Is the “Point” of the  Market Pareto or  Kaldor-Hicks Efficiency?

Joseph, H. W. B.

doi:10.12747/bejr2019.07.04

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…Instead, the MFA aims to provide a ‘philosophically informed reconstruction of the norms that are already implicit in the marketplace’ (Heath, 2019, p. 22). Ostensibly, this distinct methodology, which can be described as ‘immanent critique’ (Heath, 2014a, p. 19; see also Singer, 2019), allows the MFA to avoid moralism by appealing to moral judgements that are somehow implicitly endorsed by participants in the institutions of a market society.…”

Section: Moral Motivation and The Mfamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Rather it aims to articulate the implicit morality of the market. As Heath (2019, pp. 21–22) says, ‘The primary motivation for the development of the MFA was to make business ethics less of a wish list of things that we would like corporations to do and more of a philosophically informed reconstruction of the norms that are already implicit in the marketplace’.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Freedom, Markets and Moral Motivation: Towards a More Adequate Account of the Implicit Morality of the Market

Bernacchio

2024

Journal of Human Values

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The market failures approach is amongst the most influential theories of business ethics. Its interest within the field is, in large part, a result of its rejection of moralism and any sort of applied ethics approach, favouring, in contrast, a focus on the institutionally embodied goal of economic activity, which it takes to be that of Pareto efficiency. From this articulation of the goal, or purpose, of markets, a set of efficiency imperatives are derived that are taken to comprise the implicit morality of the market. However, the market failures approach has not adequately explained the basis of market actors’ moral motivation, that is, the reasons individuals have to self-consciously adhere to moral norms governing market transactions. This failure, I argue, stems from its misspecification of the purpose of the market. After explaining this failure to address the problem of moral motivation, I argue that a distinctive mode of freedom understood as a form of self-authorship is better seen as the purpose of the market, a goal that actually animates individual market participants. I then argue that this notion of freedom is intrinsically linked to a conception of responsibility and that this notion of responsibility can be more adequately conceptualized as involving a set of market virtues focused on promoting mutually beneficial transactions. Thus, the link between freedom and responsibility, stemming from an individual’s need to legitimize their freedom in a market context, provides the basis for a self-conscious sense of moral motivation. As such, this approach better captures the implicit morality of the market while also addressing the problem of moral motivation.

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Section: Moral Motivation and The Mfamentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Freedom, Markets and Moral Motivation: Towards a More Adequate Account of the Implicit Morality of the Market

Bernacchio

2024

Journal of Human Values

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“…50 See Steinberg (2017), Singer (2018), Cohen and Peterson (2019), Moriarty (2020), andBlunden (2022). For a reply, see Heath (2019). 51 Granted, this is more likely true of immature firms running a growth-over-profits strategy (see Kahn's (2017) account of Amazon's early days, for instance).…”

Section: The Mfa's Shortcomings As An Account Of Antitrust Ethicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Did Facebook Cheat?: A Test Case of Antitrust Ethics

Goldwater

2024

J Bus Ethics

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Citing corporate concentration and lax enforcement since the Reagan era, the Biden administration has declared a new era of aggressive antitrust prosecution, bringing antimonopoly actions against tech giants such as Meta, Google, and Amazon. But what’s so bad about monopoly or corporate concentration? The standard answer appeals to economic consequences, such as higher prices or deadweight losses. This paper offers a different framework. It argues monopolizing can be a form of cheating, which is a wrong that attaches to means, not just ends; an athlete who cheats but loses still does wrong. In particular, this paper argues that certain market-controlling strategies constitute a form of cheating I call ‘structural cheating,’ best illustrated by the metaphor of creating an unlevel playing field: rather than compete fairly on merits such as product quality and price, a firm that acquires rivals biases the market in its favor, thereby entrenching a dominant position that effectively forces would-be competitors to compete uphill. By framing (alleged) antitrust violations as cheating, while using the FTC’s lawsuit against Facebook (now Meta) as a test case, this paper provides a needed corrective to those citing market success as evidence of merit or skill. A further upshot is the structural cheating account better explains the distinctively problematic features of social media market concentration than Heath’s Market Failures Approach. More generally, this paper provides a normative lens for analyzing fair market competition and shows why it’s not only winning or losing that counts in capitalism, but how one plays the game.

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“…It is determined by the balance of morally relevant burdens and benefits to which the market economy exposes market participants. When market participants know or should have known that they are generating or contributing directly or indirectly to market failures that in turn generate morally unjustifiable burdens, they are exploiting market failures that are not only “almost always bad” (Heath 2019) but necessarily always bad from a contractualist standpoint. This is the second type of moral constraint.…”

Section: Should the Point Of Markets Be Efficiency?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We bracket the discussion, as it has already been addressed at length by Heath (cf. chapter 6 in Heath 2014; Heath 2019) and his critics (Moriarty 2019).…”

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What’s the Point of Efficiency? On Heath’s Market Failures Approach

Endörfer

Larue²

2022

Bus. Ethics Q.

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This article reviews and criticizes Joseph Heath’s market failures approach (MFA) to business ethics. Our criticism is organized into three sections. First, we argue that, even under the ideal assumptions of perfect competition, when markets generate Pareto-efficient distributions, Heath’s approach does not rule out significant harms. Second, we show that, under nonideal conditions, the MFA is either too demanding, if efficiency is to be attained, or not sufficiently demanding, if the goal of Pareto efficiency is abandoned. Finally, we argue that Heath’s appeal to regulations and specific moral requirements as a remedy for market failures is unlikely to safeguard efficiency and exposes a number of general worries regarding the moral force of the MFA. We end this article with a constructive suggestion on how to adjust the MFA to avoid these problems while preserving its contractualist and Paretian spirit.

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Is the “Point” of the  Market Pareto or  Kaldor-Hicks Efficiency?

Cited by 5 publications

References 3 publications

Freedom, Markets and Moral Motivation: Towards a More Adequate Account of the Implicit Morality of the Market

Freedom, Markets and Moral Motivation: Towards a More Adequate Account of the Implicit Morality of the Market

Did Facebook Cheat?: A Test Case of Antitrust Ethics

What’s the Point of Efficiency? On Heath’s Market Failures Approach

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Is the “Point” of the Market Pareto or Kaldor-Hicks Efficiency?

Cited by 5 publications

References 3 publications

Freedom, Markets and Moral Motivation: Towards a More Adequate Account of the Implicit Morality of the Market

Freedom, Markets and Moral Motivation: Towards a More Adequate Account of the Implicit Morality of the Market

Did Facebook Cheat?: A Test Case of Antitrust Ethics

What’s the Point of Efficiency? On Heath’s Market Failures Approach

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Product

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Is the “Point” of the  Market Pareto or  Kaldor-Hicks Efficiency?