add value to the local economy rather than simply extracting
principle is to mimic the ancient function of generosity. A resources. 䊏
CASE 7.6
Side Payments in the Middle East

SYNOPSIS10 Westernize the Turkish state he founded after the First World War.
Traditional Turkish culture, whose roots extend deep into Asia, is
On arrival at a Turkish airport, an MBA student from the United not designed to support a Western-style bureaucracy that relies
States joined the passport control queue. On reaching the front of heavily on unsupervised adherence to rules.
the queue, he handed his passport to the official. Rather than The eastern, relationship-oriented side of Turkish culture
stamping the passport, the official put it in a drawer and proceeded remains functional in many contexts. In a typical scenario, the
to process the next few travelers in the queue. Perplexed, the foreign visitor is welcomed with warm hospitality, that being the
student asked if there was a problem. The official responded that Turkish tradition. When it surfaces that the visitor is having diffi-
there was no problem that US$50 would not fix. The student reluc- culty with the system, the host asks some old friends to take care
tantly pulled out his wallet and handed over the money. At this of it. This is not corruption but appropriate behavior for a people
point, the official returned his passport, but without a stamp, and who for centuries have been bound together by friendship and
continued to process the queue. When the student asked whether hospitality rather than adherence to rules and procedure.
his passport could be stamped, the official responded that cer-
tainly, it could, but this would require another US$50.
THE MIDDLE EAST AND WASTA
Turkey and other Middle Eastern countries historically invest
ANALYSIS
authority in persons rather than rules. One typically cannot get
Side payments are a fact of life in Turkey. In one survey of a cross- something done simply by following procedures, although this may
section of the population, about half of the respondents admitted to be necessary, but must have the support of influential people.
paying at least one bribe in the previous two years.11 The payments Businesspeople working in Arab countries, particularly in the Gulf
are despised by those who must pay them, but they are not always area, frequently tell of projects in which nothing much happens until
corrupting. They need not undermine a cultural mechanism in the the appropriate sheikh or authority figure gives the go-ahead,
way that kickbacks can undermine and displace gua–nxì. The airport whereupon everything falls into place. This in itself is not corruption,
payments are not corrupting, because they have little or no effect on because there are traditional checks and balances on power.
whether travelers are properly cleared through passport control (the Leading families command respect and therefore retain power in
traveler has little choice but to pay up). Nor does it displace a rela- part because they have a tradition of exercising power responsibly.
tionship-oriented practice that would other operate. The traveler’s This raises the question as to how one obtains the spon-
airport payment (but not the official’s demand) therefore passes the sorship of an authority figure. In traditional Arab culture, the
generalization test. sheikh ideally holds a majlis (Arabic for “sitting place”) to hear
Many payments in Turkey are less innocuous, however. petitions and grant favors when warranted. Today, it is often nec-
They span the gamut from traffic fixes to high-level influence essary to work through someone who has the ear of an influential
peddling. They can distort decision making and the implementa- person. Such a person is popularly known as a wasta, who is an
tion of much-needed policies. Underlying the corruption is the intermediary who petitions an authority figure on behalf of a
introduction of Western institutions into a relationship-based client. The word can also refer to the influence that the wasta
culture. It is a common phenomenon around the world but a partic- offers. Wasta is often used to get a good job, admission to a
ularly explicit one in Turkey because of Kemal Atatürk’s efforts to university, or a business opportunity.
Wasta is widely regarded as a form of corruption, because administrative service that handles procedures and documents,
intermediaries may require payments for their services. Yet it can much as might be done by a lawyer or customs agent. Wasta
be exercised responsibly, as can nepotism and cronyism. The inter- becomes corrupting when intermediaries are motivated by bribes
mediaries can be agents through which a responsible authority rather than loyalty to a responsible leader. 䊏
figure exercises influence. Wasta can also take the form of an
CASE 7.7
Gifts to Korean Officials

