The notion of exploitation is prominent in political discourse and policy debates. It is central in analyses of labour relations, especially focusing on the weakest segments of the labour force including women and children. It features in controversies on surrogate motherhood, and on drug-testing and the price of life-saving drugs, especially in developing countries.

The exploitation of human by human is a globally pervasive phenomenon. Slavery, serfdom, and the patriarchy are part of its lineage. Guest and sex workers, commercial surrogacy, precarious labour contracts, sweatshops, and markets in blood, vaccines or human organs, are some contemporary manifestations of exploitation. What makes these exploitative transactions unjust? And is capitalism inherently exploitative? This book offers answers to these two questions. In response to the first question, it argues that exploitation is a form of (...) domination, self-enrichment through the domination of others. On the domination view, exploitation complaints are not, fundamentally, about harm, coercion or unfairness. Rather, they are about who serves whom and why. Exploitation, in a word, is a dividend of servitude: the dividend the powerful extract from the servitude of the vulnerable. In response to the second question, the book argues that this servitude is inherent to capitalist relations between consenting adults; capital just is monetary title to control over the labour capacity of others. It follows that capitalism, the mode of production where capital predominates, is an inherently unjust social structure. (shrink)

Epistemic exploitation occurs when privileged persons compel marginalized persons to educate them about the nature of their oppression. I argue that epistemic exploitation is marked by unrecognized, uncompensated, emotionally taxing, coerced epistemic labor. The coercive and exploitative aspects of the phenomenon are exemplified by the unpaid nature of the educational labor and its associated opportunity costs, the double bind that marginalized persons must navigate when faced with the demand to educate, and the need for additional labor created by (...) the default skepticism of the privileged. I explore the connections between epistemic exploitation and the two varieties of epistemic injustice that Fricker (2007) identifies, testimonial and hermeneutical injustice. I situate epistemic exploitation within Dotson’s (2012; 2014) framework of epistemic oppression, and I address the role that epistemic exploitation plays in maintaining active ignorance and upholding dominant epistemic frameworks. (shrink)

I argue that Alan Wertheimer’s account of unfair advantage-taking, though flawed, is more plausible than his critics believe. Indeed, I argue that his proposed model for assessing fair exchange – the friendship model – according to which a transaction’s terms are unfair to the extent that they deviate from the terms upon which we’d expect good friends to transact – is compelling and can serve as the basis for a plausible theory of wrongful exploitation. Wertheimer, I argue, was wrong (...) to think that friends would transact at “hypothetical market prices.” But he was right to think that friendship norms can provide a plausible account of fair exchange. In this paper I develop a friendship-based account of wrongful exploitation and I argue that it has important advantages over rival theories. (shrink)

In turn, the volume explains how an understanding of these contract law doctrines can be enhanced by a proper conception of exploitation.

I focus on exploitation from the point of view of those who suffer from it, and so I take exploitation as a category of subjective experience. Adopting a subjective perspective on exploitation highlights important conceptual aspects about it and suggests important methodological rules on how to critically discuss social forms of exploitation. I start by introducing some key conceptual distinctions in the first two sections. These distinctions lead me to formulate a first, general definition of (...) class='Hi'>exploitation as a subjective category, in the third section of the paper. In the fourth section, I ask what relationship there is between the objective and subjective senses of exploitation, and I turn to the work of Marx. This is because, as I try to argue, Marx's approach is exemplary for tying together an objective and a subjective sense of exploitation. Based on a schematic rendition of Marx's use of a dual perspective on exploitation, in the last sections of the paper, I draw a number of conceptual and normative conclusions. (shrink)

Exploitation is interacting with another in a way that takes unfair advantage of that person. Exploitation is thought to be morally wrong even when it would bring about the best attainable outcome, hence conflicts with the consequentialist morality that holds one ought always to do whatever would bring about the best outcome. This essay aims to reconcile norms against exploitation and act consequentialism. A puzzle about exploitation is raised and resolved.

Critics fault rational choice theory for dubious assumptions and limited explanatory power. The aims of rational choice are, however, as much normative as explanatory, and I argue that an abiding concern of political thought—the wrong of exploitation—gives moral weight to some of the more substantive assumptions underlying many rational choice prescriptions.

