Abstract
Controversy surrounds the ‘intrusion’ of the discourse of rights into workplace relationships. This is explored by examining the nature of rights through the analysis of the idea of a ‘right to manage’. Purported justifications of the right to manage in terms of either property or contract are shown to be inadequate, thus illustrating the need to incorporate a degree of consequentialism in the articulation and justification of rights. The value of a rights-approach is argued to lie in the identification of the morally relevant interests affected by management decisions and the correlative obligations of those involved in the workplace, rather than in the introduction of a special set of moral considerations distinctively connected with the idea of rights.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
See Stephen Bottomley and David Kinley (eds) Commercial Law and Human Rights Aldershot, Dartmouth Publishing 2002. More generally, see Patricia H. Werhane, Persons, Rights and Corporations Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall 1985.
Often this involves a rejection of all moral values beyond the maximisation of profit. See Milton Friedman ‘The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits’ New York Times September 13, 1970. For a balanced discussion from a similar point of view see Elizabeth Vallance Business Ethics at Work Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1995 pp 11–25. Also David Henderson Misguided Virtue: False Notions of Corporate Responsibility New Zealand Business Round Table 2001. For a vigorously argued alternative view See David W. Ewing Freedom within the Organization: Bringing Civil Liberties into the Workplace New York: E P Dutton 1977.
Thomas Donaldson The Ethics of International Business New York, Oxford University Press 1989
K D Ewing (ed) Human Rights at Work London, The Institute of Employment Rights 2000; Sandra Fredman ‘Scepticism under Scrutiny: Labour Law and Human Rights’ in Tom Campbell, K D Ewing and Adam Tomkins (eds) Sceptical Essays on Human Rights Oxford: Oxford University Press 2001 pp197-214; John Bowers and Jeremy Lewis Employment Law and Human Rights London, Sweet and Maxwell 2001.
For a fuller development of this general approach to rights, see Tom Campbell The Legal Theory of Ethical Positivism Aldershot, Dartmouth Publishing 1996 pp 164–72.
Thomas Donaldson Corporations and Morality Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall 1982 pp 137 & 188
See Richard L Lippke Radical Business Ethics Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield 1995 pp 1–26.
Robert Nozick Anarchy, State and Utopia, Oxford, Blackwell 1974. For comment see Tom Campbell Justice 2nd ed London, Macmillan 2001 and J Wolff Robert Nozick: Property, Justice and the Minimal State Cambridge, Polity 1991.
Christopher McMahon Authority and Democracy: A General Theory of Government and Management Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press 1994 p 16: ‘The ‘right to manage’ that forms part of our conception of ownership cannot be regarded as a right to direct the activities of others’.
Thus, Thomas Donaldson and Thomas W Dunfee ‘Towards a Unified Conception of Business Ethics: Integrated Social Contract Theory’ Academy of Management Review 19 (1994) pp 252–84.
Variously referred to as the ‘option’, ‘will’ or ‘power’ theory of rights. See Matthew H Kramer, N E Simmonds and Hillel Steiner A Debate Over Rights: Philosophical Inquiries Oxford, Oxford University Press 2001.
D Arvantes and B T Ward ‘Employment at Will: A Social Concept in Decline’ in J J Desjardins and J J McCall (eds) Contemporary Issues in Business Ethics 2nd edn Belmont California, Wadsworth pp 147–54
Thus Donaldson and Dunfee op cit note 10 above and Thomas Donaldson ‘Moral Dimensions of Multinationals’ Ethics and International Affairs 3 (1989) pp 163–82.
Ronald Dworkin Taking Rights Seriously London, Duckworth 1978 pp 184–215
Wojciech Sadurski Freedom of Speech and Its Limits Dordrecht, Kluwer 1999 chapter 1
Jeremy Waldron The Right to Private Property Oxford, Clarendon 1988
Perhaps the most plausible attempt to derive rights from a particular value is the neo-Kantian analysis of rights in terms of the presuppositions of agency. See A. Gewirth Reason and Morality Chicago, Chicago University Press 1978.
Thus, Elizabeth Valence Business Ethics at Work, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1995, p 29: ‘The aim of business is, as I have said, a commercial aim: business exists to provide goods and services in order to make profits…It is not the aim of business to provide personal fulfilment and spiritual development, or a clean environment, or full employment. Businesses are concerned with the self-development of their staff and the interests of other stakeholder only to the extent that these contribute to the aim of the business, which is the creation of long-term value for the owners of the business.’ Note the legal ‘business judgement rule’ in T Donaldson and L E Preston, ‘The Stakeholder Theory of the Corporation: Concepts, Evidence and Implications’ in M B E Clarkson (ed) The Corporation and Its Stakeholders: Classic and Contemporary Readings Toronto, University of Toronto Press 1998 p 184.
Clarkson op cit note 16 above pp 259–60: Primary stakeholders are those ‘without whose continuing participation the corporation cannot survive as a going concern’. Secondary stakeholders are ‘those who influence or affect, or are influenced and affected by, the corporation’. See also Vallance op cit note 2 p 28 ‘Stakeholders are clearly important to business’.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Campbell, T. Should Managers Talk About Rights?. Philos. of Manag. 3, 3–11 (2003). https://doi.org/10.5840/pom20033218
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5840/pom20033218