Joseph Heath | University of Toronto (original) (raw)

Papers by Joseph Heath

Public Affairs Quarterly, 2022

One of the most important themes in recent thinking about racial justice has been a shift in emph... more One of the most important themes in recent thinking about racial justice has been a shift in emphasis away from the traditional issue of racial discrimination, toward an exploration of the various forms of privilege that dominant groups enjoy. Many of the privileges that whites have been encouraged to explore, however, do not stem directly from their racial identity, but rather from the fact that they belong the majority demographic group. Describing these benefits as a “privilege” is often intended to suggest that there is something objectionable or unjust about them. On closer examination, that claim turns out to be extremely controversial. This paper examines some of the major arguments that have been made by egalitarian philosophers on this question, before concluding with a few take-away lessons for issues of pedagogy and racial justice.

A conspiracy theory, in the pejorative sense of the term, is an irrationally held belief that pur... more A conspiracy theory, in the pejorative sense of the term, is an irrationally held belief that purports to explain a series of worldly events by positing a hidden mechanism that promotes some nefarious purpose. In recent years, many critical theorists have been troubled by the suggestion that the “hermeneutics of suspicion” that they bring to bear upon various social phenomena encourages the formation of explanatory theories that have the same structure, and thus may exhibit the same flaws in reasoning. If one sets aside the requirement that the hidden mechanism posited must involve intentional pursuit of the nefarious purpose (i.e. a literal conspiracy), the question then becomes how the two can be distinguished. This paper argues that critical theorists should respond to this challenge, not by denying the concern, but rather by articulating a set of methodological best practices that “applied” critical theory should respect. This will involve the avoidance, or at least cautious employment, of a set of specific doctrines, often endorsed by critical theorists, that carry with them special epistemic risks. These include an insistence on “radical” diagnoses of social problems, widespread attributions of false consciousness, relativistic forms of standpoint epistemology, and finally, conflation of the causal and moral orders in explanation.

Oxford Handbooks Online, 2008

is perhaps best thought of as America's answer to Karl Marx. This is sometimes obscured by the ra... more is perhaps best thought of as America's answer to Karl Marx. This is sometimes obscured by the rather unfortunate title of his most important work, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), which misleading, insofar as it suggests that the book is just a theory of the "leisure class." What the book provides is in fact a perfectly general theory of class, not to mention property, economic development, and social evolution. It is, in other words, a system of theory that rivals Marx's historical materialism with respect to scope, generality and explanatory power. Furthermore, it is a system of theory whose central predictions, with respect to the development of capitalism and the possibilities for emancipatory social change, have proven to be essentially correct. When stacked up against Marx's prognostications, this success clearly provides the basis for what might best be described as an invidious comparison. For example, it is Veblen who, at the close of the 19 th century, observed that "The exigencies of the modern industrial system frequently place individuals and households in juxtaposition between whom there is little contact in any other sense than that of juxtaposition. One's neighbors, mechanically speaking, often are socially not one's neighbors, or even acquaintances; and still their transient good opinion has a high degree of utility... It is evident, therefore, that the present trend of the development is in the direction of heightening the utility of conspicuous consumption as compared with leisure" (1899, ch. 4). One could search long and hard to find a single paragraph in Marx's work that is as prescient, or that reveals a more profound grasp of the underlying dynamics of the capitalist system. Apart from the merits of his general analysis of social class, Veblen also pioneered a style of critical theory, in many ways distinctively American, but in any case quite different from the European traditions that went on to dominate 20 th century intellectual history. Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud became, via the Frankfurt School, the most influential figures in the European stream of critical theory. Veblen, by contrast, initiated a more theoretically parsimonious style of social criticism, which remained a powerful force throughout the same period, and yet was seldom identified as part of a cohesive movement or school of thought. On can see the influence clearly though, in subsequent works of American social criticism ranging from Jane Jacobs' The Life and Death of Great American Cities (1961) to Thomas Frank's The Conquest of Cool (1997). Although Veblen was not himself a pragmatist, he took two of the central ideas that helped shape the pragmatist ethos in America in the late 19 th century-the importance of instrumental action and the evolutionary adaption of social institutions-and showed how they could be developed into a critical theory of society. Veblen's precise relationship with pragmatism has been the subject of considerable debate (Ayres, 1961, 27ff; McFarland 1985; Tilman 1996, 109-141). He studied philosophy at Carlton College (B.A. 1880), Johns Hopkins, and Yale (Ph.D. 1884). After seven years of unemployment, he returned to study economics at Cornell, where he simply showed up one day, "wearing a coonskin cap and corduroy trousers" (Dorfman 1966, 80) and talked his way in. Before graduating, he received a faculty appointment at the University of Chicago, and went on to teach at Stanford University, the University of Missouri, and finally the New School for Social Research. Although he studied briefly with Charles Sanders Pierce at Johns Hopkins, and interacted with John Dewey and George Herbert Mead as colleagues, he always maintained an arms-length relationship to pragmatism. (Indeed, the emphasis that he placed over the years on "idle curiosity" was intended precisely to distance himself from the pragmatist insistence that all knowledge be practical.) His dominant intellectual influences could perhaps best be described as a blend of Herbert Spencer and Edward Bellamy. Nevertheless, his work was sufficiently imbued with the pragmatist ethos that Europeans, including various members of the Frankfurt School, had difficulty seeing the difference (Adorno, 1941; Tilman 1992, 191). This made his work relatively easy to dismiss, on the grounds that

