Distributive Justice As A Basis For Ethics Courses
Distributive Justice as a Basis for Ethics Courses
David M. Furman
Assistant Professor of Marketing
School of Business
Clayton State University
2000 Clayton State Blvd.
Morrow, Georgia 30260-0285
678-466-4550
Lawrence Menter
Visiting Professor of Business Law
School of Business
Clayton State University
With public scrutiny of corporate ethical lapses, there has been a renewed call for more ethical course content, to say nothing of courses dealing strictly with ethical issues in business, particularly at the undergraduate level. However, beyond the golden rule, what will be the basis for these efforts? The suggestion here is that the concept of distributive justice should form the basis for these courses, as well as for any discussion of corporate wrongdoing.
Distributive Justice as a Basis for Ethics Courses
The concept of justice has interested social psychologists as well as ethicists for some time. The concept is an elusive one. When asked, most people would agree that the establishment of justice is a desirable societal end. Perhaps due to the seemingly ongoing episodes of corporate governance and malfeasance issues, there has been a renewed effort on the part of many business schools to emphasize ethics as a learning outcome of course in all business disciplines. Whereas the concept used to be the province of marketing courses, the accounting departments have now stepped up their emphasis on ethical issues.
But beyond that, what are these courses saying should be the moral touchstone of these efforts? The suggestion here, is that the concept of distributive justice should form the basis of these efforts. However, there might be some disagreement over the exact definition of that term. More than that, because of its broad implications, the meaning of justice itself is often hazy.
According to the dictionary, in its basic form, justice is defined as "the maintenance or administration of what is just especially by the impartial adjustment of pending claims and the assignment of merited rewards or punishments” (G. & C. Merriam, p. 628). Social psychologists have focused on the latter portion of this definition.
Homans (1982, p. xii) proposed three main rules of administrative justice. These rules are often in competition with each other, “and which one people will apply or what compromise they will reach between them depends on the persons and the goods and on other circumstances.”
Homans’ first rule was the rule of distribution according to need. The rule states that of two or more persons who need a good in short supply, the one who needs it most should receive it.
Homans’ second rule was the rule of proportionality: “the proposition that one person’s or group’s contribution bear to another’s should equal the proportion the former’s reward bears to the latter’s” (p. xii). Homans argued that this second rule was the most relevant, specifically proportionality between characteristics and outcomes. He examined two different types of contributions; first, those the person contributes immediately and second, those that have been acquired from past history or even from being the kind of person he or she is in terms of such characteristics as seniority, sex, race, and ethnic group.
The final administrative justice rule proposed by Homans was the rule of equality; that “all persons, or at least all persons of a certain class, should be rewarded equally (p. xiv).”
Homans believed that observers must agree on three things to agree on a perception of justice: the rule of justice, the legitimacy of the kinds of recipient characteristics and receipts to be taken into account in applying the rule, and the assessments of those characteristics and receipts. Cohen (1982, p. 119-120) argued that individuals must also agree on the cause and responsibility to be assigned for the characteristics of recipient units.
Ross (1980, p. 31) found a parallel between Homan’s views and those which Max Weber identified in 1904 as a precondition for the rise of capitalism. Ross noted that these views were consistent with those philosophical positions that have emphasized the concepts of personal responsibility and free will.
Leventhal, Karuza, and Fry (1980, pp. 170-171) set forth a theory of allocation preferences inherent in social systems. They identified seven procedural components that shaped the distribution of rewards and resources in a well-structured social system. These include:
1) The selection of agents who make decisions, collect information, or safeguard the allocation process.
2) Establishing ground rules for the distribution.
3) Gathering information to be used in the allocation decision.
4) Decision-making, the actual decision process by which rewards and resources are distributed.
5) Safeguards to ensure that agents who administer the allocation process are performing their duties properly.
6) Some form of grievance or appeal procedures.
7) A mechanism for changing allocation procedure.
Leventhal, Karuza, and Fry (1980, p. 194) identified two aspects of fairness judgments: cognitive and motivational. They defined cognitive as referring to the fact that judgments of fairness involve contrasting an existing situation to an abstract standard or rule. The motivational aspect refers to the fact that “judgments of fairness do not occur unless the individual is motivated to make them.”
Leventhal, Karuza, and Fry (1980, p. 196) also defined procedural rules concerning the distribution of rewards or resources as “the individual’s belief that fairness exists when allocated procedures satisfy certain criteria. These criteria may involve the consistency rule which is a standard procedure that requires allocated procedures to be the same for different persons and consistent over time.”
Leventhal, Karuza, and Fry found that people were most likely to pursue a goal of fairness in distribution when the role demands emphasized fairness, when other goals were of minimal importance, when current distributions were blatantly unfair, and when the social system was pluralistic rather than monolithic.
