DESARROLLO SOCIAL Y HUMANO PARA LA

Discourse ethics is a normative approach that deals with the proper processes of rational debate that are necessary to arrive at a resolution of ethical questions. It does not lay down what is right and wrong but it does distinguish right and wrong ways of arguing about right and wrong. It is an ancient idea that the process of argument, or rhetoric, is key to discovering the truth. Some, such as Protagoras, argued that there are always two sides to any argument (Billig, 1996: 72). This implies that dialogue cannot lead to a definitive truth because there are always arguments to be made for or against any proposition. However, Protagoras was pre- pared to argue, as reported by Socrates, that although opposing arguments could be presented some were more useful than others. Whether or not argument and debate can lead to true or useful statements about what is right and wrong, these classical concerns established an importance for forensic debate, and the classifica- tion of rhetorical techniques, that has remained in western culture.

The approach in modern times is most closely associated with Jürgen Habermas, of the Frankfurt school of critical theorists (Pusey, 1987). Habermas built upon the philosophical heritage of Kant; and so perhaps should not be included in the lower right quadrant of Figure 3.1. However, he breaks with Kant in his belief that knowledge develops through social interaction and discourse. Knowledge is not, as Kant argued, a matter unaffected by social and cultural pro- cesses. Habermas holds that disagreement can be resolved rationally through debate which is free of compulsion, in which no disputant applies pressure to another, and in which only the strength of the arguments matters. This calls for linguistic skill but it also requires a critical self-reflection in which those involved in a debate challenge their own arguments at:

• The objective level – at which a statement is tested against an observed state, checking for example whether the statement that ‘the balance sheet does not add up’ is true.

• The inter-subjective level – when a statement is made and heard it creates a social relationship between the hearer and the speaker. At the inter-subjective level it has to be questioned whether this relationship is legitimate. If the statement that the balance sheet doesn’t add up implies, without evidence, that the listener is accused of cooking the books the relationship may be unfair, especially if the speaker is the listener’s boss.

• The intra-subjective level – at which a speaker has to consider whether their speech sincerely or authentically mirrors their internal thoughts and values. It is these processes of validation that Habermas refers to as discourse. The appli- cation of these in organisations would be very difficult. However, writers have attempted to put these ideas into operation. Some have focused on the skills of

debate. Schreier and Groeben (1996) looked at the advice, given in popular books on how to persuade and influence people, about which tricks of presentation were unfair. They asked a panel of experts to categorise 84 of the rhetorical tricks against four ethical categories that are used to assess whether an argument in a debate was proper. Using the results they were able to identify some possible rules or tests for assessing the ethical integrity of any debate. A few examples follow.

• Formal validity – Are the arguments logically rigorous? e.g. do not select only

those cases to use in your argument that support your point of view.

• Sincerity/Truth – Are the arguments intentionally misleading, inconsistent or

economical with the truth? e.g. misrepresenting an opponent’s position or exagger-

ating a point.

• Content justice – Treating your opponents unfairly or imposing impossible

requirements on them. e.g. ad hominem attacks on an opponent in which the

opponent is vilified rather than his or her arguments criticised. Making mutually exclusive demands on an opponent.

• Procedural justice – Preventing an opponent from fully and freely participat-

ing in the debate. e.g. unnecessary use of technical jargon in a way intended to

confuse the opponent.

Steinmann and Lohr (quoted in Preuss, 1999: 414) also propose the use of dis- course to achieve a consensus on ethical business issues. They simplified the characteristics of ideal discourse, against which actual discussions may be assessed, as:

• impartiality

• non-coercion

• non-persuasiveness and

• expertise.

They had an opportunity to put these guidelines into practice when they organised and chaired a series of corporate dialogues within Procter & Gamble on the question of self-medication by selling over-the-counter cold medicines. Others have proposed rules and procedures for debate. This has been particularly common in the field of public policy making. Fischer (1983) made a case for forensic skills to be applied to the process of evaluating public policy options through ethical discourse. He drew upon a method he called normative logic. This was based on studies of how people discuss and decide normative issues in everyday speech and life. He concluded that despite the lack of final ethical truths, people resolved value matters by combining questioning based on empiri- cal knowledge with a lawyer-like process of marshalling a supportable case, by drawing upon their knowledge of:

• the consequences of the different positions or actions they may take;

• established norms, values and laws;

• the facts of the situation;

• the network of circumstances that preceded the situation;

• the ‘fundamental needs of humankind’.

People can construct defensible cases for taking particular actions or positions. According to some philosophers this process is untenable because it requires decisions, about what ought to be, to be derived from descriptions of how things actually are, and this they claim is illogical.

Fischer’s response was to say that the purpose of drawing up guidelines for debate is not to establish ultimate values but to arrive at pragmatic resolutions through a rigorous, if ungrounded, process that is not anchored in immutable values.