Philosophiques, 2001

Robert Brandom a tenté de déplacer le concept de représentation de sa position de concept explica... more Robert Brandom a tenté de déplacer le concept de représentation de sa position de concept explicatif central en philosophie du langage et de le remplacer par un ensemble de concepts explicatifs dérivés de l'analyse de…

Philosophy <html_ent glyph="@amp;" ascii="&"/> Public Affairs, 2006

There is an idea, extremely common among social contract theorists, that the primary function of ... more There is an idea, extremely common among social contract theorists, that the primary function of social institutions is to secure some form of cooperative benefit. If individuals simply seek to satisfy their own preferences in a narrowly instrumental fashion, they will find themselves embroiled in collective action problems: interactions with an outcome that is worse for everyone involved than some other possible outcome. Thus they have reason to accept some form of constraint over their conduct, in order to achieve this superior, but out-of-equilibrium outcome. A social institution can be defined as a set of norms that codify these constraints. 1 Simplifying somewhat, one can then say that social institutions exist in order to secure gains in Pareto-efficiency. This theory is one that I take to be in large measure correct. 2 My concern, however, is that it tends to be formulated at too high a level of abstraction. By focusing on the structure of the interaction-a structure that is often specified simply in terms of the utility functions of participants-the theory tends to abstract away completely the mechanism through which social benefits are produced. Thus major I would like to thank

Les ateliers de l'éthique, 2000

des services d'édition numérique de documents scientifiques depuis 1998.