SYNOPSIS12 Gifts play a functional role by signaling a willingness to co-
operate with government officials. Government regulation has
While setting up operations in South Korea, a U.S. accounting firm
played a major part in the remarkable expansion of the Korean
found it necessary to obtain a number of permits from the govern-
economy since the 1960s, particularly where the chaebol (large
ment. When the approval process bogged down, a local consultant
family-run conglomerates) are concerned. In a strongly relation-
offered to take care of the problem. When asked how, he confided
ship-based culture like the Korean one, it is unrealistic to try to
that he would hand his government contact a white envelope—
influence behavior simply by laying down regulations as one might
with money inside. His consulting fee would include an unitemized
do in Germany or Sweden. A more successful strategy is to
allowance for the payment.
implement regulation through personal relationships between
businesspeople and government officials. These relationships are
established in part by gifts that signal the intent to do what the
ANALYSIS
official wants in exchange for cooperation and favors from the
Side payments of this kind are common in Korea, even if large pay- government.
ments are occasionally exposed and bring criminal prosecution. To Due to the instability of a purely quid pro quo relationship,
some extent they result from a blurring of the boundary between it is important not to let gifts slide into obvious bribery. Gifts may
gifts and bribes. Businessmen who are granted a meeting with an also violate such laws as the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act,
important official may bring a gift as a token of gratitude, and the which forbids bribery of foreign government officials, even when
gift often takes the form of cash. Gifts of gratitude are culturally the payment is made by a local agent (South Korea has a similar
appropriate and are not bribes, but if the giver requests a favor, law). Because laws of this kind may permit facilitating payments
they can slip into the category of bribery. Or a firm might send an and extortion payments, one should consult an attorney to sort
official a generous gift in observance of a wedding, or condolence things out. Yet whatever the legal situation, a suitable side
gift in case of death in the family. If the firm subsequently requests payment in the Korean situation is culturally distinguishable from
a dispensation from the official, the gift looks like a bribe. an outright bribe and can pass the generalization test. 䊏
CASE 7.8
Dilemma in Côte d’Ivoire

SYNOPSIS13 During my first year as a small business development advisor, I
worked with them to form a cooperative group to bypass the lucra-
“Bending low to enter the small mud hut, I saw her vacant eyes tive earnings of the middleman and secure higher wages. Although
pleading with me to help her. Her name was Josephine Bahonon this step was accomplished with relative ease, negotiating on their
Ouie, and she was lying on the dirt floor of her mud hut, too sick to behalf for better working conditions and regular pay proved difficult,
move. The true extent of her illness was made obvious by her ema- since corruption within the government limited the resources that
ciated body and the bedpan lying next to her. Josephine was one of actually trickled down to the people. Wages were disbursed three
the 28 women contracted by the government to clean the city. months behind schedule, and partial payments were quite common.
“According to her sister, the doctor demanded 16,000 CFA Josephine, is she alive or is she dead? And I wish now that I had
(23 USD) for Josephine’s treatment. [The CFA Franc, where CFA just given her the $46.
stands for Communaute Financiere Africaine, is the currency of 14 “Should I have done so?”
African countries.] Because her salary was already three months
late, Josephine had obtained credit to pay for her children’s school
ANALYSIS
fees, rent for her small hut, and food. She was consequently
denied additional credit and could not pay the doctor’s fees. As her This aid worker is concerned that (a) this kind of assistance may
eyes begged me to help her, Josephine’s sister asked me to lend create dependency, and (b) it is unfair to help one person when you
her the money, to be returned once the government paid her can’t help everyone in need. Argument (a) is a straightforward
wages. As an individual the answer seemed simple; I should lend utilitarian argument, because creating dependency apparently
Josephine the money. She was one of the hardest workers in the defeats the goal this NGO is trying to achieve in Côte d’Ivoire. Let’s
cooperative and desperately needed medical attention. However, deal with argument (b) first, however.
as a development worker trying to establish a sustainable busi- The argument may appear to be a generalization argument,
ness project with these women, the answer was not so clear. As because it says that it is wrong to help one person when you can’t
in the case of lending funds to a colleague or employee, I would generalize the assistance to everyone. But this isn’t the generaliza-
be showing favoritism and erode the common bond among the tion test. The test asks whether it is possible for every aid worker in
members of the cooperative. In addition, the gesture would cause this position to help one person (or more accurately, whether this is
the women to view me as a source of funding instead of legiti- consistent with the rationale for the action). This is a very different
mately working with me to develop projects to address their test, and it’s not obvious why the action fails it.
concerns and issues. The issue here is not so much generalizability as the more
“With these reservations in mind, I sought a solution that elementary idea that one’s own conduct should be consistent: If
would permit me to help Josephine without negatively affecting the circumstances justify aid in one case, then they justify aid in
my role in their cooperative. My first stop was at the Treasury all similar cases. Then what does one do? If many women are
Department. I explained the situation and asked if there was any- equally needy and one cannot help them all, what is the “fair” way
thing that I could do to facilitate the woman’s payment. Since this to decide who gets help?
was not the first time that I had confronted them about their tar- This is an interesting puzzle for Western ethics, because
diness, I knew that one month’s salary would be disbursed by the apparently the only rational solution is to do nothing and let the
end of the following week. Although not sufficient to pay for all of woman suffer. Westerners sometimes resolve such dilemmas by
her treatment, I realized and accepted the extent and limitations drawing lots or whatever, which may satisfy people as “fair” but
of my power within the city government. I quickly moved on to my seems equally irrational.
second stop, the doctor’s office. I wanted to know how serious However, many cultures (including many African cultures)
Josephine’s condition was and what the treatment would entail. place less emphasis on being “fair” and “rational” in this sense. In
Upon seeing my white skin, the doctor doubled Josephine’s practice, one helps when one can and stops helping when one no
medical costs. When I enquired as to what she was suffering longer can. There is a strong community ethic in which one is
from, the doctor replied that it was a combination of typhoid expected to share resources when capable of doing so, and one is
fever, dysentery, and cholera. Further questions and a quick equally expected to request help when it is needed. While the
glance through the doctor’s medical textbook revealed his rather West sees this as “dependency,” many African cultures see it as a
sketchy understanding of those diseases. I left his office feeling sensible distribution of resources. As Case 7.4 notes, leaders in
despondent about the quality of medical care in the Ivory Coast particular are expected to be generous.
but determined to help Josephine. It is hard to draw conclusions for this particular case
“I read through several medical books and based on her because there are some 60 cultures in Côte d’Ivoire alone, and all
symptoms, I determined that she was not suffering from typhoid cultures are different. But many African cultures would expect the
fever or dysentery. Although I did not know her actual illness, I aid worker to take a leadership position (because he/she is
knew she needed to take rehydration salts to regain the water that relatively wealthy), give help judiciously when it is possible and
she had lost due to her illness. I spent the next couple of hours needed, and stop giving help when it is no longer possible.
showing her family how to prepare the rehydration salts and Westerners are often reluctant to assume this kind of responsibil-
insisted that everyone that came in contact with her should wash ity, preferring to go by the rulebook rather than make decisions
their hands to prevent the spread of the disease. By the end of the case by case. But in many cultures it is part of the burden of
week, she hadn’t shown any improvement, and I still hadn’t decided leadership.
how to best handle the situation. Unfortunately, due to political Argument (a), the utilitarian argument, must likewise be
instability I was evacuated from the country. I often wonder about adjusted to the cultural circumstances. “Dependency” that is
dysfunctional in a Western culture reflects a system of redistribu- providing assistance to those in need is consistent with this ethic,
tion that is quite functional in many traditional cultures. It kept and in fact required by it because it has a leveling effect. It is there-
the human species alive for a few hundred thousand years. fore important to provide assistance in a way that people see as
Aid agencies commonly warn that preferential treatment will judicious and conducive to equality rather than inequality. This is
create envy among those who are less favored. This is a Western inconsistent with the generalization principle stated at the beginning
terpretation of a fundamental trait of many African cultures. When of this chapter, because it harmonizes with the traditional culture.
the community comes first and the individual second, standing out This kind of arbitration requires more cultural knowledge
above one’s fellows (unless one occupies a leadership position and than most Westerners have. A possible alternative in such cases
lives up to its obligations) is strongly frowned upon. A competitive is to ask advice from an experienced and trusted person who plays
economic system, for example, is foreign to these cultures. However, a leadership role in the local community. 䊏
ETHICS AND HUMAN NATURE