So far the discussion has focused on fair and open debate of ethical matters. But the question of who should have a voice in the debate is also an important ethi- cal matter. This question can best be considered by looking at the application of stakeholder theory to ethical matters. This theory proposes that, for every organi- sation, stakeholder groups can be identified:

• who are affected by,

• who can affect, or

• whose welfare is tied into

the actions of a corporation. It may be necessary to add a criterion of legitimacy to the identification of stakeholders. As Whysall (2000) pointed out, a shoplifter’s welfare may be affected by a retailer’s actions but that does not make them a legitimate stakeholder.

Donaldson and Preston (1995) presented four perspectives on the roles of stakeholder management.

• Descriptive – that the stakeholder theory describes what corporations are, i.e.

constellations of interconnected interest groups.

• Instrumental – that if corporations adopt stakeholder management they will,

all other things being equal, be more successful than those organisations that do not.

• Managerial – that the theory enables managers to identify options and solu-

tions to problems.

Connexion point

In philosophy this argument is known as the naturalistic fallacy, as is dis- cussed further on p. 437. Fischer’s response is argued from the point of view of pragmatism which is explained on p. 161.

But underpinning each of these roles was the fourth normative one: stake- holder theory can be used to develop moral or philosophical guidelines for the operations of corporations. In particular it forces corporations to make a broad ethical appreciation of its actions that considers its impact on communities as well as on the profit and loss account. Whysall used the case of companies that retail goods, at premium prices to affluent consumers, which were manufactured in sweatshop conditions in third world countries. A traditional management approach would only consider the benefits of the business model to the corpora- tion and its customers. A stakeholder approach would also involve consideration of the impact upon the workforces, the communities and governments of the countries involved as well as activists and lobbyists.

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism theory accepts utility, or the greatest happiness principle, as the foundation of morals. It holds that actions are right in proportion, as they tend to promote happiness, wrong, as they tend to promote the opposite of happi- ness. Or as Jeremy Bentham, the eighteenth-century philosopher who proposed the principle, put it:

The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.

(Bentham, 1994: 142) The term utilitarianism, however, was coined by John Stuart Mill, a nine- teenth-century writer, and not by Bentham. One interesting question that arises from utilitarianism is, ‘What is happiness?’ Most philosophers were at pains to suggest that it is not simply sensual pleasure. As J.S. Mill argued, ‘It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied’ (Mill, 1998: 140). The importance of the higher pleasures over the lower has long been a theme in western ethics. St Augustine recognised that worldly pleasures were not of themselves bad but that they were insufficient to achieve an admirable life. He saw the sensual, material world as but part of human experience that has to be understood within the wider context of the intelligible world, which is one of clear and enduring ideas. Utilitarianism, according to Mill, who took a similar view, is not concerned only with material and sensual pleasures.

Utilitarianism is a calculating approach to ethics. It assumes the quantity and quality of happiness can be weighed. Bentham (1982) identified the following features of happiness that ought to be considered when measuring it:

• Intensity.

• Duration.

Briefly analyse Case study 2.11 (The British railway system: priorities, profits and

governance) from a stakeholder perspective.

• Certainty – the probability that happiness or pain will result.

• Extent – the number of people affected.

• Closeness (propinquity) – pleasure or pain now or deferred in time.

• Richness (fecundity) – will the act lead to further pleasure?

• Purity – is the pleasure unalloyed or is it mixed with pain?

It is often assumed, in a business context, that maximising happiness is the same as maximising profit or return on capital invested. Plainly, improved prof- itability will generate happiness for some. But to apply the utilitarian principle properly one must consider the possibility that the pleasure derived from increased profitability has been achieved at the cost of a greater pain to other people. Mill (1998: 151) pointed out that most of the time someone applying the utilitarian principle need only concern themselves with their private interest. This is not necessarily so when the ‘person’ in question is a corporation.

Cost–benefit analysis is a natural tool of a utilitarian approach because it mea- sures not only the direct costs and benefits to an organisation but also externalities. Externalities are defined in economics as social costs and benefits that are not reflected in the price of a product because they do not accrue directly to the organisation concerned. When people smoke the cigarettes produced by a tobacco company they are more likely to fall ill and so create costs for health care systems. But the costs of that health care are not reflected in the costs of the cigarettes because the medical bills are not the tobacco company’s responsibility. In the USA, however, the claim that tobacco companies misled their customers as to the harmful effects of smoking led the courts to require the companies to reim- burse states with the cost of the medical treatment of smoking-related diseases. In this case an externality was converted into a private cost of the companies.