Constellations, 1998

In this paper, I would like to discuss two recent attempts to incorporate groupdifferentiated rig... more In this paper, I would like to discuss two recent attempts to incorporate groupdifferentiated rights and entitlements into a broadly liberal conception of distributive justice. The first is John Roemer's "pragmatic theory of responsibility," and the second is Will Kymlicka's defense of minority rights in "multinational" states. 1 Both arguments try to show that egalitarianism, far from requiring a "color-blind" system of institutions and laws that is insensitive to ethnic, linguistic or subcultural differences, may in fact mandate special types of rights, entitlements, or compensatory arrangements for members of minority groups. These proposals are attractive because they attempt to ground these special rights without reference to controversial philosophical doctrines, but merely through appeal to the widely accepted political norm of equality. Furthermore, if either of these arguments were to succeed, it would allow liberals to avoid many of the difficulties that have often led proponents of "the politics of difference" or the "politics of recognition" to adopt an oppositional stance toward more traditional forms of liberalism. 2 Both Roemer and Kymlicka take as their point of departure Ronald Dworkin's resource egalitarianism (which does not recognize group-differentiated entitlements). 3 They both attempt to extend Dworkin's mechanism for compensating those disadvantaged through circumstances beyond their control, in such a way as to license special transfers and entitlements for minority cultures. They disagree, however, on how this should be done. Roemer argues that the preference pattern induced through membership in a minority culture may prove disadvantageous, and so form the basis of a legitimate claim for compensation. Kymlicka takes a slightly narrower view. He claims that agents should be held responsible for their own preference pattern, but they cannot be held responsible for how many others share the same pattern. In cases where having a certain culturally induced preference pattern results in disadvantage by virtue of the fact that it is not widely shared, agents have a legitimate claim to compensation. Both of these proposals have problems-cases where they appear to conflict with our intuitions about justice and desert. I would like to show, using some examples of this type, that when these systems of group-differentiated entitlements appear plausible, it is because we have some respect for the value system underlying the problematic preference pattern. This suggests that the attempt to avoid directly evaluating the preferences that leave members of minority cultures systematically disadvantaged in the larger society is unlikely to succeed. I will

Business Ethics Quarterly, 2009

ABSTRACT: The use of agency theory remains highly controversial among business ethicists. While s... more ABSTRACT: The use of agency theory remains highly controversial among business ethicists. While some regard it as an essential tool for analyzing and understanding the recent spate of corporate ethics scandals, others argue that these scandals might not even have ...

Business Ethics Quarterly, 2010

They say that one should never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by stup... more They say that one should never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity. And while this is no doubt a sound heuristic, when it comes to navigating the shoals of human affairs, many commentators on the 2008 financial crisis seem to have been making overly generous use of it. My goal in this paper is to contribute to the construction of a somewhat charitable account of the financial crisis, one that acknowledges that genuine errors were made in the run-up to the crisis, but that stops short of attributing obvious or self-evident mistakes – much less outright stupidity – to the major players. In particular, I would like to focus on a widespread error in the understanding of markets – that arises even in some textbook treatments – which I have referred to elsewhere as “catallactic bias.” I will argue that this error played a role in informing some of the poor decisions taken by both bankers and regulators. The bias in question involves a tendency to account for the benefits of all economic transactions on the model of the gain from trade achieved in a classic exchange relation. This gives rise to a fundamental misunderstanding of how insurance systems work, which in turn can lead to a failure to appreciate the full threat that correlation risk poses to the value of certain financial instruments. Such an analysis is able to explain why many people – first and foremost, Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan – could have believed, in good faith, that the proliferation of derivative contracts that occurred in the run-up to the crisis was increasing the stability of the financial system, when in fact it was making it more fragile.

Medical ethics has become an important and recognized component of physician training. There is o... more Medical ethics has become an important and recognized component of physician training. There is one area, however, in which medical students receive very little guidance. At most universities, the medical school curriculum contains no discussion of the financial side of medical practice at all. Specifically, students are given no guidance when it comes to thinking about how their professional obligations as doctors should govern their behaviour when charging for their services. My objective in this paper is to initiate a discussion about the moral dimension of physician billing practices. What I would like to suggest is that physicians should expand their conception of professional responsibility, in order to recognize that their moral obligations toward patients include a commitment to honest and forthright billing practices. I will argue that, as individuals, physicians should aspire to a standard of clinical accuracy – not legal adequacy – in describing their activities. More generally, physicians should think of themselves as exercising stewardship over health care resources. As a group, they should strive to promote an integrity-based culture, first and foremost by stigmatizing rather than celebrating creative billing practices, as well as condemning the misguided sense of solidarity that currently makes it taboo for physicians to criticize each other on this score. Beyond this, I will end with a set of modest proposals for institutional reform, all aimed at reinforcing an integrity-based approach to billing.

