A common argument used to defend markets in ‘contested commodities’ is based on the value of personal autonomy. Autonomy is of great moral value; removing options from a person's choice set would compromise her ability to exercise her autonomy; hence, there should be a prima facie presumption against removing options from persons’ choice sets; thus, the burden of proof lies with those who wish to prohibit markets in certain goods. Christopher Freiman has developed a version of this argument to defend (...) markets in votes. I argue that Freiman's argument fails, and that its failure illustrates the falsity of the widespread claim that the more options a person has available to her the better able she will be to exercise her autonomy. In Part 1, I outline Freiman's argument from ‘the presumption of voter liberty’ for legalising markets in votes. In Part 2, I argue that the option to sell one's vote in a legal market for them would be a ‘constraining option’ – an option which, if chosen, would be likely to lead to a diminution in a person's future ability to exercise her autonomy. In Part 3, I respond to objections to my arguments. (shrink)

In an important and provocative paper Christopher Freiman recently has defended the view that vote-buying should be legal in democratic societies. Freiman offers four arguments in support of this claim: that vote buying would be ex ante beneficial to both the buyers and sellers of votes; that voters enjoy wide discretion in how they use their votes, and so this should extend to selling them; that vote markets would lead to electoral outcomes that better (...) reflect voters’ preferences; and that vote-buying is relevantly similar to other democratic practices that are currently legal, such as logrolling and earmarking. In this paper I will address the last of Freiman’s arguments. I will argue that there are significant disanalogies between vote buying and both logrolling and earmarking, and that these differences justify the legal prohibition of the former practice while legally permitting the latter two. (shrink)

What limits should there be on the areas of life that are governed by market forces? For many years, no one seriously defended the buying and selling votes for political elections. In recent years, however, this situation has changed, with a number of authors defending the permissibility of vote markets. One popular objection to such markets is that they would lead to a tyranny of wealth, where the poor are politically dominated by the rich. In a recent (...) paper, Taylor :313–328, 2017. doi: 10.1007/s11158-016-9327-0) has argued that this objection can be avoided if certain restrictions are placed on vote markets. In this paper we will argue that this attempt to rebut an argument against vote markets is unsuccessful. Either vote markets secure their purported benefits but then they inevitably lead to a tyranny of wealth, or they are restricted so heavily that they lack the features that have been claimed to make vote markets attractive in the first place. Using Taylor’s proposal as a test case, we make the more general claim that vote markets cannot avoid the tyranny of wealth objection and bring about their supposed benefits at the same time. (shrink)

In this provocative book, Jason Brennan challenges our fundamental assumptions about voting, revealing why it is not a duty for most citizens--in fact, he ...

Both vote buying and tax-cut promises are attempts to manipulate voters through cash incentives in order to win elections, but only vote buying is illegal. Should we extend the ban on vote buying to tax-cut promises? This article will argue for three conclusions. The first is that tax-cut promises should be understood as a form of vote buying. The second is that campaign promises are a form of vote buying. The (...) third conclusion is that campaign promises, including tax-cut promises, should not be banned. An important distinction is drawn between enforceable wrongful incentives and unenforceable wrongful incentives. The difference between vote buying and tax-cut promises is not wrongfulness but enforceability. (shrink)

This note shows how to formalize a small set of general facts about buying and selling. We begin with summarizing properties of buying/selling informally in English, and give examples of consequences of these assumptions. Then we formalize our assumptions in action language C+ with additive fluents and actions and test the adequacy of the proposed formalization using the Causal Calculator.

A common criticism of plurality voting is that it fails to reflect the degree of intensity with which voters prefer the candidate or policy that they vote for. To rectify this, many critics of plurality voting have argued that vote buying should be allowed. Persons with more intense preferences for a candidate could buy votes from persons with less intense preferences for the opposing candidate and then cast them for the candidate that they intensely support. This paper (...) argues that instead of better reflecting voters’ weighted preferences, vote buying will lead to electoral outcomes that reflect them less accurately. (shrink)

