Introduction:
Employee X is a specialised labourer working in an economy where there is low supply of labour. They suddenly suffer the loss of their spouse in a tragic accident – the spouse supplied 80% of the household income and didn’t have life insurance so X’s children may have to be removed from school and their home may have to be sold. In addition to this, X needs to undergo physical and cognitive behavioural therapy due to trauma caused by the accident. X simply doesn’t have enough money but you, as their employer, can provide them with financial assistance. There is no opportunity cost for you to provide them with money so do you? Do you have a moral duty to pay your employee more than the agreed total in the contract?
In this essay, I will be arguing that in this circumstance, the employer has a moral duty to pay their employee more than agreed and this will be supported by a series of normative ethic theories:
1. Ethics of Care
Aristotle said that “man is by nature a social animal”. Society consists of relations: for example, we enter into familial ones upon birth and economic ones upon employment. Not being in a relationship results in societal alienation. So, it’s a necessity (for wellbeing) to form relations. With human relationships comes ‘care’ as we need to prove our compassion to other people in our relationships to sustain the relationships. Relational sustenance is done through emotion: we need empathy, willingness to listen and human compassion – we need to make decisions based on the well-being of those we care about. This idea is derived from the Ethics of Care – a relational ethics theory – which dictates that we have to make decisions appealing to the dynamic of the people involved in the relationships. Feelings and preferences must be taken into account when making moral decisions as our moral responsibilities to others are the most important moral considerations.
An employer-employee relationship is not exempt from this notion. It has a large impact on the people involved due to its financial nature and, because of this, it comes with large obligations. The relationship is built on mutual trust and dependency: the employer is dependent on the employee to produce their goods and services while the employer is dependent on the employer to reciprocate their efforts in the form of wages. Because of this, it is imperative to respect one another’s feelings and situations: to sustain and bolster the relationship, an employer may need to assist the employee in a difficult circumstance (and vice versa). If an employee has suffered a bereavement and needs a little extra money for therapy, it is the employer’s duty to assist and pay more than the agreed amount. Not because they are legally nor financially mandated to do so but because they have entered into a relationship built on care and are, thereby, morally obligated to help.
2. Social-Contract Moral Obligation
Jean-Jacques Rousseau said “man is born free, but he is everywhere in chains” because once we enter into relations, our will becomes bound due to the social-contract – his idea that we have moral obligations to follow norms/moral laws supported by the general public. Our social nature forces us into civil society and emotional relations. Everyone is vulnerable but we don’t want to be, therefore establishing a moral imperative to maintain relations as relationships are continual sources of value. If relationships create moral obligations, then, through hypothetical syllogism, our refusal to be vulnerable creates moral imperatives to follow moral obligations. It’s deemed a ‘moral necessity’ – by our conscience – to follow obligations as they are the deepest commitments we have. This is different from Ethics of Care which says we should only focus on responding to particular individuals in our relationships. Moral-Obligation theory forces us to evaluate decisions through the scope of emotions/preferences of all to ensure that our decisions don’t harm anyone/anything in the world. Our emotional connection to groups of people and non-human entities influence our moral decision-making, creating an ‘Ethics of Care’ for all, not just those we have individual relations with.
This applies well to the employer-employee relationship as the moral duty to pay more than necessary in the circumstance of the employee needing financial assistance as it depends less on the strength of the relationship and more on the obligation humanity has to one another. The social contract morally mandates us to assist those who need assistance and this would, therefore, deem financial assistance a moral necessity.
3. Joseph Butler’s Ethical Altruism
Butler’s deontological theory on Altruism focuses on the idea that our conscience guides us towards the good and away from the bad (ie. synderesis). He establishes that our conscience, which is given to us by God, is the source of our moral authority – it helps us to overcome an instinctive concern for the self and, rather, consider the welfare of others. Because of this, we are inherently altruistic as our conscience alerts us when we transgress the will of another and, therefore, ensures we only carry out actions which are wholly beneficial for not only ourselves but also for other people. Butler also supports that humans are social beings by referencing Romans 12:5 (English Standard Version Bible) which reads: “we, though many, are one body in Christ”. He refutes a Hobbesian approach to human nature and argues that we are individual beings but we live within a collective and are, therefore, social beings who consider the welfare of other people.