Alcohol intoxication is a major source of antisocial behaviour in our society, strongly implicat... more Alcohol intoxication is a major source of antisocial behaviour in our society, strongly implicated in various forms of interpersonal aggression. Yet moral philosophers have paid surprisingly little attention to the literature on alcohol and its effects. In part this is because philosophers who have adopted a more empirically-informed approach to moral psychology have gravitated toward moral sentimentalism, while the literature on alcohol intoxication fits very poorly with the sentimentalist account. Most contemporary research on the psychological effects of alcohol is focused upon variants of the “disinhibition” theory, which suggests that alcohol does not provoke any specific affect, it merely weakens executive control. This research, we argue, lends support to a deontic moral psychology, which identifies our ability to suppress behavioural impulses as a central feature of moral agency.

The past few decades have seen an expansion in the use of cost-benefit analysis as a tool for pol... more The past few decades have seen an expansion in the use of cost-benefit analysis as a tool for policy evaluation in the public sector. This slow, steady creep has been a source of consternation to many philosophers and political theorists, who are inclined to view cost-benefit analysis as simply a variant of utilitarianism, and consider utilitarianism to be completely unacceptable as a public philosophy. I attempt to show that this impression is misleading. Despite the fact that when construed narrowly, cost-benefit analysis does look a lot like utilitarianism, when seen in its broader context, in the way that it is applied, and the type of problems to which it is applied, it is better understood as an attempt by the state to avoid taking sides with respect to various controversial conceptions of the good.

The number of occasions on which economists and politicians actively solicit the opinion of moral... more The number of occasions on which economists and politicians actively solicit the opinion of moral philosophers in order to help decide controversial policy questions are relatively few. The problem of global climate change is one of those rare instances. The need for philosophical guidance is due to the temporal structure of the problem, which generates something of a conundrum. While some action must be taken in the near term, in order to avoid a harmful rise in global temperatures, the significant benefits of any policy adopted will be realized only in about a century. 1 As a result, the way that we trade off present against future benefits almost completely outweighs any other consideration in deciding what sort of action should be taken now. 2 Governments, when considering major public infrastructure investments, typically discount the stream of future benefits at an "off the shelf" rate of about 5%. This is plausible primarily because of the 20 to 30 year planning horizon that is appropriate to such projects. But because of compounding, extending the same framework to a 100-year horizon generates recommendations that are dramatically different -indeed, it suggests that we should adopt a fairly complacent attitude toward the entire problem of climate change.

One of the central and most attractive features of contemporary social contract theory is the ide... more One of the central and most attractive features of contemporary social contract theory is the idea that principles of justice exist in order to divide up the "benefits and burdens of cooperation." There are many circumstances in which individuals are able to engage in mutually beneficial interaction, but on the condition that each exercise some restraint in the pursuit of his or her individual interest. Thus the situation calls for a measure of voluntary self-restraint, which each individual must (by and large and in general) be persuaded to undertake. The structure of the interaction, however, underdetermines the choice problem, in the sense that there are many different cooperative arrangements, each of which involves a different allocation of the burdens and benefits, but all of which are mutually beneficial.

Public Affairs Quarterly, 2022

Oxford Handbooks Online, 2008

Philosophiques, 2001

Philosophy <html_ent glyph="@amp;" ascii="&"/> Public Affairs, 2006

Les ateliers de l'éthique, 2000

des services d'édition numérique de documents scientifiques depuis 1998.