BackgroundEgg donor agencies are increasingly being used as part of IVF in the US, but are essentially unregulated, posing critical ethical and policy questions concerning how providers view and use them, and what the implications might be.MethodsThirty-seven in-depth interviews of approximately 1 h were conducted – with 27 IVF providers and 10 patients.ResultsClinicians vary in their views and interactions concerning egg donor agencies, ranging widely in whether and how often they use agencies. Agencies may offer egg recipients increased choices, but (...) raise ethical and other concerns regarding respect for donors as individuals, potential harms, justice, and donors constituting a vulnerable group. The quality of agencies appears to vary considerably, from acceptable to problematic. Agencies’ medical and psychological screenings of donors can range, and be minimal. Not all agencies adequately track donors’ prior numbers of donations, or share the relevant records with clinics. Clinics may find that potential donors have genetic mutations and medical problems about which they were unaware. Yet agencies and clinics do not provide care for such donors, generating stress. Dissemination of donors’ personal data can potentially threaten confidentiality. Questions emerge of whether increased monitoring/oversight of agencies may be beneficial.ConclusionsThese data, the first to examine providers’ views and interactions regarding egg donor agencies, suggest wide variations in quality and use of agencies, and have critical implications for practice, policy, education and research. Given the potential limitations of the current model of self-regulation of agencies, the present data suggest needs to consider stronger professional guidelines or possible governmental regulations to establish, require and enforce higher standards for agencies to follow, regarding advertising to potential donors and recipients, arranging for appropriate informed consent concerning risks and benefits involved, and for quality control. Appropriate informed consent should be obtained from potential egg donors, including the fact that they may learn about mutations or medical problems about which they were unaware, but for which they will not receive treatment as part of this process. Enhancing understanding among the public-at-large about what egg donation entails may also be helpful. (shrink)

It is widely believed that the nature of love and friendship precludes them from being bought or sold. It will be argued in this paper that this view is false: There is no conceptual bar to the commodification of love and friendship. The arguments offered for this view will lead to another surprising conclusion: That these goods are asymmetrically alienable goods, goods whose nature is such that separate arguments must be provided for the views that they can be bought and (...) sold. The possibility of asymmetric alienability has not yet been recognized in the literature on commodification. (shrink)

May you sell your vote? May you sell your kidney? May gay men pay surrogates to bear them children? May spouses pay each other to watch the kids, do the dishes, or have sex? Should we allow the rich to genetically engineer gifted, beautiful children? Should we allow betting markets on terrorist attacks and natural disasters? Most people shudder at the thought. To put some goods and services for sale offends human dignity. If everything is commodified , then nothing (...) is sacred. The market corrodes our character. Or so most people say. In Markets without Limits , Jason Brennan and Peter Jaworski give markets a fair hearing. The market does not introduce wrongness where there was not any previously. Thus, the authors claim, the question of what rightfully may be bought and sold has a simple answer: if you may do it for free, you may do it for money. Contrary to the conservative consensus, they claim there are no inherent limits to what can be bought and sold, but only restrictions on how we buy and sell. (shrink)

The present investigation studies buying and selling encounters in a Mexican fruit and vegetable shop. It is a conversation-analytic study that shows aspects of the institutional character of these interactions, their overall organisation and sequential structure. It suggests that the core sequential structure of these encounters consists of two base adjacency pairs, buying and selling. In particular, the analysis describes the preparatory characteristics of the pre-expansions that precede the product request formulations, the linguistic composition and sequential (...) positioning of request formulations, the insertions of the buying adjacency pair and the sequencing of the commercial exchange which is described as the climax of the institutional event. The designs of the first pair part of the selling adjacency pair and the product request formulations are presented as clear instances of the referential framework or common ground shared by seller and customer. (shrink)

We describe an experimental approach toward implementing a commonsense "microtheory" for buying and selling. Our prototype system characterizes how intelligent agents hold items and money, how they buy and sell items, and the way money and items are transferred. The ontology of the system includes money (cash, check, credit card), agents (people, organizations), items (movable, real estate, service), barter, and the notions of transfer, loan, buying by installments, profit, and loss.

