Between Markets, Politics, and Ethics: On Vendor Conscience and Impersonal Markets

Journal of Business Ethics 188 (2):307-326 (2023)
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Abstract

Business owners sometimes refuse to transact with certain customers on principle, given some normative (political, personal, moral, or religious) commitment which they hold. I call such refusals ‘conscientious refusals.’ Evaluating two possible positions on the permissibility of vendor conscientious refusals, I argue in favor of an impersonal market in which vendor conscientious refusals are generally not justified. I argue impersonal norms, which crowd out conscientious considerations, support pluralist, healthy markets from which we reap individual and communal benefits; further, impersonal markets buttress individual freedom by providing a distinctive sphere of activity characterized by norms of radical inclusivity. These considerations constitute a strong case that vendor conscientious refusals are ceteris paribus unjustified. I conclude by addressing several potential objections to this view.

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Matthew Caulfield
Fordham University

References found in this work

What We Owe to Each Other.Thomas Scanlon (ed.) - 1998 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
What We Owe to Each Other.Thomas Scanlon - 2002 - Mind 111 (442):323-354.
The Tyranny of the Ideal: Justice in a Diverse Society.Gerald F. Gaus - 2016 - Princeton: Princeton University Press.
The View from Nowhere.Thomas Nagel - 1986 - Ethics 98 (1):137-157.

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