Constellations, 1998

Business Ethics Quarterly, 2009

Business Ethics Quarterly, 2010

The harm-reduction approach to policy is most familiar from debates over public health and drug a... more The harm-reduction approach to policy is most familiar from debates over public health and drug abuse, but as Daniel Weinstock and Shannon Dea have recently argued, it provides a perfectly general framework for thinking about normative aspects of policy in non-ideal contexts. This paper seeks to apply a generalized harm reduction approach to the problem of attitudinal racism. The emerging consensus among social psychologists is that racism is potentiated by a set of ubiquitous, enduring psychological dispositions. This suggests that, while its incidence and impact can be significantly reduced, it is unlikely to be completely eradicated, as a result of which a zero-tolerance approach risks becoming both counterproductive and overly punitive. The appropriate policy objective, I will argue, is one of harm reduction, which involves minimization of prevalence with respect to the primary phenomenon combined with attenuation of impact for the ineliminable portion. After describing the basic principles of the approach, I will outline the specific policy implications it has for minimizing the harms caused by attitudinal racism.

It has sometimes been suggested that, just as there are no atheists in foxholes, there are no deo... more It has sometimes been suggested that, just as there are no atheists in foxholes, there are no deontologists in the field of policy studies. Political philosophers often articulate their normative commitments in terms of "a system of rights" or a set of "principles of justice," the elements of which are each supposed to serve as binding constraints on state action. And yet when one turns to questions of implementation-to figure out how these abstract commitments can be honored in real life-the inevitability of tradeoffs becomes increasingly unavoidable. Just as no military plan survives first contact with the enemy, no theory of justice survives the imposition of a budget constraint. While two principles, x and y, may seem mandatory and essential, if resources are insufficient to achieve complete satisfaction of both, then the question necessarily becomes one of how much satisfaction of x one is willing to sacrifice in order to achieve more of y, and vice versa. Consequentialists, of course, employ a deliberative apparatus that is well-suited to answering such questions. Deontologists generally do not. As a result, many have found that serious engagement with policy questions generates a slow, steady pressure in the direction of consequentialism. Deontological theorists are, however, not without recourse. 1 The centrepiece of their response to this problem has been to introduce a distinction between ideal and non-ideal theory, where principles developed at the level of ideal theory are assessed under the assumption of full compliance, whereas principles developed at the level of non-ideal theory are assessed under the more realistic assumption that not everyone is going to comply all the time with the obligations specified by the first set of principles. 2 For convenience, we may refer to the former as "first-best" principles, the latter as "secondbest" principles. Perhaps the most obvious difference between the two levels will be that second-best principles will typically include a theory of punishment, whereas first-best principles will not (because ideally everyone will always act as they are supposed to). 3 So at the first-best level, one may specify that no one should ever perform actions of type x. The question then arises of what should happen to those who defy the prohibition and do it anyway. The most commonly held view is that they should be punished for the transgression. A set of second-best principles will then be elaborated that constrains the practice of punishment (such as a principle of proportionality, which specifies the severity). It is important to observe, however, that the same basic problem can recur. What happens if people do not respond to the threat of punishment, or even the punishment itself, as expected? This arguably creates an even-less-ideal context, requiring the specification of set of third-best principles. 1 I use the term "deontological" very broadly, to refer to theories that assign priority to "the right" over "the good." For an overview of the key concepts, see Christine Tappolet, "Evaluative vs. Deontic Concepts," in Hugh LaFollette, ed. International Encyclopedia of Ethics (New York: Wiley, 2022): 1791-99. 2 This influential approach was pioneered by John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, rev. edn (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 212-16. 3 The other major component of second-best theory is that it must contain principles for making tradeoffs between firstbest principles, which may not conflict with one another under the assumption of full compliance, but begin to conflict when people misbehave, or require incentive to comply.

A historical account detailing the emergence of critical theory in the work of Marx, the influenc... more A historical account detailing the emergence of critical theory in the work of Marx, the influence of Freud, the Frankfurt School synthesis, and the subsequent development of the intellectual tradition. This the first chapter of a book that I am writing called How to Criticize Society.