The normative systems illustrated in these case studies can be seen as growing out of conceptions
of human nature. It is a principle reflected in the third condition of rational choice: how we act
must reflect who we are.
In a Confucian culture, personhood is defined primarily by relationships with others, partic-
ularly the extended family, rather than existence as an individual. It is natural for one member of the
family to care for another, as one part of the body cares for another part. Any broader obligation
must be grounded in cultivated relationships, whence the importance of gua–nxì and cronyism.
Many African and other traditional cultures locate the basic unit of human existence in the
community. Ideally, people do not distinguish their individual welfare from the collective welfare,
and the economy is based on sharing of resources. Sharing can occur spontaneously, but the vil-
lage may benefit from pooling resources and redistributing them according to the wise judgment
of a chief.
The Hindu/Buddhist worldview emphasizes connectivity and, in its most rarified expres-
sion, interprets human beings as manifestations of a single consciousness (atman). This is re-
flected in a social system that relies fundamentally on connectedness, although the ideal is very
imperfectly realized, because only certain kinds of connections matter. Yet civilizations can work
gradually toward realization of their ideals, as the West has attempted to do in the area of human
rights over the last few centuries.
The Middle East is the birthplace of monotheism, which understands human beings to be
creatures of a transcendent God. Because there is a single godhead, his will is the sole standard of
behavior. This introduces the idea of universal values, which led to the development of an ethical
and legal tradition that strongly influenced the West.
A theme that runs through many of these normative systems is that human beings
are linked by a communal conceptual of human nature. People care for each other because
they are, in some sense, parts of the same being. Western individualism presents a challenge
because it sees human beings as autonomous individuals. Its solution, elaborated through-
out this book, is to find unity in reason rather than in ontology. Human beings care for
each other because we are rational creatures who must act according to the universal canons
of reason. A choice for one is a choice for all and therefore must give everyone equal
consideration.
This places a heavy burden on rationality, particularly when religious concepts are not a
significant part of public discourse. Rationality has its weak points, as witnessed, for example, by
the difficulty of reconciling approaches to distributive justice. Yet it is the way we do it in the
West, and we must make it work.
Cultures evolve. Western civilization may at some point modify its reliance on rational in-
dividualism, and the rational science and technology that support it, perhaps by incorporating a
communal interpretation of personhood. This may be necessary for our survival on a small
planet. Yet we are not likely to move to a more adequate worldview until we exhaust the resources
of the present one. When we bring to ethics the level of sophistication we bring to science and
technology, we will be ready for the next stage.
Notes
1. The discussion of the case studies (except the last) is 7. E. Mathieu and S. Freeman, “Three ex-Nortel execu-
based on J. N. Hooker, “Corruption from a cross- tives charged,” Toronto Star, June 19, 2008.
cultural perspective,” Cross-Cultural Management: An 8. Based on the case study Terry Rhodes by A. T. Karim,
International Journal, 16, 2009, pp. 251–267. T. Putimahtama, and J. Mullins, London Business
2. C. Haberman, “NYC; The ways of taking responsibil- School Case No. 708-042-1, 2008.
ity,” New York Times, July 26, 1996. 9. The case description states that certain information,
3. My thanks to Don Lamb, who experienced this including the location of the events, is disguised.
scenario and told me the story. Presumably Guinea is not the real location of the
4. For example, Gopinath Munde, Report to Cabinet case.
Subcommittee to Review the Dabhol Power Project, 1995. 10. This case was provided by an MBA student.
5. Enron’s bribe apparently took the form of a lucrative 11. F. Adaman, A. Çarkoĝlu, and B. Şenatalar, “Corruption
job offer to Dhar in public relations if he would in Turkey: Results of a diagnostic household survey,”