This paper assesses the ‘power-induced failure of reciprocity’ account of exploitation in the domain of trade. I argue that its proponents face a dilemma. Either the cost variable of reciprocity is understood to include opportunity costs. Then, the account implausibly implies that those with more valuable outside options should get a larger part of the overall benefits of cooperation. Or the cost variable is understood to exclude opportunity costs. Then, the account has awkward implications in cases where direct costs (...) and opportunity costs are substitutable. To evade this dilemma, the account could be amended to include a hypothetical baseline that equalizes opportunity costs. But then, the account ceases to be isolationist. Whether a cooperative interaction counts as exploitative is no longer independent of moral considerations about distributions outside the domain of trade. (shrink)

It is commonly thought that exploitation is unjust; some think it is part of the very meaning of the word 'exploitation' that it is unjust. Those who think this will suppose that the just society has to be one in which people do not exploit one another, at least on a large scale. I will argue that exploitation is not unjust by definition, and that a society (such as Our own) might be fundamentally just while nevertheless being (...) pervasively exploitative. I do think that exploitation is nearly always a bad thing, and will try to identify the moral belief which makes most of us think it is. But I will argue that its badness does not always consist in its being unjust. (shrink)

‘Epistemic exploitation occurs when privileged persons compel marginalised knowers to educate them [and others] about the nature of their oppression’ (Berenstain, 2016, p. 569). This paper scrutinizes some of the purported wrongs underpinning this practice, so that educators might be better equipped to understand and avoid or mitigate harms which may result from such interventions. First, building on the work of Berenstain and Davis (2016), we argue that when privileged persons (in this context, educators) repeatedly compel marginalised or oppressed (...) knowers, to not only to educate them, but indeed others, about the nature of their oppression, they risk subjecting them to further epistemic-moral harms. This is due to the likelihood that at least some of their audience will assign them less/more credibility than they deserve based on pre-existing identity-based prejudices. Second, though some of these requests to ‘educate’ or ‘learn more’ masquerade as seemingly virtuous or innocuous epistemic inquiries, privileged persons underestimate or remain ignorant of secondary harms which stem from internalized epistemic obligations, oppressive double-binds (Hirji, 2021), and attendant emotional burdens oppressed knowers carry in relation to the ever-present possibility of ameliorating oppressor mindsets. After surveying each context-specific harm briefly, we then turn to an applied reading of how these exploitative practices sometimes culminate in something we refer to as ‘ontic burnout’, a form of interminable explanatory fatigue brought on by repeated requests to educate the privileged about what it means to be oppressed. (shrink)

Marx''s account of capitalist exploitation is undermined by inter-related confusions surrounding the notion of labour power. These confusions relate to [i] what labour power is, [ii] what happens to labour power in the labour market, and [iii] what the epistemic status of labour power is (the issue of appearance and reality). The central theses of the paper are [a] that property ownership is the wrong model for understanding the exploitation of labour, and [b] that the concept of (...) class='Hi'>exploitation is linked more fruitfully to a conception of distributive injustice than to Marx''s theory of surplus value. (shrink)

What is the basis for arguing that a volunteer army exploits citizens who lack civilian career opportunities? How do we determine that a doctor who has sex with his patients is exploiting them? In this book, Alan Wertheimer seeks to identify when a transaction or relationship can be properly regarded as exploitative--and not oppressive, manipulative, or morally deficient in some other way--and explores the moral weight of taking unfair advantage. Among the first political philosophers to examine this important topic from (...) a non-Marxist perspective, Wertheimer writes about ordinary experience in an accessible yet philosophically penetrating way. He considers whether it is seriously wrong for a party to exploit another if the transaction is consensual and mutually advantageous, whether society can justifiably prohibit people from entering into such a transaction, and whether it is wrong to allow oneself to be exploited.Wertheimer first considers several contexts commonly characterized as exploitive, including surrogate motherhood, unconscionable contracts, the exploitation of student athletes, and sexual exploitation in psychotherapy. In a section outlining his theory of exploitation, he sets forth the criteria for a fair transaction and the point at which we can properly say that a party has consented. Whereas many discussions of exploitation have dealt primarily with cases in which one party harms or coerces another, Wertheimer's book focuses on what makes a mutually advantageous and consensual transaction exploitive and analyzes the moral and legal implications of such exploitation. (shrink)

Contemporary theoretical discussions of exploitation are dominated by thinkers in the liberal and Marxian traditions. Exploitation: From Practice to Theory, pushes past these traditional and binary explanations, to focus on unjust practises that both depend on and perpetuate inequalities central to exploitation. -/- Using real-world examples, the chapters in this collection address key questions, including, in what ways are exploitation practices globalised, racialized and gendered? How do cases of organ selling, price gouging and commercial gestational surrogacy (...) change our understandings of exploitation? What possible social and economic remedies do these new conceptions prescribe? -/- Case studies in this volume span the globe, dealing with developed and developing countries alike and in a variety of national and transnational contexts. (shrink)