While schemes for universal basic income (UBI) are sometimes presented as a way to reduce overall... more While schemes for universal basic income (UBI) are sometimes presented as a way to reduce overall economic inequality, because a UBI would lower the marginal taxation rate of individuals entering the workforce it would have the effect of increasing economic inequality between those who opt out of the workforce and those who choose to participate. The question is what effect an increase in this income gap would have on the perceived adequacy of the UBI payment level. It is well understood that what counts as an income sufficient to ensure a “decent” quality of life is relative, and tends to ratchet up over time. Thus the first question involves the extent to which individuals living on UBI payments will assess the adequacy of their condition by comparing themselves to those who are adjacent to them in the income distribution. If this looms large in their assessment, then the UBI, by increasing inequality within this segment of the income distribution, will tend to increase the perception of its own inadequacy. The second question involves the importance of status effects, and the consumption of positional goods, in determining the adequacy of the UBI. If these are significant, as I believe they are, then again the UBI will be perceived as inadequate, whatever level it is provided at, because those in paid employment will always enjoy a great deal more than those who opt out.

Although an important topic in law and empirical political science, administrative discretion has... more Although an important topic in law and empirical political science, administrative discretion has been relatively neglected in normative political theory. To the extent that it has been discussed, the overall assessment has usually been negative, based on the concern that anything less that direct statutory control of the exercise of state power subverts liberalism (by abolishing the division of powers) or democracy (by undermining democratic accountability). Although acknowledging the force of these concerns, I argue that in most cases the proposed cure is worse than the disease. I defend administrative discretion on two grounds. First, I argue that it is inevitable, not least because attempts to eliminate de jure discretion often just transform it into de facto discretion. Second, I argue that it is often desirable, on a variety of grounds, including the fact that it allows state officials to elicit more cooperative behavior from citizens and organizations. The latter point is illustrated with reference to “responsive regulation,” which is an inherently discretionary approach to regulatory enforcement. I conclude by showing how a non-statutory approach to controlling discretion, one that focuses on the informal workplace culture of the civil service, can control many of the risks associated with administrative discretion, while preserving the benefits.

A major problem for race relations in the U.S., I will suggest, is a lack of agreement among Amer... more A major problem for race relations in the U.S., I will suggest, is a lack of agreement among Americans about what the appropriate end-point of racial integration would be, as a result of which different groups are pursuing incompatible models of integration. This aspect of the problem can be fruitfully analyzed by comparing U.S. integration policies with more successful approaches that have been employed in other nations.
First, there are two well-established models of successful minority integration, which we can refer to following Will Kymlicka as the “polyethnic” and the “multinational” models. With respect to the African-American population, the U.S. has been attempting to pursue elements of both strategies simultaneously, something that is, if not strictly inconsistent, then at least lacking any track record of success. Second, the goal of racial harmony can be specified at either a “macro” or a “micro” level. Some countries, such as Singapore, have focused exclusively on the macro level, while others, such as Canada, have focused on the micro level. The U.S. by contrast has attempted to achieve racial harmony at both macro and micro levels simultaneously. Again, this produces policies that are inconsistent, in that the gains achieved at one level often crowd out achievements on the other.