Recently, some of the leading proponents of the view that there is widespread incommensurability among goods have suggested that the incommensurability of some goods is a constitutive feature of the goods themselves. So, for example, a friendship and a million dollars are incommensurable because it is part of what it is to be a friendship that it be incommensurable with money. According to these ‘constitutive incommensurabilists’ incommensurability follows from the very nature of certain goods. In this paper, I examine this (...) idea and argue that constitutive incommensurabilists have mistaken for constitutive incommensurability a particular emphatic kind of comparability. This examination involves an account of ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ goods and an explanation of how goods of different ‘types’ figure in practical conflict. (shrink)

: This essay examines the increasing commodification of the body with respect to tissues, gametes, and embryos. Such commodification contributes to a diminishing sense of human personhood on an individual level, even as it erodes commitments to human flourishing at the societal level. After the case for social harm resulting from the increasing commodification of the body is made, the question becomes whether that harm is best remedied by following any of three approaches by which government traditionally seeks to promote (...) the flourishing of its citizens. The author concludes that it is not, and that what is needed is a pragmatic and somewhat casuistic approach to the regulation of contested commodities--that which legal scholar Margaret Jane Radin calls "incomplete commodification.". (shrink)

Now that stem cell scientists are clamouring for human eggs for cloning-based stem cell research, there is vigorous debate about the ethics of paying women for their eggs. Generally speaking, some claim that women should be paid a fair wage for their reproductive labour or tissues, while others argue against the further commodification of reproductive labour or tissues and worry about voluntariness among potential egg providers. Siding mainly with those who believe that women should be financially compensated for providing eggs (...) for research, the new stem cell guidelines of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) legitimise both reimbursement of direct expenses and financial compensation for many women who supply eggs for research. In this paper, the authors do not attempt to resolve the thorny issue of whether payment for eggs used in human embryonic stem cell research is ethically legitimate. Rather, they want to show specifically that the ISSCR recommended payment practices are deeply flawed and, more generally, that all payment schemes that aim to avoid undue inducement of women risk the global exploitation of economically disadvantaged women. (shrink)

Almost everyone would agree that vote buying is morally wrong, and that prohibitions on vote buying are morally justified. Yet, recently, several philosophers have argued that vote buying is morally permissible, and that it should be legally permitted. This paper begins by examining and criticising arguments that have been offered in defence of vote buying. I then go on to consider existing attempts to explain the wrongness of vote buying, arguing (...) that none is wholly successful. I then advance a novel account of the wrongness of vote buying. Vote buying is objectionable, I argue, because it involves a failure of respect for one’s fellow citizens as autonomous agents. I also consider the implications of my account for a number of other controversial practices. (shrink)

The philosophical debate concerning political exchange has largely been confined to debating the desirability of vote trading; where individuals can sell their votes or buy votes from others. However, I show that the vote credit systems prevalent in public choice theory entirely avoid the common objections to political exchange that afflict vote trading proposals. Namely, vote credit systems avoid equality concerns and inalienability concerns. I offer an alternative critique to formal mechanisms that encourage political exchange by (...) drawing on the role that impartiality and impartial moral judgements play in democratic and electoral institutions. (shrink)

The ever-growing acceptance and use of assisted human reproduction techniques has caused demand for “donated” sperm and eggs to outstrip supply. Medical professionals and others argue that monetary reward is the only way to recruit sufficient numbers of “donors”. Is this a clash between pragmatics and policy/ethics? Where monetary payments are the norm, alternative recruitment strategies used successfully elsewhere may not have been considered, nor the negative consequences of commercialism on all participants thought through. Considerations leading some countries to ban (...) the buying and selling of sperm, eggs and embryos are outlined and a case made that the collective welfare of all involved parties be the primary consideration in this, at times heated, debate. (shrink)

This paper examines the interaction of law and policy-making on prostitution, with that of BDSM (bondage and discipline, sadism and masochism). Recent policy and legal shifts in the UK mark out prostitutes as vulnerable and in need of ‘rescue’. BDSM that amounts to actual bodily harm is unlawful in the UK, and calls to decriminalise it are often met with fears that participants will be left vulnerable to abuse. Where women sell BDSM sex, even more complex questions of choice, exploitation, (...) vulnerability, power and agency might be thought to arise. Does the combination of activities take two singular behaviours into the realm of compound harm? Are those who sell BDSM doubly vulnerable in a way that would justify criminal intervention? This paper argues that in imposing categories of vulnerability, the state engages in the heteronormative construction of risky sexual subjects who must be rehabilitated, responsiblised or punished. Through an examination of existing empirical studies on BDSM, the paper offers a feminist critique of the potential criminalisation of commercial BDSM and calls for more research on the lived experiences of those who buy and sell BDSM. (shrink)

