Nien-hê Hsieh

Equality, Clumpiness and Incomparability

The incomparability of two items is thought to pose a problem for making justified choices and for consequentialist theories that rely on comparing states of the world to judge the goodness of a particular course of action. In response, it has been argued that items thought incomparable by one of the three standard relations, ‘better than’, ‘worse than’ and ‘equally good’, are instead comparable by some fourth relation, such as ‘roughly equal’ or ‘on a par’. Against such accounts, this article argues that values in virtue of which comparisons are made can be ‘clumpy’ and that in comparisons involving clumpy values, we have no reason to accept ‘roughly equal’ or ‘on a par’ as distinct from ‘equally good’. The article supports the possibility of incomparability by arguing for an interpretation of incomparability as an instance of incommensurability.

Moral Desert, Fairness and Legitimate Expectations in the Market

Do people morally deserve what they earn in the market? More specifically, can people legitimately claim to deserve what they earn in the market in a way that counts against redistributing those earnings? As most liberal political philosophers do, I argue that the answer is no. Unlike many of these philosophers, however, I do not focus on whether or not people can be deserving. Instead, I focus on the relationship between social institutions and moral desert, and advance two claims. First, in the market, desert claims are undermined by the very nature of the market even if people can be deserving in general. Second, part of the intuition that motivates accounts of moral desert may be explained instead with reference to a principle of fairness that demands the fulfillment of peoples legitimate expectations as to what they will receive, and this principle places much weaker restrictions on redistributive policies than do claims of moral desert.

Should Business Have Human Rights Obligations

Focusing on the case of multinational enterprises (MNEs), this article argues we have reason to reject assigning human rights obligations to business enterprises and their managers. The article begins by distinguishing business and human rights from the more general topic of corporate responsibility. Following Buchanan (2013), the article takes the ideal of status egalitarianism to be central to human rights. Status egalitarianism holds that all members of society stand as moral equals in relation to one another and that the state has a duty to recognize and protect that equal standing both in its dealings with citizens and in their dealings with one another. To assign human rights obligations to MNEs and their managers risks undermining this ideal. The article situates this argument in relation to the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework by discussing the way in which MNEs can be complicit in state failures to protect citizens.

Justice, management, and governance

Purpose – The object of this paper is to examine the debate in business ethics over extending insights from political philosophy (e.g. theories of distributive justice) to address questions about the management and governance of economic enterprises.Design/methodology/approach – The paper engages in a philosophical argument.Findings – Even if justice does not matter in a direct manner for questions about economic enterprises, current debate overlooks the possibility that justice matters in an indirect manner for questions about the management and governance of economic enterprises. The paper illustrates two ways in which justice matters for such questions. The first concerns the promotion of stakeholder interests by multinational corporations. The second concerns the claims of workers to participate in the governance of economic enterprises.Originality/value – The paper is offered as a contribution to the literature on normative theories of managerial responsibility and corporate governance.

IS INCOMPARABILITY A PROBLEM FOR ANYONE

The incomparability of alternatives is thought to pose a problem for justified choice, particularly for proponents of comparativism – the view that comparative facts about alternatives determine what one rationally ought to choose. As a solution, it has been argued that alternatives judged incomparable by one of the three standard comparative relations, “better than,” “worse than,” and “equally good,” are comparable by some fourth relation, such as “roughly equal” or “on a par.” This solution, however, comes at what many would regard as too high a cost – namely, rejection of the transitivity of the relation “at least as good as.” In this paper, I argue that proponents of comparativism need not incur this cost. I defend the possibility of justified choice between incomparable alternatives on grounds that comparativists can accept. The possibility of incomparability has been met with resistance, in part because of the intuitive appeal of comparativism. By defending the possibility of justified choice between incomparable alternatives on grounds that comparativists can accept, this paper supports further inquiry into the subject of incomparability.

Pairwise comparison and numbers skepticism

In this article, we defend pairwise comparison as a method to resolve conflicting claims from different people that cannot be jointly satisfied because of a scarcity of resources. We consider Michael Otsukas recent challenge that pairwise comparison leads to intransitive choices for the ‘numbers skeptic’ (someone who believes the numbers should not count in forced choices among lives) and Frances Kamms responses to Otsukas challenge. We argue that Kamms responses do not succeed, but that the threat they are designed to meet is illusory. Once the method of pairwise comparison is understood in a manner consistent with its proposed use, the challenge disappears. In making this argument, we examine questions about the interpretation of pairwise comparison and maintain that it must be understood as a method for ensuring that decisions are justifiable from the perspective of each affected individual.

The conspicuous absence of examination questions concerning the Great Irish Famine: political economy as science and ideology *

To advance our general understanding about the development of nine-teenth-century Irish political economy in the wake of the Great Irish Famine (1846-51), this article analyses the Famines impact on a previously unstudied, yet uniquely authoritative, element of the displine: the questions given to candidates for the Whately Professorship of Political Economy at Trinity College, Dublin from 1832 to 1882. This article concludes, contrary to previous arguments, that the Famine did not fundamentaly influence the disciplines development, and relates this conclusion to debates over whether and how political economy functioned as an ideology in shaping policy responses to the Famine.