It has been suggested that community advisory boards can play a role in minimising exploitation in international research. To get a better idea of what this requires and whether it might be achievable, the paper first describes core elements that we suggest must be in place for a CAB to reduce the potential for exploitation. The paper then examines a CAB established by the Shoklo Malaria Research Unit under conditions common in resource-poor settings – namely, where individuals join (...) with a very limited understanding of disease and medical research and where an existing organisational structure is not relied upon to serve as the CAB. Using the Tak Province Border Community Ethics Advisory Board as a case study, we assess the extent to which it might be able to take on a role minimising exploitation were it to decide to do so. We investigate whether, after two years in operation, T-CAB is capable of assessing clinical trials for exploitative features and addressing those found to have them. The findings show that, although T-CAB members have gained knowledge and developed capacities that are foundational for one-day taking on a role to reduce exploitation, their ability to critically evaluate studies for the presence of exploitative elements has not yet been strongly demonstrated. In light of this example, we argue that CABs may not be able to perform such a role for a number of years after initial formation, making it an unsuitable responsibility for many short-term CABs. (shrink)

Extant accounts of exploitation typically focus on either an exchange or interaction between persons, or on exploitative systems (i.e., global capitalism). We propose a new account of exploitation that focuses instead on the benefits an exploiter enjoys which are had at the expense of another, the exploited party. This account is developed by considering the benefits enjoyed by consumers (e.g., inexpensive sweatshop-made goods) and the manner in which those benefits are produced (e.g., the loss of dignity suffered by (...) sweatshop workers). On our account, an exploitative relationship need not involve any interaction or exchange between exploiter and exploited. Neither is exploitation a property of systems or institutions. Instead, we argue that a consumer who buys a shirt produced under near slave-like conditions engages in a moral wrong by exploiting the worker who made it even though the two may be far-removed in space and time. (shrink)

We argue that we should provide extra payment not only for extra time worked but also for the extra risks healthcare workers (and those working in healthcare settings) incur while caring for COVID‐19 patients—and more generally when caring for patients poses them at significantly higher risks than normal. We argue that the extra payment is warranted regardless of whether healthcare workers have a professional obligation to provide such risky healthcare. Payment for risk would meet four essential ethical requirements. First, assuming (...) healthcare workers do not have a professional obligation to take on themselves the risks, payments in the form of incentives would preserve autonomy in deciding what risks to take on oneself. Second, even assuming that healthcare workers do have a professional obligation to take on themselves the risks, payments for risk would create fair working conditions by avoiding exploitation. Third, payments for risk would make it more likely that public healthcare systems can discharge their institutional responsibility to provide healthcare in circumstances where healthcare workers may otherwise (perhaps legitimately) opt out. Fourth, payments for risk would guarantee an efficient healthcare system in pandemic situations. Finally, we address two likely objections that some might raise against our proposal, particularly with regard to incentives, namely that such payments or incentives can themselves be coercive and that they represent a form of undue inducement. (shrink)

Many believe that employment can be wrongfully exploitative, even if it is consensual and mutually beneficial. At the same time, it may seem third parties should not do anything to preclude or eliminate such arrangements, given these same considerations of consent and benefit. I argue that there are perfectly sensible, intuitive ethical positions that vindicate this ‘Reasonable View’. The view requires such defense because the literature often suggests that there is no theoretical space for it. I respond to arguments for (...) the clearest symptom of this obscuration: the so-called nonworseness claim that a consensual, mutually beneficial transaction cannot be ‘morally worse’ than its absence. In addition to making space for the Reasonable View, this serves my dialectical goal of encouraging distinct attention to first- and third-party obligations. (shrink)

Care exploitation pervades our lives. Consider the public school teachers who care about helping children achieve their goals by providing them with a proper education and are expected to do so by parents, administrators, or legislators—even with abysmal pay and little appreciation. Perhaps the most common case of care exploitation is the expectation of a mother to make great (and disproportionate) sacrifices in her life for the well-being of her child, which mothers often meet because they bear a (...) caring orientation toward their child. Despite their willingly assenting, there is something morally problematic about their treatment. I argue that an injustice has been perpetrated against them, drawing on interpersonal accounts of exploitation to highlight that the unique wrong of care exploitation is the failure to respect one’s dignity by taking advantage of their vulnerability of caring about. Following this, I articulate the necessary and jointly sufficient conditions of care exploitation and their relationships to one another. (shrink)

