San Jose State University Business Ethics & Regulations Philosophy Case Study After reading case study 15, please answer the following question.Suppose we

San Jose State University Business Ethics & Regulations Philosophy Case Study After reading case study 15, please answer the following question.Suppose we accept that pornography, in all or most of its forms, is morally objectionable. Who is more at fault for the industry’s success — consumers who continue to watch pornography, or the producers who continue to make and distribute it?In your answer please provide a moral argument that uses a moral principle as one of its premises. Be sure to consider objections to your argument, and respond to those objections. In an effort to help you improve your discussion boards and case study write ups, I wanted to
point to some concrete tips that will be useful. These tips come from noticing how the
writing is going in this class. Some of you wanted an ideal write up. I tend to not like doing
that. But what follows below is a good way to think about how to improve your work. I will
start with some points.
What is an argument?
The first major point I would like to make concerns something basic. The question is: what is
an argument? The answer is: a set of statements some of which are intended to support a
single statement. The statements that do the supporting work are called premises, the single
statement that is supported is called the conclusion.
What is a good argument?
The second major point I would like to make concerns something a bit more complicated.
The question is: what is a good argument? This is not easy, but we can say the following. The
premises are true. The premises support the conclusion by either (i) making the conclusion
more likely to be true, given the truth of the premises, or (ii) it is impossible for the premises
to be true and the conclusion false at the same time. Arguments of type (i) are inductive, and
arguments of type (ii) are deductive.
Let me now give an example of how to improve the presentation of your arguments,
objections, and replies.
Moral Question:
Should essential workers in the health care industry, such as nurses, be paid more than their
actual salary because of the current risk to reward tradeoff, and the needs for healthcare
workers?
Moral Argument:
Moral Principle: Act-Utilitarianism holds that the right action is that action from the set of
available actions that increases aggregate happiness.
Facts of the current situation: (a) we need essential workers in the health care industry now
more than prior to the pandemic, (b) some essential workers might not be incentivized to
work because they are not getting appropriately compensated for their work even though the
risks associated with their work have gone up, (c) society as a whole would prefer essential
workers in the health care industry to stay on the job in order to serve the community.
Options: (i) compensate the workers more in the hope that they will stay on the job, (ii) do
not compensate the workers and hope that they will stay on the job.
Moral Conclusion: Choose (i) since compensating the workers has a better chance of keeping
them on the job, and were they to stay on the job, the chances that society will have
increased aggregate welfare is higher.
Objections:
First, it appears unjust to compensate someone more for their job just because there is more
work than normal. For example, should we compensate firefighters more if all of a sudden
there were more fires in California than on average. Why shouldn’t we simply hire more fire
fighters, but keep their salary the same.
Second, it appears unfair for essential workers to demand more money for their work
because the risks have gone up. If we allow this to happen, then anytime a service industry
has some important status in society due to an emergency we would be required to pay them
more simply to have society function properly. This seems unfair.
Reply to first objection:
While it does seem unjust to compensate someone more for their job just because there is
more work than normal, it is incorrect to think this is never done. Consider the case of
overtime pay. In overtime pay a person’s salary is increased by 1.5 to account for the fact that
they are working over the standard amount of hours that they would normally work.
Likewise we can invent the category of added risk / hazard pay, where workers, such as
firefighters, police officers, and doctors and nurses can apply for add risk pay when the risks
go significantly higher.
Response from opponent pressing the point:
But this technique cannot work unless we have a way of determining when the risk has gone
up in a fair way such that added pay is permissible. Otherwise, people might ask for inflated
rates in the time of an emergency because they have specialized skill, and there is no option
but to pay the person in question.
Reply to response:
There is a fair way to determine when the risks have gone up. Ask people in the field to
determine what are standard risks and what are the experiences of the workers in the field.
Use that information to form the notion of an average risk.