This paper expounds and defends a relational egalitarian account of the moral wrongfulness of vote markets according to which such markets are incompatible with our relating to one another as equals qua people with views on what we should collectively decide. Two features of this account are especially interesting. First, it shows why vote markets are objectionable even in cases where standard objections to them, such as the complaint that they result in inequality in opportunity for political influence (...) across rich and poor people, are inapplicable. Second, it specifies the sense in which, politically speaking, we should relate as equals, and in doing provides a richer version of recent relational egalitarian accounts of the ideal of democracy. (shrink)

Ethical consumerism is the thesis that we should let our values determine our consumer purchases. We should purchase items that accord with our values and refrain from buying those that do not. The end goal, for ethical consumerism, is to transform the market through consumer demand. The arm of this movement associated with food choice embraces the slogan “Vote with Your Fork!” As in the more general movement, the idea is that we should let our values dictate our (...) choices. In this paper, I offer a critique of the Vote with Your Fork campaign (hereafter VWYF) that focuses on the agency of individuals. For VWYF to be effective, minimally, individuals must act _intentionally_ when making food choices. In the ideal case, individuals adopt and endorse the values implicit in VWYF and exhibit _autonomous agency_ when they purchase and consume food. The problem, though, is that a number of things can go wrong along the way. I argue that very few of us are in the position to exhibit autonomous agency with respect to our food choices. Because of this, VWYF could very well undermine its own goals. (shrink)

How to handle vagueness? One way is to introduce the machinery of acceptable sharpenings, and reinterpret truth as truth-in-all-sharpenings or truth-in-some-sharpenings. A major selling point has been the conservativism of the resulting systems with respect to classical theoremhood and inference. Supervaluationism and subvaluationism possess interesting formal symmetries, a fact that has been used to argue for the subvaluationist approach. However, the philosophical motivation behind each is a different matter. Subvaluationism comes with a standard story that is difficult to sign (...) up to. In this paper, I make use of a variant of Putnam’s well-known idea of linguistic deference, and some results in voting theory, to answer this criticism of subvaluationism. The acceptability intuitions of each member of a linguistic community amount to their voting for one or more acceptable sharpenings, with truth then characterised as truth-in-a--sufficiency-of-sharpenings. This produces a family of logical systems that are close relations of subvaluationism, share its conservatism results, yet have stronger philosophical foundations in the workings of externalist content. (shrink)

Critics of commodification often claim that the buying and selling of some good communicates disrespect or some other inappropriate attitude. Such semiotic critiques have been leveled against markets in sex, pornography, kidneys, surrogacy, blood, and many other things. Brennan and Jaworski (2015a) have recently argued that all such objections fail. They claim that the meaning of a market transaction is a highly contingent, socially constructed fact. If allowing a market for one of these goods can improve the supply, (...) access or quality of the good, then instead of banning the market on semiotic grounds, they urge that we should revise our semiotics. In this reply, I isolate a part of the meaning of a market transaction that is not socially constructed: our market exchanges always express preferences. I then show how cogent semiotic critiques of some markets can be constructed on the basis of this fact. (shrink)

In this article, we show how it is possible to lawfully buy an election. The method we describe for buying an election is novel. The key things that make it possible to buy an election are the existence of public voter registration lists where one can see whether a given elector has voted in a particular election, and the existence of Big Data Analytics that with a high degree of accuracy can predict what a given elector will vote (...) in an upcoming election. Someone interested in buying an election can enter an employment contract with all, or some of, the opponent electors where these electors are paid to do a job that prevents them from voting. By purchasing access to the public voter registration lists, it is possible to verify ex-post whether the opponent electors that one has signed a contract with have abstained. In the last two sections of the article, we discuss several barriers that can undermine an attempt to buy an election in the manner we identify. (shrink)

According to Michael Sandel in recent decades we have witnessed a change in our thinking and acting. Namely we have become to think more in terms of economics and we have also started to buy and sell a lot more things. Sandel finds this troubling and presents two arguments: (1) the inequality and fairness argument, which states that such practises help to transfer inequalities, and (2) the corruption argument, which states that such practises corrupt the nature of the thing being (...) bought and sold. It is argued here that neither of those arguments works in the way Sandel intends. It is also shown that a charitable reading allows us to extract a third implicit argument which does not work either. The article ends with a brief discussion of two arguments which show promise in proving Sandel’s point, but unfortunately are left underdeveloped. (shrink)

