CHAPTER FIVE: THE MEANING AND VALUE OF WORK

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Encourage students to reflect on the goals and values of their own career and workplace decisions

Explain the variety of meanings and values attributed to work Distinguish work done as a mere job from work in careers and

professions Examine business’ responsibility for providing employees with

meaningful work Provide a framework for evaluating business’ ethical

responsibilities to employees Provide a framework for evaluating the rights and responsibilities

of employees

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What criteria make a career successful? Is it possible to find meaning and value at work if

employees are told to check their conscience at the door?

The Greg Smith–Goldman Sachs case highlights the tension that can exist between aggressive pursuit of profit and personal responsibility and job satisfaction

Assumptions challenged with growing movements such as “social entrepreneurship” or “social enterprise”

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• The Grameen Bank model

• The Mozilla Corporation model

• Our changing work environment

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We work as a means to an end We take certain courses as means to an end

Is this right? Is this all?

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Work is a very important part of our lives and it is not easily abandoned Genesis: curse and punishment for original sin Aristotle: necessary for the good life Martin Luther: the toil of work contributes to a higher

cause Karl Marx: through work we express our humanity;

labor alienates us from this end

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To the degree that work is a burden that we must all endure, business ethics is challenged to articulate and defend the conditions under which work can be made fair, just and humane

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The word “work” has a variety of meanings A noun A verb A job, a profession, a career, trade, labor, occupation,

vocation or a calling

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Why work?

What is work good for?

Instrumental value

Psychic goods

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Some jobs provide their holders with particular meaning and worth.

Work contributes to our identity.

Why, then, must we be paid to work?

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Does business have a responsibility to provide employees with meaningful work?

Do we have a right to work?

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Work is something that must be endured.- The Classical interpretation of work conceives of humans as intellectual beings, even though work is physical.

- The Hedonistic interpretation understands work as a necessary means for obtaining life’s pleasures.

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Work is the primary activity through which people develop their full potential as human beings. Telos (“Be all that you can be”): Psychological benefits Social benefits

However, not every job contributes to the development of the human potential.

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What will this work do for me?

What will this work do to me? What kind of person will I become through this work?

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E. F. Schumacher: Bad work is “mechanical, artificial, divorced from nature, utilizing only the smallest part of man’s potential capabilities…”

Karl Marx: Under capitalist production, workers inevitably face a life of alienation from the products of their work, from the creative process of work, and from their essence as social creatures

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Pope John Paul II: “work is one of the characteristics that distinguish humans from the rest of creatures…only humans work.”

Humans work in order to attain their needs and wants, but work also shapes humans.

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Gregory Baum: “It is through labor that people create their world, and it is through the same labor that in a certain sense they also create themselves.”

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Through work- we exercise our freedom and autonomy in making choices- we develop our talents and exercise creativity- humans create their society and culture- we express our nature as social beings

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The Liberal Model of Work occupies a middle ground between the conventional model and the human fulfillment model.- Workers should be free to choose the ends of their work.- Humans can be significantly influenced by their work; we should make ethical assessments of work based on how it affects people who perform it

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Norman Bowie One of the moral obligations of the firm is to provide

meaningful work for employees But what is meaningful work? Should meaningful work be given an objective

definition? What justification can we find for any normative

objective definition of meaningful work, if work is subjective?

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Liberal theories of justice argue that individual freedom is a fundamental and necessary element of social justice.

Primary goods of work include autonomy, rationality, and physical and mental health

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The liberal model of work argues that individuals have certain rights in the workplace and that these rights function to protect certain central and primary goods.

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The classical model argues that to the degree that work is necessary and physical, it can not be made meaningful

Liberals argue that business has a range of responsibilities to provide meaningful work

The Human fulfillment model argues that employers cannot have the responsibility of making employees better people

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