Business ethics week 6 in-class activity
Cooper2021
6-1.pptxBusiness Ethics Summer 2022 (1) Week 6, Lecture 1
Chaeyoung Paek
In Week 6…
In Week 5, we discussed whether MNCs that manage sweatshops in developing countries harm their workers.
Maitland: Imposing strict regulations on sweatshop labor would harm the workers more.
Arnold & Hartman: Not imposing strict regulations on sweatshop labor harms the workers by violating their basic human rights.
The point of contention is whether the business owners (MNCs) violate the workers’ rights in denying certain regulations to be imposed.
In Week 6…
In Week 6, we turn to a different question: can business owners’ rights be violated by having to serve certain customers or offer certain products? And can business owners violate the customers’ rights in refusing to serve them?
In 2012, Charlie Craig and David Mullins visited Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colorado, to order a cake for their wedding reception.
The owner of the bakery, Jack Philips, explained that he could not create a cake for a same- sex wedding because doing so would violate his religious beliefs; the couple left without further discussing the details.
In Week 6…
This interaction between the couple and the baker had (has?) been in the national spotlight, and the case worked its way up to the Supreme Court.
Did Philips discriminate the couple based on their sexual orientation, thereby violating their rights to be treated with dignity? Was Philips’ freedom of speech and freedom of religion violated by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission?
In today’s class…
We’ll start with the basic facts about what happened at Masterpiece Cakeshop in 2012, and the Supreme Court’s ruling in 2018.
There will be an in-class activity at the end of the class.
Case Overview
For a very brief overview of Jack Philips’ argument, see "A Clash of Cake and Faith", NYTimes Video.
For more detailed overview of the Supreme Court’s decision, read Adam Liptak, “In Narrow Decision, Supreme Court Sides With Baker Who Turned Away Gay Couple”, NYT.
Case Overview
Charlie Craig and David Mullins went to Masterpiece Cakeshop in July 2012, asking the owner, Jack Phillips, to design and create a cake for their upcoming wedding.
Phillips refused to design and create a cake for them, on the grounds that doing so violated his religious beliefs.
Craig and Mullins filed charges of discrimination with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The couple argued they had been discriminated against because of their sexual orientation.
Some ethical questions
Q1. Does the baker wrongly discriminate against gay couples when he refuses to make wedding cakes for gay couples?
Q2. Does requiring the baker to either (a) make wedding cake for couples regardless of their sexual orientation or (b) not make wedding cakes at all violate the baker’s right to free speech or free religious exercise?
Exercise:
Click ”6-1 In-class Activity” below the lecture video.
Click “Write Submission”; fill in your answers & click “Submit.”
This should take about 5 minutes, but feel free to take more/less time as needed.
Supreme Court’s ruling
In June 2018, the Court ruled in favor of Masterpiece Cakeshop, and Jack Phillips, on the grounds that the Colorado Civil Rights Commissions behavior violated Phillips’ free exercise rights.
The Court determined that in its handling of the case, the Colorado Civil Rights Commission demonstrated anti-religious bias towards Phillips.
Justice Kennedy delivering the opinion of the Court
“On July 25, 2014, the Commission met again. This meeting, too, was conducted in public and on the record. On this occasion another commissioner made specific reference to the previous meeting’s discussion but said far more to disparage Phillips’ beliefs. The commissioner stated:
“I would also like to reiterate what we said in the hearing or the last meeting. Freedom of religion and religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the holocaust, whether it be—I mean, we—we can list hundreds of situations where freedom of religion has been used to justify discrimination. And to me it is one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use to—to use their religion to hurt others.” Tr. 11–12.
Justice Kennedy delivering the opinion of the Court
“To describe a man’s faith as “one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use” is to disparage his religion in at least two distinct ways: by describing it as despicable, and also by characterizing it as merely rhetorical—something insubstantial and even insincere. The commissioner even went so far as to compare Phillips’ invocation of his sincerely held religious beliefs to defenses of slavery and the Holocaust. This sentiment is inappropriate for a Commission charged with the solemn responsibility of fair and neutral enforcement of Colorado’s antidiscrimination law—a law that protects discrimination on the basis of religion as well as sexual orientation.”
On Supreme Court’s ruling
Many believe that this particular ruling from the Supreme Court would not be able to set any precedent.
It seems that the ruling was based on how Philips was treated by the Colorado Civil Rights Commissions.
In focusing on the interaction between Philips and the commissioners, the ruling fails to address the important questions: did Philips wrongly discriminate the couple? Was Philips’ right to exercise his religion and to freedom of speech violated?
Before we look at what philosophers/attorneys think about this case, let’s discuss what we think about these questions!
Cf. Is this still relevant?
For the next class…
We’ll see how Jack Philips defended his position and what Jim Campbell says in defense of Philips.
We’ll reconstruct Phillips’ informal argument & see whether we should accept his argument.
In the last class, we’ll see John Corvino’s argument against Phillips.
Read Jim Campbell, "The Supreme Court puts a baker's business—and artistic freedom—on the line", Washington Post.
