When two ‘wrongs’ make a right: An essay on business ethics
✍ Scribed by Gregory S. Kavka
- Publisher
- Springer
- Year
- 1983
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 609 KB
- Volume
- 2
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0167-4544
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Sometimes two wrongs do make a right. That is, others' violations of moral rules may make it permissible for one to also violate these rules, to avoid being unfairly disadvantaged. This claim, originally advanced by Hobbes, is applied to three cases in business. It is suggested that the claim is one source of scepticism concerning business ethics. I argue, however, that the conditions under which business competitors' violations of moral rules would render one's own violations permissible are quite restricted. Hence, the observation that two wrongs may make a right does not give people a broad warrant for ignoring moral standards in their business activities.
As children we were all told that two wrongs do not make a right. By this it was meant that someone else's misconduct toward us did not legitimize or excuse our similar conduct toward them. But this is not always so. Sometimes two 'wrongs' do make a right, and this has some significant implications for business ethics.
It is, of course, contradictory to suppose that either of two acts, both of which are wrong all things considered, is right. But it is not contradictory, or mistaken, to assert the following: An act, which otherwise would be wrong, can be right (or permissible) when performed in the presence of, or in response to, one or more acts of the same kind. 1 (I call such acts 'wrong', with the scare-quotes signaling that the acts may not really be wrong.) Thus, for example, it is