Christopher Freiman, Jason Brennan, and Peter M. Jaworski have recently defended markets in votes. While their views differ in several respects they all believe that the primary justificatory burden lies not with those who defend markets in votes but with those who oppose them. Yet while the burden of proof should typically rest with those who wish to prohibit markets in certain goods this does not hold for the debate over markets in votes. Votes are crucially different from other goods (...) in that for a market in them to exist, it is not enough that it be legalized; it must also be provided with institutional support so that the buyer of a vote would know that it has been cast as she wished. Defenders of markets in votes must thus provide positive arguments for the view that markets in votes should be institutionally facilitated—they cannot simply try to shift the burden of proof onto those who oppose them. This is bad news for those who defend the legalization of vote-buying, for none of the positive arguments that Freiman has offered in favor of the legalization of this type of vote-buying are sound. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:diacritics 34.1 (2004) 3-17 [Access article in PDF] Universal Shylockery Money and Morality in The Merchant of Venice Simon Critchley Tom McCarthy What if Nietzsche were a Jew, and a mean-minded Venetian Jew at that? We'd like to begin with the thought experiment of imagining The Merchant of Venice as a genealogy of morality and imagining Shylock as Nietzsche. What is The Merchant of Venice about? What is at (...) stake in this oddly inside-out drama, where a piece of good old Elizabethan comic Jew-baiting rotates 180 degrees into a devastating study of Christian anti-Semitism only to flip back into what it seemed to deny? Our initial hypothesis is that it is nothing less than an inquiry into the origin of our moral concepts of justice, good and bad, and more particularly guilt, law, mercy, and love. It is here that a link with Nietzsche suggests itself, particularly with the Second Essay of On the Genealogy of Morals.* * *How do we breed an animal with the right to make promises? For Nietzsche, the human being is an originally forgetful creature, like a young child. To make this originally forgetful creature remember requires physical discipline; it behooves punishment. The teaching of morality is never gentle; it never droppeth from heaven like gentle rain. On the contrary, if something is to be retained in memory, it must be burned in. The origin of memory lies in pain and cruelty: "Man could never do without blood, torture and sacrifices when he felt the need to create a memory for himself" [GM 61]. Nietzsche's first, astonishing hypothesis in the Second Essay is that the origin of concepts like responsibility and conscience lies in cruelty—cruelty administered and maintained through a corporal and corporeal regime. Further, as religions are systems of cruelty, all forms of asceticism originate in the same painful place. "Consider the German punishments," Nietzsche proposes—and we all know that there's nothing quite like the German punishments: stoning, breaking on the wheel, piercing with stakes, tearing apart or trampling with horses, boiling in oil, flaying alive, cutting straps from the flesh, smearing the wrongdoer with honey and leaving him to the flies in the blazing sun. As Nietzsche quips, with magnificent understatement, "With the aid of such images and procedures one finally remembers five or six 'I will not's'" [GM 62]. It is on the basis of this burned-in memory of cruelty that good, decent, upright burghers such as ourselves acquired the habit of moral reasoning:Ah, reason, seriousness, mastery over affects, the whole sombre thing called reflection, all these prerogatives and showpieces of man: how dearly they have been bought! How much blood and cruelty lie at the bottom of all "good things." [GM 62] [End Page 3]"Dearly bought": let's hold onto that trope of purchasing. In another extraordinary passage of the Second Essay, Nietzsche explains the origin of thinking itself in terms of economic activity:Setting prices, determining values, contriving equivalences, exchanging—these preoccupied the earliest thinking of man to so great an extent that in a sense they are thinking [das Denken ist]. [GM 70] In the beginning was trade. Human activity begins with exchange, with the to and fro of buying and selling, which are forms of life older than all other social alliances and organization. It is from here, Nietzsche insists, that human beings arrive at the first moral canon of justice:"Everything has its price; all things can be paid for"—the oldest and most naïve moral canon of justice, the beginning of all "good-naturedness," all "fairness," all "good will," all "objectivity" on earth. [GM 70] Which brings us to the origin of das Bewusstsein der Schuld and schlechte Gewissen, the consciousness of guilt and bad conscience. Nietzsche's hypothesis here, and our theme is beginning to come into focus, is that the origin of guilty conscience lies in the relation between a creditor and debtor, Glaubiger und Schuldner. The spiritual concept of guilt, Schuld, originates in the very material concept of Schulden... (shrink)