In this chapter I consider a common refrain among critics of digital platforms: big tech "exploits" us. It gives voice to a shared sense that technology firms are somehow mistreating people—taking advantage of us, extracting from us—in a way that other data-driven harms, such as surveillance and algorithmic bias, fail to capture. Exploring several targets of this charge—gig work, algorithmic pricing, and surveillance advertising—I ask: What does exploitation entail, exactly, and how do platforms perpetrate it? Is exploitation in (...) the platform economy a new kind of exploitation, or are these old problems dressed up as new ones? What would a theory of digital exploitation add to our understanding of the platform age? First, I define exploitation and argue that critics are justified in describing many platform practices as wrongfully exploitative. Next, I focus on platforms themselves—both as businesses and technologies—in order to understand what is and isn’t new about the kinds of exploitation we are witnessing. In some cases, digital platforms perpetuate familiar forms of exploitation by extending the ability of exploiters to reach and control exploitees. In other cases, they enable new exploitative arrangements by creating or exposing vulnerabilities that powerful actors couldn't previously leverage. On the whole, I argue, the language of exploitation helps express forms of injustice overlooked or only partially captured by dominant concerns about, e.g., surveillance, discrimination, and related platform abuses, and it provides valuable conceptual and normative resources for challenging efforts by platforms to obscure or legitimate them. (shrink)

Standard accounts of what makes exploitation wrong ground its wrong in distributive unfairness: when A exploits B he wrongs her by taking a greater share of the benefits from their interaction than he ought. I argue that this standard account does not succeed; distributive unfairness is neither the sole, nor the primary wrong of exploitation. I assume that distributive unfairness is pro tanto wrong. However, I argue that in situations where transactors’ consent to a transaction is morally valid, (...) it is also morally transformative and overrides distributive unfairness’s pro tanto wrong. Thus, wrongful exploitation requires morally invalid consent. (shrink)

When discussing exploitation, we often say things like this, “sweatshop laborers have terrible working conditions and are paid almost nothing, but they are better off with that labor than with no labor.” Similarly, in describing the Non-Identity Problem, Derek Parfit points out: we cannot say that the individuals born in future generations are worse off because of our destructive environmental policies because the particular people living in those future generations wouldn’t even exist if it were not for these destructive (...) policies. How can we explain these cases, exploitation and environmental destruction, as ones of wrongdoing when the victims in both cases are no worse off than they would have otherwise been? This paper investigates the link between these two moral puzzles and ultimately uses one to solve the other: an exploitation solution to the Non-Identity Problem. (shrink)

This essay analyzesexploitation in biomedical research in terms ofthree basic elements: harm, disrespect, orinjustice. There are also degrees ofexploitation, ranging from highly exploitationto minimally exploitation. Althoughexploitation is prima facie wrongful,some exploitative research studies are morallyjustified, all things considered. The reasonan exploitative study can still be ethical isthat other moral considerations, such as theautonomy of the research subject or the socialbenefits of research, may sometimes justifystudies that are minimally exploitative. Calling a research project exploitative doesnot end the debate about the (...) merits of thestudy but invites one to ask additionalquestions about how the study is exploitative,and whether the study is justifiablenevertheless. (shrink)

The term “exploitation” is notoriously hard to define. Yet it is frequently invoked to frame moral concerns about clinical research. Recently, a group of influential authors have proposed a so-called nonexploitation framework for the ethics of randomized controlled trials that appears to address these concerns. This article challenges one basic assumption of that framework: the idea that nonexploitation in research requires participants to be protected from excessive risks, which are understood to be risks that are not outweighed by the (...) benefits that the research is expected to lead to. Examples of exploitation in other contexts show that this idea has highly counterintuitive implications. The result is that the nonexploitation framework obscures concerns about exploitation in biomedical research, rather than clarifying them. (shrink)

Despite its title, Alan Wertheimer’s new book is not another tiresome exploration of Marxist economic theories. Indeed, there is virtually no extended discussion of Marxism at all, since Wertheimer believes that what is unique to that perspective is highly problematic, given that when Marxists simply assert that capitalists do exploit wage laborers they are appealing to “the ordinary notion that one party exploits another when it gets unfair and undeserved benefits from its transactions or relationships with others”. His goal is (...) to analyze this ordinary sense of exploitation, to explore in detail some of the many forms it can take, and to begin some serious thinking about what he terms its moral weight and its moral force. This groundbreaking work, the first book-length treatment of its subject from a broadly analytic standpoint, should do much to disabuse non-Marxist philosophers of the notion that exploitation is largely peripheral to the central questions of moral and political philosophy. (shrink)

In the standard Okishio-Morishima approach, the existence of profits is proved to be equivalent to the exploitation of labor. Yet, it can also be proved that the existence of profits is equivalent to the “exploitation” of any good. Labor and commodity exploitation are just different numerical representations of the productiveness of the economy. This paper presents an alternative approach to exploitation theory which is related to the “New Interpretation” (Duménil 1980; Foley 1982). In this approach, labor (...) exploitation captures unequal social relations among producers. The equivalence between the existence of profits and labor exploitation holds, whereas it is proved that there is no relation between profits and commodity “exploitation.”. (shrink)