Rescher (1966, p. 8) identified the principle of utility as the basis for distributive justice. “We shall base our inquiry into the principle of distributive justice upon an investigation of the doctrine of utilitarianism. This doctrine is founded upon the principle of utility, which asserts that utility (or, if you wish, simply the good things of this life) should be distributed according to the rule of the greatest good of the greatest number.”
Both Barry (1989) and Rawls emphasized the importance of impartiality in distributive justice. Sociologists examining other aspects of justice have examined Rawls’ classic work, A Theory of Justice. Rawls believed that for a distributive justice system to be fairer, the choice of a specific rule must be made behind a “veil of ignorance,” so that no one would know how each rule of distribution would apply to them. This would prevent bias to favor a particular rule. Rawls (1971, p. 83) argues that only an allocation of resources, which maximizes the index of primary goods going to the worst-off group, would be fair. Reis (1986) believes that Rawls’ theory in this area (determining value and assessing and entitling inputs) is of significant importance in the theory and practice of justice. The aforementioned “veil of ignorance” is of paramount importance in the practice of justice, preventing imbalances in distribution caused by privilege, position, or power.
Rawls also has his critics. Roemer (1966, pp. 172-173) is critical of Rawls’ criteria for fairness. Roemer is uncomfortable with Rawls’ basing his theory upon the distribution of primary goods instead of focusing on emotions such as happiness. Roemer feels that if Rawls is going to use a concept of morality, it must be grounded in emotional terms rather than tangible goods.
Brian Barry believes that Rawls views everything as morally arbitrary. Barry (1966, pp. 146, 148) views social justice as based on the basic structure of a society. He defines the structure as “made up of the institutions that together determine the access (or chances of access) of the members of a society to resources that are the means to the satisfaction of a wide variety of issues. These resources can be grouped under three headings: power, status, and money.” Furthermore, according to Barry, Rawls and Hume both agree that justice represents the terms of rational cooperation for mutual advantage under the circumstances of justice.
Reis (1986, p. 199-201) defines the justice motive as the “desire that justice be done.” He compiled a list of 17 principles derived from folklore, law, history, philosophy, and social psychology. Each principle identifies a specific recipe for the distribution of outcomes in distributive justice. Two are of particular interest here. Rule No. 10: ”People are responsible for living up to the moral principles of any groups to which they voluntarily belong,” and rule No. 11: “One should do good things for other people for its own sake, irrespective of what they might receive in return.”
Morton Deutsch (p. 142) conceptualizes his view of distributive justice to include its psychological, physiological, economic, and social aspects. To Deutsch, the concept of justice is concerned with “the distribution of the conditions and goods which affect the well-being of the individual members of a group or community. The essential values of justice are those values that foster effective social cooperation to promote individual well being.[1]
There is room for debate on one’s personal view of this concept. But whatever one’s view, distributive justice is commonly viewed as the basis for justice in American society. This should be the basis for any classroom discussions concerning ethics. It is the job of each faculty member, to insure that his or her students have a strong philosophical grounding in this area. Students who have been exposed to this, hopefully will continue to use this as a basis for decision making long after they have exited the classroom.
References
Barry, Brian. 1989. Theories of Justice. Berkeley: University of California.
Cohen, Ronald L. “Perceiving Justice: An Attributional Perspective.” Equity and Justice in Social Behavior, pp. 119, 120.
Deutsch, Morton. “Equity, Equality, and Need: What Determines Which Value Will Be Used as the Basis for Distributive Justice?” Journal of Social Issues 31: 142.
G. & C. Merriam Company. 1973. New Collegiate Dictionary. Springfield. Page 628.
Hegtvedt, Karen A. and Barry Markovsky. “Justice and Injustice.” 1995. Sociological Perspectives on Social Psychology.
Homans, George C. 1982. “Foreword.” Equity and Justice in social Behavior, edited by Jerald Greenberg and Ronald L. Cohen. New York: Academic. Page xii.
Leventhal, Gerald S., Jurgis Karuza. Jr., and William Rick Fry. “Beyond Fairness: a Theory of Allocation Preferences.” 1980 Justice and Social Interaction- Experimentation and theoretical research from psychological research. Edited by Gerold Mikula. New York: pp. 170-171, 194, 196.
Rawls, John. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge: Belknap Press. Page 83.
Rescher, Nicholas. 1966. Distributive Justice: A Constructive Critique of the Utilitarian Theory of Distribution. Indianapolis. Bobbs-Merrill. Page 8.
Roemer, John. E. 1966. Theories of Distributive Justice. Cambridge. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Pages 172-173.
Ross, Lee and Richard Nisbett. 1980. Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment. Englewood Cliffs. Prentice-Hall. Page 31.