support Enron’s activities (BBC News, “Indian jour- February 2001, http://econ.boun.edu.tr/staff/adaman/
nalist alleges Enron bribe,” April 17, 2002). research/Corruption.pdf.
6. Based on the case study Lee Kum Kee Co. Ltd. (A): The 12. The late Thomas M. Kerr related this case to me.
Family Recipe by C. Lief and J. L. Ward, Case No. 13. This case was provided by an MBA student. The stu-
IMD-3-1617, Lausanne: IMD International, 2005. dent’s description of the case is quoted verbatim.
INDEX
A Causal explanation. See Explanation, causal
Celtel International, 95
D
Accounting, 13, 20, 23, 31, 49, 59 Damaged goods, 36–37
fraudulent, 57, 81, 94–95 Chaebol, 97 with inconspicuous damage, 36
Action Charitable contributions, 18 Deception, 40, 55, 60, 65
generalizing, 9, 12 Cheating, 89, 92, 94 in advertising, 43–44, 67–68
as necessarily rational, 9–10, 12, 18 on an exam, 8, 50 of customers, 40, 41, 43, 46–47, 70
reasons for, 7–11 Cheney, Dick, 93 in negotiation, 63, 85
scope of, 10, 11, 15, 18, 36, 41, 81 China, 92, 94 ungeneralizability of, 40, 41, 46, 47,
Advertising, 32, 44, 66–68, 76 Coercion, 25, 31–32 49, 56
and confidentiality, 51 Colonialism, 95 Deliberation, 9, 55
truth in, 43–44, 67, 81 Commission, sales, 37, 38 Dependency, 66, 98–99
and autonomy. See Autonomy, Compensation, 29, 72–73, 75, 84, 87 Determinism, 9
and advertising Competition, 14–15, 78, 83 Development aid, 98–99
Africa, 95, 98–99 Compromise, 21–22, 40–41, 47, Developmental psychology. See Psychology,
Agreement. See Contract 61–63, 65 developmental
Aircraft boarding, 14 Computers, 9, 21 Difference principle, 29–32, 38–39, 83
Altruism, 4 Conditions for rational choice. See Rational as applying to groups, 30, 39
corporate, 18 choice, conditions for extended, 31
as required by utilitarianism, 18 Confidentiality, 51–52, 58 revised, 30
Annuity, 11, 38 Conflict of interest, 37, 84, 91 social contract argument for, 31
Arab culture, 96 Confucian culture, 91, 99 Disagreement about ethics. See Ethics,
Armenia, 57 Conoco, 77–80, 87–88 disagreement about
AT&T, 26, 28, 29 Consensus Discrimination, in employment, 45
Auction, 11 rational, 2 Distributive justice, 25–33, 38
Auditing, 23, 49 Consequences Disutility, 16, 53, 62
Australia, 79 of an action, 17, 19 Dow Corning, 38, 45
Authority, 50, 68, 90–91, 94, 96–97 of generalizing an action, 12, 55 Driving
Automation, 23 predicting, 12, 19, 69 emergency vehicle, 14
Automobile Consequentialism, 24 motor vehicle, 2, 14, 35
accidents, 61–62 Construction industry, 58 Drug use, illegal, 42
insurance, 82 Consulting, 46, 83 DuPont, 77
purchase, 35 Contract Duress, 54
theft, 82 abrogation of, 11, 48, 71
Autonomy, 25–33, 41, 66–68, 76 breach of, 10, 22, 36, 54, 58
and advertising, 32, 66–68, 76 employment, 6–7, 10–12, 17, 22, 49, 54 E
escape clause, 7, 11 Eonomics game, 32
B mutual consent for, 11, 56, 72 Ecuador, 77–80, 88
Bank of America, 69 quasi, 55 Education, 18–19, 23, 32, 45, 48, 77, 84, 91
Bank management, 20, 24, 40 sales, 35, 36, 48, 64 Emotions, 67
Beauty, 16, 21 ungeneralizability of breaking, 10, 11, Employment contract. See Contract,
Bechtel, 93 14, 36, 48–49, 54 employment
Big bath, 60 voidable, 55 End
Bill-and-hold transaction, 59 in Western cultures, 91 as justifying the means, 12, 17–18, 81
Biodiversity, 77 Corporate social responsibility, 18, 19 Ends, multiple, 16
Boeing, 91 Corruption, 5, 89, 91, 93–97, 100 Engineering, 5, 43
Bottom line, 2, 23 Côte d’Ivoire, 97–99 Enron, 24, 93, 100
Bounded rationality, 24 Countrywide Financial, 68–71, 87 Environmentalism, 15, 20, 44, 77–80, 87
Bribery, 89, 92–93, 95–97 Courage, 21, 40 Environmental regulation. See Regulation,
Bridgestone Firestone Company, 61–63, 87 Credit cards, 82, 88 environmental
Buddhism, 99 Credit default swaps, 68–69 Espionage
Business ethics Credit reference, 23–24 industrial, 34
difficulty of, 3–4, 12, 81 Cronyism, 89, 91, 93–94, 97, 99 state sponsored, 96
purpose of, 2, 4 Cross-cultural ethics. See Ethics, ungeneralizability of, 35
cross-cultural Essence of humanity, 21–22
C Customers, 8, 12, 20, 22, 36, 43–44, 48, 53–54, Ethical maturity, 3
Canada, 59, 94 59, 63, 71, 75–76, 83, 86, 93–94 Ethics
Career, 2, 8, 17, 21–22, 40–41, 44, deception of, 41, 46–47, 60, 63, 70, 73 consensus on, 2–3
49, 56, 67, 80 obligation to, 40, 47, 53, 62, 69, 73, 80, 82 cross-cultural, 5, 61, 65, 77–79, 89–100
101
102 Index
Ethics (Continued) for breach of sales contract, 10 I