There is a common fallacy, among critics of capitalism, that because firms are licensed to pursue... more There is a common fallacy, among critics of capitalism, that because firms are licensed to pursue profits, the purpose of the economic system as a whole must be to facilitate the realization of such profits. This is manifestly not the case, since design of markets, including the insistence on competition between firms, is intended to bid profits down to zero. The lure of profit is what leads firms to compete with one another, which creates an institutionally enforced collective action problem that drives prices toward the level that allows for a more efficient allocation of labour, resources, goods and services. The achievement of these " market clearing " prices is the actual purpose of the system. This explains why many people find the profit orientation of firms to be morally counterintuitive. Most of everyday morality is aimed at getting people to act more cooperatively, whereas profit-maximization is essentially a free-rider strategy. Many critics of capitalism consider it self-evident that the system is unethical, because it allows, and indeed, relies upon, the organization of economic activity based on the pursuit of profit. Unfortunately, because these critics regard the proposition as self-evident, they seldom take the time to specify in much detail why they think the pursuit of profit is so problematic. In some cases the animus seems to be based on an elementary confusion, between the self-interest of individuals and the profit orientation of firms. If moral rules constitute impartial constraints on the pursuit of self-interest, and profit-maximization is just another way of describing the pursuit of self-interest, then it follows that morality must stand in some sort of antagonistic relation to the pursuit of profit. This confusion, it should be noted, has not been confined to critics of capitalism. The undergraduate economics textbook that I studied, back in the 1980s, started out with the assumption that individuals are self-interested, and introduced utility functions in order to represent this (Lipsey, Purvis & Steiner 1988). All of a sudden these individual utility functions were " aggregated " into joint utility functions, to represent

The profit orientation of firms, or “corporate greed,” is often held responsible for everything f... more The profit orientation of firms, or “corporate greed,” is often held responsible for everything from environmental damage and workplace accidents to income inequality and global poverty. Since a great deal of corporate misconduct is aimed at enhancing profitability, it is sometime suggested that eliminating the profit orientation of firms and replacing it with something else would reduce the incidence of such behavior. In a sense, this view is an optimistic one, in that it suggests that many large-scale problems in our society admit of structural solutions. Unfortunately, this optimistic view is not well supported, either by theory or by evidence. Indeed, many people who are not particularly enthusiastic about the structure of the standard business corporation nevertheless think that there is no organizational form that is likely to do better. My goal is this paper is to work through, systematically, the alternatives to the profit-oriented capitalist firm, showing how they have failed to provide a viable alternative. I begin with cooperatives, which are, I will argue, not an alternative at all, since they are also profit-oriented (it is just that the profits are disbursed to a different class of owners, and are often not called “profits”). I turn then to public ownership, and observe that the dominant trend in Western welfare states has been toward “corporatization” of state owned enterprises, which includes, inter alia, the imposition of a profit-maximization objective on managers. Finally, I will discuss the non-profit firm, which represents the only organizational form that completely breaks with the profit-maximization imperative. Although appropriate in some sectors, non-profits do not represent a general solution to the problem of corporate misconduct. This analysis may seem pessimistic, but rather than serving as a source of despair, I argue that it should serve the basis of a defence of business ethics. Since there is little to be said for restructuring the firm, we should focus our energies rather on encouraging better behavior from the firms that we have, structured as they are.

published in Joseph Heath, Cooperation and Social Justice (Toronto: UTP, 2022), 2022

The term “stigmatization,” when used in contemporary social science, almost always has a negative... more The term “stigmatization,” when used in contemporary social science, almost always has a negative connotation. Particularly when applied to behavior that is primarily self-regarding, such as drug addiction, the existence of a social stigma is widely regarded as adding “insult to injury,” although the normative basis of this assessment is seldom made explicit. My objective in this paper is to develop a more careful analysis, and qualified defence of, stigmatization in these cases. I will argue that, with instances of potential self-control failure, stigmatization can serve as an important piece of social scaffolding, allowing individuals to externalize a portion of their willpower. As a result, destigmatization strategies may have the perverse effect of exacerbating the self-destructive behaviour among the individuals they are purporting to help.

One of the most common reasons given for the refusal on the part of many firms to accept " beyond... more One of the most common reasons given for the refusal on the part of many firms to accept " beyond compliance " moral obligations is that it would put them at a competitive disadvantage. Even if they acknowledge that it would be better if all firms respected a particular constraint, as long as their competitors are not, then it would put them at too much of a disadvantage to begin respecting it unilaterally. There has been a great deal of confusion in the business ethics literature about the validity of this argument. In this paper, I will argue that it is valid in some circumstances, but that it provides at best an excuse for violation of the moral constraint, not a justification. Furthermore, the availability of the excuse is conditional upon the firm being willing to take action aimed at bringing other firms into compliance. This means that, in many cases, firms can be relieved of their obligation to respect " beyond compliance " norms only if they manifest positive support for regulatory initiatives aimed at transforming these into ordinary " compliance " obligations.