"Scholar of the humanities" is not a title of honor; it is only a choice of profession. Hence, those "erstwhile scholars" who have already gone into politics or business are not discussed in the present article. Instead of touching on such hot topics as professors selling meat pies, buying and selling automobiles, entering people's political consultative conferences, or taking government posts, this article considers the destiny and possible options of scholars who are willing to engage in humanity (...) studies and are still doing so, for the latter are more perplexed and more at loss and deserve more understanding and sympathy. (shrink)

The controversy over short selling has continued unabated from the introduction of modern equity trading in Amsterdam in 1610 to the present day. Nevertheless, the business ethics literature has not really addressed short selling. Short sellers not only profit from the misery of others, they also create it through their selling activities. However, they also provide a socially useful service by making prices better reflect true values, protecting other investors from purchasing overpriced securities. Short sellers can also (...) help to provide liquidity in the markets. Recently, there has been a hue and cry against so called "naked" short selling, which involves not delivering the shares that have been sold. This gives manipulators a tool for depressing stock prices and deprives purchasers of voting rights and potential stock lending revenue. Naked short selling creates ethical issues for short sellers, buyers, brokers, market makers, and regulators. Is it ethical to exploit a legal loophole that permits sellers to sell stock and delay delivering shares indefinitely? (shrink)

Buying and selling are the most natural activities common to human beings. In a society where profit overrides personal dignity and human rights, many people see market as a virtue-free zone. They do not believe that one can buy and sell without dishonest gains. Consequently, they are ready to do anything in the name of business: manufacturing and selling fake and substandard goods and services for originals. Today, markets are flooded with fake medical drugs, fake foods, fake (...) drinks/water, fake motor parts and fake building materials. Thus market exhibits exploitative and negative impacts on customer satisfaction. Its impact on human life and property leads to increased deaths because of poisoning, building collapses and even increased road accidents. Such market transaction lacks mutual benefit which is its telos. This paper seeks to establish that market is not a virtue-free zone. It has moral standards of excellence internal to it. (shrink)

This paper explores ethical issues raised by quadratic voting. We compare quadratic voting to majority voting from two ethical perspectives: the perspective of utilitarianism and that of democratic theory. From a utilitarian standpoint, the comparison is ambiguous: if voter preferences are independent of wealth, then quadratic voting out- performs majority voting, but if voter preferences are polarized by wealth, then majority voting may be superior. From the standpoint of democratic theory, we argue that assess- ments in terms of efficiency are (...) too narrow. Voting institutions and political institutions more generally face a legitimacy requirement. We argue that in the presence of inequalities of wealth, any vote buying mechanism, including quadratic voting, will have a difficult time meeting this requirement. (shrink)

The concept of clientelism has lost descriptive power. It has become indistinguishable from neighboring concepts and is applied across analytical levels. Using Gerring’s (Polity 31:357–393, 1999) characterization of a “good” concept, I establish the core attributes of clientelism, which, in addition to being an interest-maximizing exchange, involves longevity, diffuseness, face-to-face contact, and inequality. Using secondary sources and fieldwork data, I differentiate clientelism from concepts such as vote-buying and corruption and determine its analytical position at the microsociological level. I (...) argue that labeling sociopolitical systems as clientelistic is awkward since, operating at a higher analytical level, they have characteristics beyond microsociological clientelism and they affect the political nature of the clientelism they contain. I conclude that differentiating clientelism by confining it to the microsociological level will aid theory-building. (shrink)

This paper argues for the legalization of vote markets. I contend that the state should not prohibit the sale of votes under certain institutional conditions. Jason Brennan has recently argued for the moral permissibility of vote selling; yet, thus far, no philosopher has argued for the legal permissibility of vote selling. I begin by giving four prima facie reasons in favour of legalizing vote markets. First, vote markets benefit both buyers and sellers. Second, (...) citizens already enjoy significant discretion in their use of their vote, including the ability to use their vote in ways antithetical to justice and the public interest. Third, vote markets are relevantly similar to other democratic practices that are legally permissible. Fourth, vote markets enable elections to better reflect the intensity of citizens’ preferences. Next, I reply to two counter-arguments. The first contends that vote markets will increase the political power of the wealthy; the second contends that votes must be used in the serv.. (shrink)