Cost–benefit analysis is based on the premise that both elements in the equation can be measured in monetary terms. To do this some limitations have to be

Cost–benefit analysis is a form of project appraisal. The costs and outputs of the project are identified and priced. If the outputs will arise over an extended period of time, and inputs are needed over a similar time span, the benefits and costs are discounted. If the benefits are greater than the costs then invest- ment in the project would be sensible. If the project were, for example, a malaria control programme in a poor country, it is clear that the benefits would be widespread. Many lives would be saved; the health of the popula- tion would be improved. But these benefits are intangible and difficult to measure in financial terms. It might be thought that the costs of such a project would be easier to identify. Some, such as the cost of the labour and the insec- ticide, would be. But there may be wider, and less easy to measure, costs such as increased costs of education because more children survive and are fit enough to attend school.

accepted. An example of a study undertaken by Lambur et al. (2003) illustrates the point. The question was whether a programme of nutrition and health edu- cation in schools created more benefits than costs by altering children’s eating habits in ways that made them healthier and less prone to illness. The costs of the programme were tangible and could be measured. Three main types of bene- fits were anticipated:

1. Direct tangible benefits – the savings on medical treatment of people who would have become ill had they not changed their eating patterns. These ben- efits could be measured financially because the costs of treating medical conditions are known.

2. Indirect tangible benefits – the additional economic productivity that is achieved by preventing or delaying the onset of illness.

3. Intangible benefits – these are such things as the improved quality of life and improved self-esteem associated with healthier eating. The analysts in this case, as do all cost–benefit analysts, listed the intangible benefits but did not measure them or include them in the quantitative analysis.

Analysts have to make further, technical, choices, about how to conduct the analysis. There are three main issues:

1. Cost : benefit ratio. This is the monetary value of the benefits per pound or dollar or euro spent. If the ratio is greater than 1 then benefits exceed costs. 2. Discount rate. The value of money to be spent or received at some future time

is less than money spent or received in the present. In cost–benefit analysis it is necessary therefore to choose a rate at which future income will be discounted. 3. Net present value. This is a way of showing the result of a cost–benefit analy-

sis in present-day values. The streams of benefits and costs in future years are discounted, using the chosen discount rate, so that all costs and benefits are presented in terms of their present value.

In the study we are looking at it was decided that the cost : benefit ratio was the appropriate method and it was found to be $10.64 worth of benefits for every $1 spent. There are two problems that emerge from this form of analysis.

1. So many assumptions have to be made, and so many things have to be left out of the calculation that the validity of the results is brought into question. 2. A cost–benefit analysis may show, as indeed the example given does, that the

expenditure would be worthwhile. But it does not show whether that expen- diture is affordable or what its priority is in relation to other projects that could be undertaken, unless the simple criterion is used that priority should be established according to the cost : benefit ratio, with projects with higher ratios having the greater priority. Fisher (1998) has argued that establishing priorities is a more complex matter.

One danger of utilitarianism, which cost–benefit analysis is designed to address, is that organisations seek to maximise a good rather than the good. In the

British National Health Service, for example, the government set a target for reducing the size of the waiting lists for treatment, maximising a good – the number of patients treated. However, many hospitals achieved this by treating patients with minor problems that could be quickly and cheaply resolved and leaving those who needed lengthy and difficult treatment at the back of the queue, and so they failed to maximise the overall good.

In the case of public policy, public, and not simply private, good has clearly to be taken into account. Kemm (1985) used a utilitarian approach in a discussion of the ethics of food policy. He was interested in the ethical issues involved in modifying the eating habits of the population through regulation, facilitating measures (such as differentially taxing foods) and education. He argued that a policy is ethical if it produces more beneficial outcomes than harmful ones. But his suggestions about how policy makers might analyse issues sheds light on the limitations of technical means such as cost–benefit analysis.

Kemm stressed the interconnections between subjective and objective think- ing in assessing the outcomes of policies. The three stages in this process are: 1. Determining the inherent goodness or badness of an outcome. This is a sub-

jective value decision such as that involved in stating that dental mottling is less bad than carcinoma of the colon.

2. Measuring the probability that the desired outcome will be achieved. This is a scientific and objective activity.

3. Assessing the degree of certainty with which the probability of the outcomes has been estimated. This is a matter of judgement rather than measurement. The subjective element can be illustrated by an example from the first item in the above list. Utility’s concern for populations makes these subjective judge- ments difficult. How, for example, should moderate good for the majority be weighed against great harm to the minority? Fortifying chapatti flour would pro- vide some health benefit for most chapatti eaters, but for the rare individual with vitamin D sensitivity it might cause serious vitamin D toxicity. The ethical prob- lem can be exacerbated by the fact that the majority may not be aware that they have received benefits from the fortified flour. To give another example, if food policies increase the amount of fibre in the diet this will benefit people by pro- tecting them from diverticulitis. However, they will not be aware of this. But those who suffer from flatulence as a result will be in no doubt that they have suffered, albeit the pain is not critical.

Most would take the view that a very small harm to a very few individuals could be outweighed by a sufficiently large benefit to a sufficiently large number of individuals.

(Kemm, 1985: 291) One of the criticisms of utilitarianism is that it is unconcerned with equity. As Sen said:

The trouble with [utilitarianism] is that maximising the sum of individual utili- ties is supremely unconcerned with the interpersonal distribution of that sum.

The problem of forecasting future consequences, as identified in the last two items of Kemm’s list, is a general difficulty with utilitarianism. If people cannot