In this paper, I point out a tension between two commitments that are often held jointly by envir... more In this paper, I point out a tension between two commitments that are often held jointly by environmental ethicists. First, many are concerned about the effects of global warming, and believe that we should be engaged in resolute action to achieve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Second, many believe that continuing the growth trajectory of the global economy is both undesirable and non-obligatory. Formulated in terms of an obligation to future generations, the view is that we owe it to future generations to prevent significant anthropogenic climate change, and yet we do not owe it to future generations to ensure that they receive the benefits of a growing economy. The problem with these two positions, held jointly, is that under all of the most probable scenarios, the benefits that we could be providing to future generations through ongoing economic growth are enormous, relative to the costs that will be imposed upon them by climate change. As a result, if we are under no obligation to maximize growth – indeed, if we are permitted to pass along to future generations an economy that will permit them to achieve a standard of living no greater than what we enjoy now, then by far the least costly course of action for us is to let climate change occur, then compensate future generations for the impact by making resources available to them to cover the costs of adaptation.

Every system of cooperation is sustained by a particular “institutional toolkit” – devices used t... more Every system of cooperation is sustained by a particular “institutional toolkit” – devices used to promote cooperative behaviour and to discourage defection. A particular toolkit is scalable to the extent that it can incorporate an increase in the number of individuals participating, while maintaining roughly constant levels of cooperative behavior. My central contention in this paper will be that our evolved psychology provides us with a set of pro-social psychological dispositions that can be used rather effortlessly to establish small-scale systems of cooperation, but that the fundamental architecture of these systems is such that they lack scalability. This is what accounts for many of the phenomena associated with our “unsocial sociability.” Various behavioral dispositions we have, that are pro-social in small groups, start to become increasingly anti-social as the size of the group increases. This puts an upper bound on the level of social complexity that can be sustained using those resources. Thus it is only when cooperation is reorganized, and placed on a different footing, that it can be further expanded. In order to motivate the discussion, I start by showing how this issue of scalability matters to political philosophy, by discussing some recent work that neglects it. I then go on to show how it is important to recent discussions about the rise of the state. I argue that in complex societies we should regard major elements of social structure as essentially a set of kluges, designed to overcome the limitations of our natural sociability.

Ethics for Capitalists offers an accessible, comprehensive statement of the Market Failures Appro... more Ethics for Capitalists offers an accessible, comprehensive statement of the Market Failures Approach to business ethics. While the competitive context of the market economy provides economic actors greater freedom to pursue their interests, it also imposes moral constraints on the range of strategies they may employ. The pursuit of profit must be consistent with the overall objective of market institutions, which is to promote efficiency in the production and allocation of goods and services. Ethics for Capitalists draws out the implications of this view for business strategy, corporate governance, managerial authority, and shareholder primacy.

Politics, Philosophy, & Economics, 2023

It is generally acknowledged that a certain amount of state intervention in health and health car... more It is generally acknowledged that a certain amount of state intervention in health and health care is needed to address the significant market failures in these sectors; however, it is also thought that the primary rationale for state involvement in health must lie elsewhere, for example in an egalitarian commitment to equalizing access to health care for all citizens. This paper argues that a complete theory of justice in health can be derived from a commitment to correcting market failure, or in other words promoting Pareto-efficiency, in the domain of health. This approach can address familiar problems around access to care, as well as problems related to resource allocation and rationing (including resource allocation between generations), the control of health care costs, and the foundations of public health. Egalitarian theories of justice in health cannot make sense of the depth and pervasiveness of state involvement in health and health care; only a theory rooted in the need to correct market failure can.