The book Psychology industrial Efficiency by Hugo Munsterberg, which was published in 1913, is considered a classic in the field of Industrial Psychology. The book is organized into 3 main sections which concentrate on different areas of industrial productivity, particularly in environments where people work for others to create. The key areas covered include: Detecting Workers Suited to the Task: This section concentrates on locating individuals psychologically and mentally prepared for particular jobs. It reviews scientific vocational guidance and experimental psychology (...) in selecting the most appropriate individuals for various roles. Productive Conditions: The second part relates to creating productive working conditions which are optimum. The study investigates the adaptation of psychical and technical conditions, movement effectiveness, and the consequences of monotony, attention, exhaustion, social and physical factors on working power. Effectively Using Effort: The concluding chapter talks about the most efficient use of the efforts of workers. It contains research into economic demands, how advertisements impact individuals and buying and selling methods. (shrink)

This article concerns the morality of establishing regulated kidney markets in an effort to reduce the chronic shortage of kidneys for transplant. The article tries to rebut the view, recently defended by James Taylor, that if we hold autonomy to be intrinsically valuable, then we should be in favor of such markets. The article then argues that, under current conditions, the buying and selling of organs in regulated markets would sometimes violate two Kantian principles that are seen as (...) moral constraints. One principle forbids expressing disrespect for the dignity of humanity; the other forbids treating others merely as means. In light of the moral danger posed by regulated markets, the article advocates an alternative way of diminishing the current organ shortage, namely opt-out systems of cadaveric organ donation. (shrink)

This paper expands the definition of gray-marketing to include some ethically problematic marketing activities and techniques used in personal selling in China. Based on this, a conceptual model of gray-marketing for a particular type of selling in which both the sellers and the buyers exhibit problematic ethics in an exchange and the associated hypotheses are developed and tested. The findings show that, first, the respondents have different ethical evaluations of different marketing practices used in personal selling such (...) as giving and accepting gifts, buying and accepting meals, and offering and accepting kickbacks. Some of these practices may not be considered unethical. Second, in terms of ethical assessment, gray-marketing practiced by buying agents is more unacceptable than when practiced by sales agents. Third, a person's ethical evaluation of gray-marketing behavior, empathy for gray-marketing, and belief that gray-marketing has serious consequences, significantly affects his inclination to use gray-marketing. This paper concludes with a discussion of some possible applications of our research findings. (shrink)

Repeatedly, in Western democracies, sophisticated marketing techniques are used to manipulate consensus. In this context, "free" markets are interesting only because they contain potential buyers and it is possible to buy consensus. In many European countries (e.g., Italy), in Italy, for example, political scientists apply marketing techniques (advertising, psychological effects) to get (i.e., to buy) political consensus. They work on the premise that the decision to buy a product and the decision to vote for a candidate are equivalent. Their (...) interest is not in convincing, but in shaping an expedient cognitive model. (shrink)

It is often maintained that, since the buying and selling of organs—particularly the kidneys—of living people supposedly constitutes exploitation of the living vendors while the so-called “altruistic” donation of them does not, the former, unlike the latter, should be a crime. This paper challenges and rejects this view. A novel account of exploitation, influenced by but different from those of Zwolinski and Wertheimer and of Wilkinson, is developed. Exploitation is seen as a sort of injustice. A distinction is (...) made between justice and fairness. To exploit someone is to take advantage of him or her unjustly. Exploitation pertains to the nature of actions, interactions, and transaction rather than to their outcomes or to how they are perceived by exploitees. Desperation on the part of one or other of the parties to a transaction does not preclude the giving of valid consent to the transaction. Disparities of power or wealth between the parties to a transaction do not indicate or entail that the transaction will be exploitative. A disparity in the benefits that arise from a transaction between the parties does not indicate or entail that exploitation has taken place. (shrink)