Scholarship aiming to describe the wrongness of exploitation, especially when it is voluntary and mutually beneficial, has increased greatly in recent years. In this paper, I expand the scope of this discussion by highlighting a set of additional ethical concerns associated with many cases of mutually voluntary and beneficial exploitation. Specifically, I argue that the phenomenon of persons desperately seeking out and gratefully accepting exploitative interactions raises special moral concerns. The element of voluntariness is key to understanding how (...) and why some exploitative interactions are degrading to exploitees. When an exploitative offer does not allow the exploitee sufficient progress toward a decent minimum of human functioning, these offers can create what I call a 'demeaning choice', where the exploitee may either accept the status quo or accept an offer that improves the exploitee's insufficiently. In these cases, the exploitee's participation in the interaction contributes to its demeaning quality, creating a form of `surface endorsement' of the treatment that she receives. (shrink)

The concept of exploitation and potentially exploitative real-world practices are the subject of increasing philosophical attention. However, while philosophers have extensively debated what exploitation is and what makes it wrong, they have said surprisingly little about what might be required to remediate it. By asking how the consequences of exploitation should be addressed, this article seeks to contribute to filling this gap. We raise two questions. First, what are the victims of exploitation owed by way of (...) remediation? Second, who ought to remediate? Our answers to these questions are connected by the idea that exploitation cannot be fully remediated by redistributing the exploiter's gain in order to repair or compensate the victim's loss. This is because exploitation causes not only distributive but also relational harm. Therefore, redistributive measures are necessary but not sufficient for adequate remediation. Moreover, this relational focus highlights the fact that exploitative real-world practices commonly involve agents other than the exploiter who stand to benefit from the exploitation. Insofar as these third parties are implicated in the distributive and relational harms caused by exploitation, there is, we argue, good reason to assign part of the burden of remediation to them. (shrink)

Exploitation locates what it is we recognize as bad when we judge a situation to be exploitative. Ideal for courses in social and political philosophy, public policy, or political science.

Human subject trials of pharmaceuticals in low and middle income countries have been associated with the moral wrong of exploitation on two grounds. First, these trials may include a placebo control arm even when proven treatments for a condition are in use in other parts of the world. Second, the trial researchers or sponsors may fail to make a successful treatment developed through the trial available to either the trial participants or the host community following the trial.Many commentators have (...) argued that a single form of exploitation takes place during human subject research in LMICs. These commentators do not, however, agree as to what kind of moral wrong exploitation is or when exploitation is morally impermissible. In this paper, I have two primary goals. First, I will argue for a taxonomy of exploitation that identifies three distinct forms of exploitation. While each of these forms of exploitation has its critics, I will argue that they can each be developed into plausible accounts of exploitation tied to different vulnerabilities and different forms of wrongdoing. Second, I will argue that each of these forms of exploitation can coexist in single situations, including human subject trials of pharmaceuticals. This lesson is important, since different forms of exploitation in a single relationship can influence, among other things, whether the relationship is morally permissible. (shrink)

The article asks whether English professional football clubs have the potential to exploit non-English-speaking players during contract negotiations and signing meetings. We draw on evidence we gathered from a series of semi-structured interviews with football agents, former migrant players, and player liaison/welfare officers who currently work or have previously worked in English professional leagues. We also draw on normative insights from legal, moral, and applied ethical thought to develop a new, bespoke account of what should shock the conscience of the (...) court. We argue that because of language barriers, non-English-speaking players could end up signing unconscionable contracts, if not based on procedural or substantive unfairness, then potentially based on violations of their autonomy through deceptiveness. We also show that the current practice of players’ agents acting as ad hoc translators/interpreters raises serious ethical issues, not least lack of competency and impartiality. Following on from all this, we make a number of practical recommendations about how players’ representatives and clubs should conduct themselves, and what responsibilities they have to provide language support to non-English-speaking players in contract negotiations and signing meetings. (shrink)

About a decade ago Sir Frederick Soddy, a distinguished creative scientist, wrote: “The exploiters of the wealth of the world are not its creators.... So far the pearls of science have been cast before swine, who have given us in return millionaires and slums, armaments and the desolation of war.” Today we see the end-product of this process: Unrealized democracies fighting desperately against a ruthless imperialism based on the most extensive functional exploitation of science and scientists the world has (...) ever known. (shrink)