difficulty of, 4, 10–11, 22, 28, 54 for compensation, 72 If I don’t do it, someone else will, 40, 78
disagreement about, 3–5 corollary of, 8–9 Implied warranty, 62–63
as logic chopping, 5 for cross-cultural situations, 90 Imprisonment, 31–32
myths about, 3–4 for deception in negotiation, 65 Income smoothing, 59–61, 81, 94
as only a matter of opinion, 4 for deceptive sales, 43 India, 79, 93, 100
purpose of, 2, 8–9 for development aid, 98–99 Indigenous rights, 78–80, 87–88
Western, 3, 5, 66–67, 79, 90, 98 for fast food marketing, 75 Indoctrination, 32
Ethnocide, 77, 79 for foreclosure, 74 Inside information, 34, 35, 58, 83
Evaluation. See Performance evaluation for income smoothing, 60–61 Insider trading, 83
Exercises for insider trading, 83 Insurance, 15, 37–38, 45, 57, 69, 82,
how to work, 4–5 for interviewing, 54–55 86, 88
Expected utility. See Utility, expected for loyalty to customers, 47 broker (agent), 37
Expenses for obedience, 41 life, 38, 45
reimbursement of, 55–56 for pollution, 78 Integrity, 21–22, 41
unauthorized, 15, 49 for product safety, 38 Intellectual property, 22, 84
undocumented, 23 for property rights, 78–79 Intellect, as a virtue, 21–22
Explanation for quasi-contract, 54–55 Intention, 54–55, 63, 81
causal, 9, 21 and Rawlsian test, 29 Interspeed Corporation, 81
teleological, 21, 24 refined, 12 Interviewing, job, 6, 11, 44, 53–56
for reporting fraud, 49 Invisible hand, 4
F for sales talk, 47 Irrevocable election, 20, 24
Face, 91 for smoking ban, 42
Facilitating payments, 93, 96, 97 for subprime lending, 69–70
Factual vs. ethical issue, 5, 12–13, 19, and undermining a practice, J
75, 78 75–76 Japan, 61–63, 69, 91–92
Family, 18–19, 22–23, 38, 41–42, 44–45, Generally Accepted Accounting Japan Air Lines, 91
63, 67, 77, 79, 90–95, 97–100 Principles, 59–61, 81, 94 Jennifer’s choice, 6–7, 10, 17, 22
Fast food, 75 Genetics, 4 Job offer, 6, 7, 54, 56, 100
Fiduciary duty, 13, 40, 65, 78, 83 Gentile, M. C., 5
of board members, 13, 40 Gibbs, J. C., 5 K
of middle managers, 13 Gifts, 50–51, 92, 95, 97 Kegan, R., 5
of senior executives, 13 GlaxoSmithKline, 68 Kickbacks, 92–93, 96
Finance Globalization, 95 Kohlberg, L., 5
analysis, 2, 6, 11, 13, 23, 28, 57, 84, 91, Government regulation. See Korea, South, 97
95–96 Regulation
reporting, 40–41, 60 “Green” Oil strategy, Conoco, 77–80 L
Financial crisis, 6, 68–69, 71, 92 Guilt, 90–91, 95 Labor relations, 61–63, 84
Firestone Rubber Company. See -
Guanxì, 92, 99 Law
Bridgestone Firestone Company distinguished from ethics, 2
Float, 82 H spirit of, 2
Ford Meter Box, 42, 45 Habit, 10, 30, 42–43, 58, 79 Lawsuits, 38, 62, 87, 91–92
Ford Motor Company, 42, 61–62 Happiness, 19, 25, 31, 79–80 Layoffs, 3, 12, 23, 26, 63
Ford Pinto, 62 as inherently good, 15–16 Lee Kum Kee Ltd, 94, 100
Foreclosure, 68–69, 71–74, 87 measuring, 16 Levi, Isaac, 24
Fowler, J. W., 5 Harm, 13, 16, 26, 32, 38, 53, 60–61, 66, Lexicographic maximization, 30–31
Free will, 9 71–72, 75, 78, 83 Liberty principle, 29–32, 42–43, 66
Freedom, 16, 25, 31, 42, 76–77 as inherently bad, 16 and advertising, 32
political, 16 Harmony, 65, 91–92 and autonomy, 31–32
ungeneralizability of restricting, 42–43 Health care and coercion, 31
Free rider principle, 8 benefits, 29 and education, 32
Friendship, 21–22, 65, 90, 96 costs, 42 and imprisonment, 31–32
with coworkers, 15, 19, 44, 47, 51–52 equitable, 98 and murder, 31, 41
Hinduism, 99 and pharmaceuticals, 32, 39
G Hoffman, M. L., 5 and slavery, 32
GAAP. See Generally Accepted Accounting Honesty, 23, 40–41 and smoking, 42
Principles with employer, 40, 43–45, 49 and sweatshops, 32
General Electric, 93 in sales, 37, 43, 46–47, 70 argument for, 31
Generalizability. See Generalization test Honor, 11, 21–22, 54–56, 87, 90, 93 Life, value of, 25
Generalization test, 10, 12–25, 34, 81 Hostages, 67 Lilly, Eli, 66
for accepting giifts, 97 Hugo, Victor, 18 Lojack, 82, 88
for breach of confidentiality, 11–12, 22, 36 Human nature, 89, 99–100 Lottery, 27–28, 30, 32–33
Index 103
