RT Article
T1 Justice Failure: Efficiency and Equality in Business Ethics
JF Journal of business ethics
VO 149
IS 1
SP 97
OP 115
A1 Singer, Abraham
LA English
PB Springer Science + Business Media B. V
YR 2018
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/178566428X
AB This paper offers the concept of “justice failure,” as a counterpart to the familiar idea of market failure, in order to better understand managers’ ethical obligations. This paper takes the “market failures approach” (MFA) to business ethics as its point of departure. The success of the MFA, I argue, lies in its close proximity with economic theory, particularly in the idea that, within a larger scheme of social cooperation, markets ought to pursue efficiency and leave the pursuit of equality to the welfare state. As a result, the core ethical responsibility of business actors is to avoid profiting off of market failure. After reviewing this approach I challenge its emphasis on efficiency. I argue that just as we note the suboptimal efficiency of actual markets (market failure), we should also take seriously the suboptimal equality of actual welfare states (what I call “justice failure”). Taking this idea seriously results in a whole other set of ethical responsibilities for businesses to take into account; in addition to market imperfections and regulatory lacunae, managers should also avoid profiting from, and exacerbating, structural inequalities and injustices. I offer an outline of the kinds of injustices and inequalities that would have bearing on business ethics, and the kinds of ethical responsibilities that this approach suggests that business actors should take into account.
K1 Corporate political activities
K1 Affirmative Action
K1 Corporate Social Responsibility
K1 Efficiency and Equality
K1 Social Justice
K1 Market failures
DO 10.1007/s10551-016-3086-x