Offering cash payments to research subjects is a common recruiting method but there is significant debate about whether and in what amount such payments are appropriate. This paper is concerned with exploitation and whether there should be a lower limit on the amount researchers can pay their subjects. When subjects participate in research as a way to make money, fairness requires that researchers pay them a fair wage. This call for the establishment of a lower limit meets resistance in (...) two places: (1) denial that the payments offered by researchers are wages for participation; and (2) concern about undue inducement. This paper critically examines these arguments for and against a lower limit. It shows that the need for a lower limit cannot be avoided by adopting a non-wage payment model and that concerns about undue inducement are unjustified in all trials except those that present greater than minimal risk. This analysis suggests the following compromise position: there should be an unconditional lower limit on payment amounts so that researchers cannot offer less than a fair wage, and when researchers cannot satisfy this limit because fairness requires a problematically large payment, then researchers should offer no payment at all. (shrink)

Child labor is often condemned as a form of exploitation. I explore how the notion of exploitation, as used in everyday language, can be made precise in economic models of child labor. Exploitation is defined relative to a specific social welfare function. I first show that under the standard dynastic social welfare function, which is commonly applied to intergenerational models, child labor is never exploitative. In contrast, under an inclusive welfare function, which places additional weight on the (...) welfare of children, child labor is always exploitative. Neither welfare function captures the more gradual distinctions that common usage of the term exploitation allows. I resolve this conflict by introducing a welfare function with minimum altruism, in which child labor in a given family is judged relative to a specific social standard. Under this criterion, child labor is exploitative only in families where the parent (or guardian) displays insufficient altruism towards the child. I argue that this welfare function best captures the conventional concept of exploitation and has useful properties for informing political choices regarding child labor. (shrink)

Where there is trust, there is also vulnerability, and vulnerability can be exploited. Epistemic trust is no exception. This chapter maps the phenomenon of the exploitation of epistemic trust. I start with a discussion of how trust in general can be exploited; a key observation is that trust incurs vulnerabilities not just for the party doing the trusting, but also for the trustee (after all, trust can be burdensome), so either party can exploit the other. I apply these considerations (...) to epistemic trust, specifically in testimonial relationships. There, we standardly think of a hearer trusting a speaker. But we miss an important aspect of this relationship unless we consider too that the speaker standardly trusts the hearer. Given this mutual trust, and given that both trustees and trusters can exploit each other, we have four possibilities for exploitation in epistemic-trust relationships: a speaker exploiting a hearer (a) by accepting his trust or (b) by imposing her trust on him, and a hearer exploiting a speaker (c) by accepting her trust or (d) by imposing his trust on her. One result is that you do not need to betray someone to exploit him – you can exploit him just as easily by doing what he trusts you for. (shrink)

Based on the views of Hindus in Bali, the application of ornaments in the form of Balinese traditional symbols should follow the rules of the prevailing tradition.The symbols are created to show the cosmology and philosophy based on the teachings of Hinduism as indigenous in Bali and function as a means of a sacred ritual. But in reality the designers in Bali often exploit the symbols by “mutilating” and applying them to undue places, motivated by a desire to create a (...) product or environment characterized by Balinese ethnicity. For example, Acintya relief, Karang Bhoma, Garuda Wisnu and others are applied as façade decorations for shops and banks, or they are created in the form of a statue to decorate crossroads, or used for decoration of the human body in the form of a tattoo and so forth. Seen from a semiotic approach, these actions can damage the structure of the meaning of symbols, because they bring about the interruption of the established relations of the signifier and signified and they form symbol fragments with unclear relations to meaning. Similarly, in today’s designs stamped with such decoration, they appear awkward and meaningless. From such behaviour, that practice creates styles such as pastiche, parody, kitsch, camp and so forth. (shrink)

What conditions of vulnerability must an individual face in order that we might ever correctly say that she or he has been wrongfully exploited? Mikhail Valdman has recently argued that wrongful exploitation is the extraction of excessive benefits from someone who cannot reasonably refuse one’s offer. So, ‘being unable to reasonably refuse an offer’ is Valdman’s answer to this question. I will argue that this answer is too narrow, but that other competing answers, like Alan Wertheimer’s, are too broad. (...) I propose a new answer, a “vulnerability clause” to partially comprise a theory of wrongful exploitation. In so doing, I appeal to Marilyn Frye’s account of oppression and take guidance from her inclusion and exclusion criteria. (shrink)