Loyalty, 13, 19, 21–22, 37, 47, 49, 51–52, Pharmaceuticals, 32, 39, 45, 66 Risk, 7, 37, 42–43, 49–50, 53–54, 56–57,
65, 91, 94, 97 Physician, 12–13, 19, 37, 66, 68, 74 60–62, 69–73, 75, 87, 89, 92–94
to coworkers, 19, 22, 47, 51 Piper, T. R., 5 disclosure of, 39
to customers, 22, 37, 47, 52–53 Pollution, 12, 15, 20, 44, 78–80 Robots, 9, 23
to family, 22, 94 Poverty, obligation to reduce, 18 Rule-based culture, 90
Lying Powell, Colin, 93
ungeneralizability of, 14, 64 Primary goods, 31 S
Privacy, 42, 86 Safety. See Product safety
M Procter and Gamble, 34, 45 Salaries
Majlis, 96 Product endorsement, 82 differential, 29
Marketing, 2, 34–35, 39, 44–45, 59, 62, Product liability, 38, 61 executive, 29, 31
66–68, 75–77, 87 strict, 38 Sales talk, 47, 50
to children, 68, 76 Product quality, 43, 46, 57, 61, 63 Scope of an action. See Action,
direct-to-consumer, 66–67 Product safety, 38, 62, 74–75, 80 scope of
of pharmaceuticals, 66 Profession Securities and Exchange Commission,
and temptation, 67–68, 71, 76 accounting, 13, 95 81, 88, 95
Market system, 4, 90 medical, 13 Self-interest, 1–2, 4, 7, 16, 19, 24, 32
Maximin principle, 30 Professional ethics, 12–13, 35, 37, 50, 65 conflict with utilitarianism, 16
McDonald’s restaurants, 74–77 Professions, purpose of, 12 as motivation, 4
Means Profit maximization, 13 Shame, 91
to an end, 12, 15, 17–18, 81 Promise Sharing, 99
Medical devices, 38 as basis for professional Shoplifting, 7–8, 12, 48
Mexico, 20 obligation, 12–13 Shopping
Middle East, 91, 96, 99 as conflicting with other obligations, grocery, 14
Misérables, Les, 18 12–13 Sierra Club, 77
Monotheism, 99 ungeneralizability of breaking, 14 Simon, Herbert, 24
Moral agent, 9, 25, 67 Property rights, 34, 78–79, 83 Singh, Manmohan, 93
Moral development, 3, 5 Prozac, 66–68 Slavery, 32
Morale, 44 Psychology, 3–5, 22 Slippery slope, 42
Moral hazard, 71 developmental, 3 Smith, Adam, 4
Mortgage-backed securities, 69 manipulation, 32, 66–67, 76 Smoking, 42–43
Mortgage loans, 69, 71 Public transit, 8 Social contract, 30–31
Murder, 31, 40–41, 67, 79 Purchasing agent, 50, 91 Solunet Inc, 81
Mutual consent. See Contract, mutual Sophrosyne, 22
consent for Q Spying. See Espionage
Qatar, 93 Stakeholders, 1–2, 28, 60–61, 85, 91
N Quality control, 59, 62–63 Stockbroker, 49
Negotiation, 51, 63–65, 70, 85, 87, 91–92 Quasi-contract. See Contract, quasi Stockholders, 13, 19, 26, 50, 55, 58, 69,
Nepotism, 89, 94, 97 77–78, 80, 85, 91
Neuropsychology, 4 R obligations of, 19
Nortel Networks, 59, 87 Rao, P. V. Narasimha, 93 Stock price, maximizing, 15
Rational agent, 9, 24, 86, 99 Strict liability. See Product liability, strict
O Rational choice Strike. See Labor relations
Obedience, 41, 90 conditions for, 1, 6–24 Subprime loans, 68–69, 71, 73, 87
Obesity, 74–75, 77 Rational consensus, 2 Supervision, employee, 92
Oppression, 25 Rationalizing, 7 Supply chain, 83–84
Opt-in vs. opt-out, 85–86 Rawlsian test, 29 Surgery, 37
Organ donation, 85–86 Rawls, John, 25, 29 Sweatshops, 29, 32
Ought implies can, 19 Real estate, 57, 63, 68
broker (agent), 37, 73 T
P Regret, minimizing, 30 Taiwan, 92–93
Packaging, 44 Regulation, 2, 4, 15, 20, 50, 77, 82, 97 Tax avoidance, 84
Parents, 6, 41, 45, 75–77, 91 environmental, 15, 20 Tax liability, 20, 24
Pareto optimality, 16, 31 Relationship-based culture, 65, 90–93, Teleological explanation. See Explanation,
Parks, S. D., 5 96–97 teleological
Paxil, 66–68 Relocation, plant, 20 Television, 43, 84
Peace Corps, 57 Reporting fraud, 49, 94–95 Temptation. See Marketing,
Performance evaluation, 40, 43, 49, 51, 57 Reporting incompetence, 49, 57 and temptation
Perry, W. G., 5 Reputation, 17, 40, 43, 47, 54, 56, 60, 65 Theft, 7–8, 10, 12, 18, 22, 82–83
Petroecuador, 77 Restaurant industry, 67, 74–75 shoplifting, 7–8, 12, 48
Petroleum industry. See “Green” Oil Retrocession, 84 ungeneralizability of, 18, 22
strategy, Conoco Revenue management, 59–60 Theory of Moral Sentiments, 4
104 Index
Trade secret, 35 for layoffs, 26 and accounting, 23, 61

