Blackwell Reference Online

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In the past, business ethicists have offered static analyses of workplace ethics. Working within a Kantian or quasi-religious framework, they have argued for a variety of employee rights – e.g., a right to work, a right to privacy, a right to be paid in accordance with comparable worth, a right not to be the victim of discrimination. These analyses appeal to some supposedly timeless fundamental rights, such as the right to be respected or the right to be treated justly. Particular rights are merely instantiations of these more general fundamental rights. Like the fundamental right to respect, these particular rights are accorded a timeless status – e.g., people always have an inviolable right to privacy or a right to work. This mode of analysis is weak in several respects. First, the analysis ignores the extent to which rights are always somewhat partially context-dependent. It makes little sense to posit a right to some service if, at the present time, no provider in the world has the skill to provide this service. If there is no correlative duty on someone in particular to honor this claim to some service, treatment, privilege or freedom, then the claim is not an enforceable one and, therefore, does not qualify as a right. Second, the analysis overlooks the historical character of many of these rights. As Hannah Arendt has shown, the elevation of work into a respectable activity ... log in or subscribe to read full text