Clearly, Marx thought he was promoting democratic values. In the Manifesto, the immediate goal of socialism is summed up as “to win the battle of democracy.” Marx sees the reduction of individuality as one of the greatest injuries done by a system in which most people buy and sell their labor power on terms over which they have little control. As they supervised translations and re-issues of the Manifesto, Marx and Engels singled out just one point as a major topic (...) on which their view in 1848 had been superseded. The forms of government needed to be changed to give people more control over the state, a change in structure pioneered by the Paris Commune. (shrink)

This study examines the impact of corporate social responsibility activities on insider trading. While opponents of insider trading claim that the buying or selling of a security by insiders who have access to non-public information is illegal, proponents argue that insider trading improves economic efficiency and fairness when corporate insiders buy and sell stock in their own companies. Based on extensive U.S. data of insider trading and CSR engagement, we find that both the number of insider transactions and (...) the volume of insider trading are positively associated with CSR activities.We also find that legal insider transactions are positively related to CSR engagement even after controlling for potential endogeneitybias and various firm characteristics. Furthermore, our evidence suggests that firms perceive adjustment to CSR dimension of product as being efficient, while adjustment to diversity and environmental CSR as being inefficient. Our results of bad and illegal insider trading proxies are consistent with the interpretation that firms with high CSR ratings do not attempt to engage in unethical or bad insider trading in a significant fashion. Combined together, we consider our empirical evidence supportive of the fairness and efficiency explanation, but not the unfairness and inefficiency hypothesis. (shrink)

In Markets Without Limits and a series of related papers, Jason Brennan and Peter Jaworski argue that it is morally permissible to buy and sell anything that it is morally permissible to possess and exchange outside of the market. Accordingly, we should open markets in “contested commodities” including blood, gametes, surrogacy services, and transplantable organs. This paper clarifies some important aspects of the case for market boundaries and in so doing shows why there are in fact moral limits to the (...) market. I argue that the case for restricting the scope of the market does not turn on the idea that some things are constitutively non-market goods; it turns instead on the idea that treating some things according to market norms would threaten the realization of particular kinds of human interests. (shrink)

Many people think that citizenship should not be for sale. On their view, it is morally wrong for states to sell citizenship to foreigners. In this article, I challenge this view. I argue that it is in principle permissible for states to sell citizenship. I contend that, if states can permissibly deny foreigners access to citizenship in some cases, then states can permissibly give foreigners the option of buying citizenship in these cases. Furthermore, I defend the permissibility of (...) class='Hi'>selling citizenship against the objections that selling citizenship values citizenship in the wrong way, corrupts civic norms, and unfairly discriminates against poor foreigners. I conclude by noting that, although selling citizenship is not intrinsically wrong, it could still be wrong for states to sell citizenship in practice. If existent immigration restrictions are unjust, then it may be impermissible for states to sell citizenship in the real world. (shrink)

This paper offers the first moral defense of markets in votes in a democratic electoral system based on majority rule where there are no moral restrictions on how votes can be cast. In Part 1 I outline the type of vote buying that I defend in this paper, and defend my methodological assumption. In Part 2 I criticize Freiman’s arguments for legalizing vote buying. In Part 3 I outline and reply to some responses that could be (...) made to my criticisms of Freiman’s arguments. In Part 4 I draw from the flaws in Freiman’s arguments to argue that vote buying is morally permissible and defend these arguments against objections. (shrink)

There are ethical guidelines that form the foundation of the traditional doctor–patient relationship in medicine. Health care providers are under special obligations to their patients. These include obligations to disclose information, to propose alternative treatments that allow patients to make decisions based on their own values, and to have special concern for patients’ best interests. Furthermore, patients know that these obligations exist and so come to their physicians with a significant level of trust. In this sense, therapeutic medicine significantly differs (...) from straightforward business practices such as the buying and selling of houses, cars, cell phones, etc. However, we argue that this relationship differs when medicine is used for enhancement rather than therapy. When patients seek enhancements they are not as vulnerable as when they are ill. And in an enhancement setting, physicians have little role outside of medical risks to discuss motivation and alternatives. Therefore, we conclude that a more reasonable alternative may be for doctors and patients to use ethical norms associated more with straightforward business practices, specifically sales. We believe that full disclosure of this different set of norms will benefit both physicians and patients. (shrink)