Transparency, 90, 95 for loyalty to customers, 46–47, 53 and compensation, 73
Trust, 21, 58, 63, 70–71, 83, 90–93 for marketing of pharmaceuticals, 39, conflict with generalization
Turkey, 96, 100 66–67 test, 22, 37, 47
for obedience, 40–41 and environmentalism, 79–80
U for pollution, 78 and family, 41
Unilever, 34–35 for product safety, 38, 62 and financial analysis, 23
Universalism, 90, 99 for reporting fraud, 49 and honesty, 23, 41, 65
U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, 97 for smoking ban, 42 and human nature, 99
Utilitarian test, 6, 16, 60 for subprime lending, 69 and income smoothing, 61
for accepting gifts, 50 for temptation, 68 and labor relations, 63
for advertising, 66–67 Utility, 15, 17 and layoffs, 23
bias toward equality, 33 definition, 15 and marketing, 35
for breach of contract, 17, 36, 48 and the difference principle, 30–31 and negotiation, 65, 73
for brokerage, 37 expected, 17, 27, 36, 49, 53–54, 56, 60, and obedience, 41
clarified, 18 69, 71, 73 and professional obligation, 41, 37
classical, 26 maximizing, 6, 15–16, 18–20, 22, 29, and reporting fraud, 49
for compensation, 72 31–32, 39–40, 42, 52, 54, 61, 66, and sales, 47
conflict with generalizability, 18 71–73, 75–79, 83 and subprime loans, 73
consequentialist, 24 measuring, 16, 25–26 Virtues, 21–22, 37, 65
for deceptive sales, 46–47 Utility function, 26–28, 55, 72 conflict of, 22
deontological, 24 calibrating, 26–28, 32 Volvo, 43, 45
for development aid, 98–99 concave, 26, 29, 36, 69, 72
and distributive justice, 25–28 interpersonal comparability, 28
for espionage, 35 Utility theory, 16, 25–26
W
Wal-Mart, 83–84
for fast food marketing, 75
Wasta, 96–97
for foreclosure, 71 V Wealth of Nations, The, 4, 5
if I don’t do it, someone else will, Vacation policy, 57
Whistle blowing, 45, 49
40–41, 78 Value pluralism, 16
Wilderness, 9, 16, 31
for income smoothing, 60 Veil of ignorance, 29
and indigenous rights, 78 Virtue ethics, 6, 20–24, 31–32, 35–38, 41,
for insider trading, 83 43, 47–51, 53, 56, 61, 63, 65, 73–74, Y
for interviewing, 54 79–80, 82 Yamaichi Securities, 91

