Business Ethic Paper!!!
Maoxiaoying
friedman.pptxBusiness Ethics
Shareholder theory
Reading and Evaluating Arguments
You can’t evaluate someone’s argument if you don’t understand it.
Argument Structure
Main Claim: what the rest of the argument is trying to prove
Argument Structure
Main Claim: what the rest of the argument is trying to prove
Reasons: answer the question of why someone should think that the main claim is true
Argument Structure
Main Claim: what the rest of the argument is trying to prove
Reasons: answer the question of why someone should think that the main claim is true
Evidence: things like facts, statistics, examples, texts, and intuitions that are presented in order to show that the reasons are true
Evaluating an Argument
There are two main questions we want to ask when assessing the quality of an argument:
Evaluating an Argument
There are two main questions we want to ask when assessing the quality of an argument:
1. If we assume that the reasons given are true, does the main claim follow?
Evaluating an Argument
There are two main questions we want to ask when assessing the quality of an argument:
1. If we assume that the reasons given are true, does the main claim follow?
2. Are the reasons actually true?
Other Considerations When Evaluating an Argument
1. Is the author fair to opponents of their view?
Other Considerations When Evaluating an Argument
1. Is the author fair to opponents of their view?
2. Is the argument clear and consistent?
Other Considerations When Evaluating an Argument
1. Is the author fair to opponents of their view?
2. Is the argument clear and consistent?
3. What assumptions does the author make? Are these assumptions contested?
Friedman’s Argument
Friedman’s view is called shareholder theory because he thinks that businesses are primarily responsible to shareholders.
Friedman’s Main Claim
Friedman’s Main Claim
Businesses do not have any social responsibilities other than increasing profits for their owners and stockholders.
Reason 1
Reason 1
Assigning social responsibilities to businesses violates the actual responsibilities of corporate executives.
Reason 1
Assigning social responsibilities to businesses violates the actual responsibilities of corporate executives.
Corporate executives are directly responsible to the owners of the corporation and must carry out their desires.
Reason 1
Assigning social responsibilities to businesses violates the actual responsibilities of corporate executives.
Corporate executives are directly responsible to the owners of the corporation and must carry out their desires.
These desires are generally to “make as much money as possible while conforming to their basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom” (1).
Reason 1
Assigning social responsibilities to businesses violates the actual responsibilities of corporate executives.
Corporate executives are directly responsible to the owners of the corporation and must carry out their desires.
These desires are generally to “make as much money as possible while conforming to their basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom” (1).
For corporate executives to act to further social ends, they would have to act in a way that does not do this, thus violating this responsibility.
Evidence for Reason 1
Evidence for Reason 1
The executive is an employee of the owners of the corporation and has entered into a voluntary contractual agreement to act on behalf of their interests.
Evidence for Reason 1
The executive is an employee of the owners of the corporation and has entered into a voluntary contractual agreement to act on behalf of their interests.
She is no longer acting as an individual, based on her own desires, but as an agent of the corporation, bound to carry out the desires of her employer.
As an individual, she is free to use her own resources to support any cause she pleases, but as an employee, she is contractually obligated to use her employer’s resources in the way they choose.
Reason 2
Reason 2
Assigning social responsibilities to businesses violates the rights of other groups involved in the business, such as stockholders, employees, and consumers.
Reason 2
Assigning social responsibilities to businesses violates the rights of other groups involved in the business, such as stockholders, employees, and consumers.
Corporate executives would be spending other people’s money (whether that of owners, stockholders, employees, or customers) for a general social interest without those people being able to have input.
Reason 2
Assigning social responsibilities to businesses violates the rights of other groups involved in the business, such as stockholders, employees, and consumers.
Corporate executives would be spending other people’s money (whether that of owners, stockholders, employees, or customers) for a general social interest without those people being able to have input.
This is akin to taxation without representation.
Evidence for Reason 2
Evidence for Reason 2
If the executive’s socially responsible actions decrease the owners’ profits, returns to stockholders, and wages for employees, and raise prices for customers, she is essentially spending their money.
Evidence for Reason 2
If the executive’s socially responsible actions decrease the owners’ profits, returns to stockholders, and wages for employees, and raise prices for customers, she is essentially spending their money.
These groups could have spent their own money on these causes if they wished, but the executive spent it for them even if they wouldn’t have chosen to spend it that way.
Evidence for Reason 2
If the executive’s socially responsible actions decrease the owners’ profits, returns to stockholders, and wages for employees, and raise prices for customers, she is essentially spending their money.
These groups could have spent their own money on these causes if they wished, but the executive spent it for them even if they wouldn’t have chosen to spend it that way.
This violates their rights to use their own resources as they see fit.
Reason 3
Reason 3
Assigning social responsibilities to businesses blends the roles of the private and public sector in a harmful way.
Reason 3
Assigning social responsibilities to businesses blends the roles of the private and public sector in a harmful way.
Executives are essentially performing a function normally reserved for governments (imposing taxes and deciding how these taxes are spent) without being voted into office by those affected. You are using undemocratic means to attain social ends.
Reason 3
Assigning social responsibilities to businesses blends the roles of the private and public sector in a harmful way.
Executives are essentially performing a function normally reserved for governments (imposing taxes and deciding how these taxes are spent) without being voted into office by those affected. You are using undemocratic means to attain social ends.
Giving businesses social responsibilities also extends the reach of the political realm into areas that are better off being controlled by the market.
Evidence for Reason 3
Evidence for Reason 3
If what you want to achieve is so good, you should be able to get it democratically. Would we want people with evil motives to be able to skirt democratic processes?
Evidence for Reason 3
If what you want to achieve is so good, you should be able to get it democratically. Would we want people with evil motives to be able to skirt democratic processes?
Free markets support private property and mutually beneficial voluntary cooperation, and avoids coercion. Political organizations force individuals to conform and serve the general social interest even if they don’t want to. We can’t have a free society if everyone has to consider general social interests in all of their activities.