What is the basis for arguing that a volunteer army exploits citizens who lack civilian career opportunities? How do we determine that a doctor who has sex with his patients is exploiting them? In this book, Alan Wertheimer seeks to identify when a transaction or relationship can be properly regarded as exploitative--and not oppressive, manipulative, or morally deficient in some other way--and explores the moral weight of taking unfair advantage. Among the first political philosophers to examine this important topic from (...) a non-Marxist perspective, Wertheimer writes about ordinary experience in an accessible yet philosophically penetrating way. He considers whether it is seriously wrong for a party to exploit another if the transaction is consensual and mutually advantageous, whether society can justifiably prohibit people from entering into such a transaction, and whether it is wrong to allow oneself to be exploited. Wertheimer first considers several contexts commonly characterized as exploitive, including surrogate motherhood, unconscionable contracts, the exploitation of student athletes, and sexual exploitation in psychotherapy. In a section outlining his theory of exploitation, he sets forth the criteria for a fair transaction and the point at which we can properly say that a party has consented. Whereas many discussions of exploitation have dealt primarily with cases in which one party harms or coerces another, Wertheimer's book focuses on what makes a mutually advantageous and consensual transaction exploitive and analyzes the moral and legal implications of such exploitation. (shrink)

According to Marx one of the primary evils of capitalism is that it is exploitative-and necessarily so. Socialist and communist societies will not be exploitative and this is one of the reasons why they will in some sense be better. To understand such claims we have to determine exactly what Marx means by “exploitation” and what it is about exploitation that Marx finds to be bad. Neither of these questions is as simple as it might seem.A common misunderstanding (...) of Marx is this: exploitation consists simply in an unequal distribution of social wealth. Workers are exploited because they get so much less of the pie than do capitalists. Another interpretation of Marx's concept is that exploitation consists in the fact that workers to not get the whole pie. They produce all value and, therefore, deserve to get it all back. I will show that both of these interpretations are inadequate or simply mistaken. An error common to both is an overemphasis on distribution. (shrink)

What is exploitation? -- Degrees of exploitation -- Motivations and mentality -- The exploiter's essential skillset -- Getting on the inside: winning the election -- Achieving total domination of the school system -- The tactics and weapons of war -- Torture and death of the educational leaders -- Cultivating the spies and snitches -- The veil of silence -- Judgment day will surely come -- Thy kingdom has come -- The deterioration begins -- Purging the community values from (...) the school system -- Purging the quality from the workforce -- Promoting and perpetuating incompetence -- The bad reputation -- Life at the schoolhouse for those left behind -- The impact on the community -- The death of the school system -- Who is at fault? -- What is governance and governance structure? -- Enhancing governance: the governance subcommittee -- How could the governance subcommittee make a difference? -- Role and function of the governance subcommittee more clearly defined -- The members of the governance subcommittee -- Legislative action is essential -- Which will it be: the DC-3 or the dreamliner?. (shrink)

This paper offers a normative exploration of what exploitation is and of what is wrong with it. The focus is on the critical assessment of the exploitation of workers in capitalist societies. Such exploitation is wrongful when it involves a contra-solidaristic use of power to benefit oneself at the expense of others. Wrongful exploitation consists in using your greater power, and sometimes even in making other less powerful than you, in order to get them to benefit (...) you more than they ought to. This account of exploitation is appealing because it simultaneously captures three morally significant dimensions of exploitation—its material and social background, the relational (interpersonal and systemic) attitudes it enacts, and the final distributive results it generates. Exploitation is indeed a multidimensional social process. The flipside of the proposed critical characterization of this process is a positive ideal of solidaristic empowerment in the allocation and use of economic power, which the paper articulates in terms of the socialist Abilities/Needs Principle (“from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs”). The Abilities/Needs Principle is grounded in human dignity. (shrink)

Informing others about the world is often a helpful act. In this paper, I study agents who conduct experiments to gather information about the world, committing in advance to fully disclose the nature of the experiment together with all experimental findings. While this appears to be a benign activity, I characterize a type of exploitative informing that is possible even within this restricted setup. I show how exploitative informants use public experiments to predictably manipulate interlocutors’ beliefs and actions to their (...) own advantage. I discuss epistemic and practical grounds on which it may be permissible for agents to resist acts of exploitative informing, then conclude by discussing implications for epistemic injustice and duties to gather evidence. (shrink)

If it is so obvious that international participants should share in the spoils of research profits, why isn’t it equally obvious that participants who share nationality with the researchers should do so as well? I argue that if one believes that some form of benefit-sharing is morally obligatory in research conducted in developing countries, it is very hard to escape the conclusion that it should at least in some circumstances be thought equally obligatory in research conducted within the borders of (...) developed countries. I show that untenable assumptions about solidarity and altruism within developed countries are relied upon to deny fair treatment to research participants in developed countries — treatment that would be considered exploitative if meted out to citizens in developing countries. (shrink)