Reply to second objection:
While it does seem unfair for people to hold society hostage when there is a crisis, it is
incorrect to think that the workers are the one’s holding society hostage. Rather, the
approach here is to build a system that automatically allows them to get more pay because of
the work they are doing in relation to the added risk they are taking on. In addition, it is
application based and subject to review. It is not true that everyone will apply, and it isn’t
true that everyone will get it. What is true is that there is a procedure in play that will lead
to a mechanism for keeping more essential workers on the job for the benefit of society.
Response from opponent pressing the point:
If we are increasing salaries when risks go up, shouldn’t we decrease salaries when they go
down? And if so, wouldn’t this lead to a fluctuating pay scale that people cannot depend on?
And won’t this lead to people being not inclined to join an industry where there is no stable
income?
Reply to response:
While is seems unfair to only increase in one direction when there are added risks, and not
decrease when there are lower risks, this is only an appearance of unfairness. The base salary
that a person gets is determined by the kind of job that they have. The additional pay is for
the additional risks taken on. When the risks go below the standard amount, that is not a
fault of the employer or the employee, it is simply a fact of how things went. So, we can be
justified in paying more when risks are high without dropping the salary when they are
lower.
____________________________
Things to think about:
What I have set up here is a pattern that I want you to try and do. The pattern is the
following.
(i) Come up with objections to your own argument.
(ii) Respond to those objections.
(iii) Think about how your opponent might respond back to you.
(iv) Give a response to that response.
Your grades will improve if you try to do this. What I was seeing was a lot of: Objection /
Response, with no continuation of how the conversation would go. But we are not talking
about point / counterpoint. We are talking about continuing a chain of reasoning as far out as
we can go while trying to be honest about how the conversation would terminate.
In addition, many of you make arguments too quickly. You just say: based on moral theory
X , Y is the conclusion. But this is not good. You need to slow down and show your steps. Do
you see how I have shown my steps above. I have tried to show how the moral principle
with certain facts leads to a moral conclusion.
Thanks for the discussion boards and for the write-ups. I am now getting a sense of where everyone is at. Here are
some tips to improve.
(a) Use a moral theory explicitly in your argument. For example, say that you are arguing from act-utilitarianism or
virtue ethics or Ross’ prima facie duties or Kant’s humanity formulation of the categorial imperative.
(b) Make sure you use the theory properly. If you don’t do so, you will lose points. This is where moral theory
matters. If you claim that something follows from act-utilitarianism and it doesn’t you have made a mistake that I
will grade you on.
(c) Try to choose more than one objection. And choose objections that are really important.
(d) The table is there to help you read the case presentation while looking for important details. However, not
every box on the table is going to have something in it always. Keep that in mind. Don’t force things.
(e) Proof read. Proof read. No one likes to read stuff that is written poorly. Please go over your work. You have time
🙂
(a) Did you proof read your write up? Did you have good prose and good flow in your writing? In general, writing
matters, if you were turning this into your boss at work, you would proof read, please do that here as well.
(b) Did you list our your argument using a precise principle, such as act utilitarianism, and show how it yields a
specific result? In general, if you are using your own moral theory say so, and state the principle, and one of your
objections that you consider should be about your principle.
(c) Did you consider more than one objection? Did you state your opponents view clearly, and respond to it
adequately.
Case Study Rubric
Criteria
Ratings
Pts
Moral Argument
A moral argument contains at least one moral premise, and a moral conclusion, along with
other premises leading to a conclusion.
50.0 to >0.0 pts 0.0 pts
Moral
No
Argument Marks
50.0 pts
Consideration of Objections
When the argument is completed, please consider how someone who has a different point
of view might respond to your argument.
15.0 pts
Consideration
of objections
0.0 pts
No
Marks
15.0 pts
Response to objections
When you are done listing out and creating a narrative about how another point of view
might disagree with you, please respond to those objections or counter considerations.
15.0 pts
Full Marks
0.0 pts
No Marks
15.0 pts

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