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Business Ethics

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

ISBN 10: 0-13-611867-4

Chapter 2 Conditions for Rational Choice 6

Chapter 3 Distributive Justice and Autonomy 25

Chapter 4 Initial Case Studies 34

Chapter 5 MBA Student Dilemmas 46

Chapter 6 Business Case Studies 59

Chapter 7 Cross-Cultural Ethics 89

Chapter 2 CONDITIONS FOR RATIONAL CHOICE 6

Chapter 3 DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE AND AUTONOMY 25

Chapter 4 INITIAL CASE STUDIES 34

Chapter 5 MBA STUDENT DILEMMAS 46

왘 CASE 5.6: Sacrificing the Old for the New 52

Chapter 6 BUSINESS CASE STUDIES 59

Chapter 7 CROSS-CULTURAL ETHICS 89

John Hooker is T. Jerome Holleran Professor of Business Ethics and Social

WHY BUSINESS ETHICS?

DISPELLING THE MYTHS

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

Conditions for Rational Choice

• The generalization test. A rational choice must be generalizable.

THE GENERALIZATION TEST

The Basic Argument

Corollaries of the Generalization Test

Why Acts Must Have Reasons

Identifying the Reasons for an Action

Fiduciary Duty to Stockholders

THE UTILITARIAN TEST

(0.3)($50,000) + (0.7)( - $20,000) = $1,000

Does the End Justify the Means?

Too Much Altruism?

The Role of Self-Interest

Predicting the Consequences

Distributive Justice and Autonomy

Calibrating Utility Functions

u1Q2 = 11 - p2u1100,0002 + pu120,0002 (2)

u1Q12 = 11 - p2u1Q2 + pu1Q22

TABLE 3.1 Data for Exercises 1–4

The Veil of Ignorance

The Difference Principle

Refining the Difference Principle

The Liberty Principle

Initial Case Studies

An Insurance Broker’s Dilemma

Health and Smoking Bans

MBA Student Dilemmas

Being Honest with the Customer

Paying for the Salad Bar

INITIAL ARGUMENTS We might interpret your remarks as an argument that paying $4

The Boss’s Unauthorized Expenses

Accepting Free Tickets

Unauthorized Salary Information

Sacrificing the Old for the New

Interviews after Accepting a Job

Business Case Studies

Nortel and Income Smoothing

Tires and Rollovers

The Bullard Houses