Biomedical research on human subjects involves exposing individuals to risks and burdens for the benefit of others, and therefore raises concerns about exploitation. While the concept of exploitation has received significant attention in recent research ethical literature, its relevance and implications in this area remain unclear and contested. This chapter explains how this concept is nonetheless important for understanding the ethical complexities of human subject research and the proper design of subject protections. The chapter provides an overview of (...) research practices often thought to raise exploitation concerns and introduces philosophical exploitation theory, focusing on aspects relevant to research ethics. Against this background, the obligations of non-exploitation held by researchers, sponsors, and third parties such as ethics committees and regulators are outlined. The chapter ends by considering how exploitative research in the past can be retroactively remediated. (shrink)

Many bacteria that cause disease have the capacity to enter into and live within eukaryotic cells such as epithelial cells and macrophages. The mechanisms used by these organisms to achieve and maintain this intracellular lifestyle vary considerably, but most mechanisms involve subversion and exploitation of host cell functions. Entry into non‐phagocytic cells involves triggering host signal transduction mechanisms to induce rearrangement of the host cytoskeleton, thereby facilitating bacterial uptake. Once inside the host cell, intracellular pathogens either remain within membrane (...) bound inclusions or escape to the cytoplasm. Those living in the cytoplasm can further pirate the host actin system, using actin as a mechanism to facilitate movement within and between host cells. Organisms remaining within the vacuole have specialized mechanisms for intracellular survival and growth which involve additional communication with the host cell. Some of the processes involved in the various steps of facultative intracellular parasitism are discussed in the context of subverting the host cell cytoskeleton and signal transduction pathways for bacterial benefit. (shrink)

Philosophical inquiry into exploitation has two major deficiencies to date: it assumes that exploitation is wrong by definition; and it pays too much attention to the Marxian account of exploitation. Two senses of exploitation should be distinguished: the 'moral' or pejorative sense and the 'non-moral' or 'non-prejudicial' sense. By demonstrating the conceptual inadequacy of exploitation as defined in the first sense, and by defining exploitation adequately in the latter sense, we seek to demonstrate the (...) moral complexity of exploitation. We contend, moreover, that moral evaluation of exploitation is only possible once we abandon a strictly Marxian framework and attempt, in the long run, to develop an integral ethic along Godwinian lines. (shrink)

The term “exploitation” has gained wide currency in recent discussions of biomedical and research ethics. This is due in no small measure to the influence of Alan Wertheimer’s path-breaking work on the topic (Wertheimer 1999, 2011). Wertheimer presented a clear and compelling non-Marxist account of the concept of exploitation—one that stressed the connection between exploitation and unfair distributive outcomes. On this account, when one party exploits another, she takes advantage of the other to gain unfairly. A number (...) of contemporary bioethicists have accepted Wertheimer’s account of exploitation and have proceeded to apply it to a range of issues in research ethics (Hawkins and Emanuel 2008; Miller and Brody .. (shrink)

When the assertion that some agent is exploiting a person connotes that the exploitation is morally wrong, what is this wrong? Some maintain that exploitation need not involve unfair division of advantages, but instead is essentially domination for self-enrichment. This essay denies this claim and upholds the idea that exploitation claims concern unfair distribution. Some maintain that the hypothetical fully competitive market exchange price can serve, at least in some contexts, as the standard for assessing whether voluntary (...) interaction is exploitative. This essay denies that the idea of the fully competitive market price can serve in this role. Nor should we accept a pure luck egalitarian claim that would identify fair distribution with the outcome of ideally competitive markets proceeding from fair initial distribution. (shrink)

The concept of exploitation plays a key role in Marx's attack on capitalism. No one denies this. Yet there is much confusion as to just what Marx's concept of exploitation is.Recent discussions tend to fall into two groups. In the first are those which offer extensive analyses of Marx's concept of alienation, but seldom mention ‘exploitation’. When writers in this first group do mention ‘exploitation’ they mistakenly assume that the concept is transparent and unproblematic.The second group (...) has little to say about alienation, but does attempt an account of exploitation. These writers mistakenly confine Marx's concept of exploitation to the labor process itself. Both approaches fail to articulate important connections between alienation and exploitation. (shrink)

This paper uses a computational framework to analyse the equilibrium dynamics of exploitation and inequality in accumulation economies with heterogeneous labour. A novel index is presented which measures the intensity of exploitation at the individual level and the dynamics of the distribution of exploitation intensity is analysed. Various taxation schemes are analysed which may reduce exploitation or inequalities in income and wealth. It is shown that relatively small taxation rates may have significant cumulative effects on wealth (...) and income inequalities. Further, taxation schemes that eliminate exploitation also reduce disparities in income and wealth but in the presence of heterogeneous skills, do not necessarily eliminate them. The inegalitarian effects of different abilities need to be tackled with a progressive education policy that compensates for unfavourable circumstances. (shrink)