Through an altruistic approach, it can be argued that an employer has the moral duty at times to pay an employee more than agreed in their contract. Employers are human beings who possess a conscience and, therefore, an internal system of checks and balances which ensures that their actions do not harm another human and, instead, help other people. If the employee were to need financial assistance, the conscience of the employer would urge them to pay money because, as humans, we seek to help other people. In this situation, there would be two choices: help the employee or don’t help the employee. The latter of which would harm the employee and this is why an altruistic approach would create a moral duty for the employer to give financial assistance if needed to the employee.
4. Ayn Rand’s Objectivism
It has been established that through Butler’s Altruism, the employer would give financial assistance to the employee if necessary but would this be the case for Objectivism? Ayn Rand, the proponent of Objectivism, is known famously for declaring that “Altruism is evil” so it would be logical that she would be against giving aid but I argue the opposite. I believe that Rand would engage in financial aid and this is due to the fact that her theory is based on rational self-interest. Objectivism argues that the right thing to do is whatever reason dictates is best for the selfish individual because man’s only purpose in life is to pursue rational selfish goals. Man exists for his own sake and is an end in himself so he does not seek to actively help other people.
Although this theory prioritises the happiness of ourselves over anything else, it is important to now come back to the economic relationship in this question. As previously stated, the employer-employee relationship is built on mutual dependency as the employer needs the employee to produce goods and services in order to generate profit. The employer could remove the burden by firing the employee but Objectivism states that the individual should further self-interest but not by harming other people. Therefore, by supporting a financially burdened employee, the employer is following the moral duty generated by Rand’s theory as they are actually helping themself. A burdened employee would have suboptimal productivity and this would burden the employer so it would be in their rational self-interest to help the employee.
5. Immanuel Kant’s Deontology
Kant’s universalist thinking – as provided by his Categorical Imperative – provides ethics with a very rigid framework of what’s right and wrong. It is less whimsical and situational than other theories so it is important to consider in this question. Kant’s Categorical Imperative is a doctrine which lists three articles that one must follow without any reference to the likely result. The first article is a law of ‘universalisability’ as it dictates that one must act in accordance with maxims. The second article states that one must never use others as means to an end but rather treat them as ‘ends’ in themselves whilst the third article establishes the Universal Kingdom of Ends by declaring that we should always be consistent and right in our moral decision making regardless of whether people are doing the right thing or not.
One of the most common maxims is ‘if harm can be stopped, it must be stopped’. From this maxim, one can immediately create a moral duty for the employer: if there is a financial burden on the employee, the employer (like all other citizens involved) must attempt to alleviate the burden by providing monetary support. This moral duty originates from the first article of the Categorical Imperative in which Kant states that we should act in accordance with maxims. However, it is important to note that as this theory is intention-based, the employer must not have selfish intentions when providing aid. The employer shouldn’t be violating the second article of the Categorical Imperative (ie. using people as means to an end) so their intentions should be stemming from reverence of universal maxims rather than because they want their employee to come back to work at full productivity.
6. Utilitarianism
Both relational and deontological ethics would support the notion that there is a moral duty for an employer to help a financially burdened employee but would consequentialist theories support this? Utilitarianism, arguably the most famous consequentialist theory, definitely would support the moral duty. It argues that in any situation where a moral decision to be made, one must choose the action which results in the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Therefore, it follows the Principle of Utility which dictates that an action is judged ‘good’ or ‘bad’ depending on the result it achieves. So it comes down to the hedonic calculation (ie. the quantitative assessment of happiness by factoring in duration, intensity, immediacy, certainty, pain and pleasure): would relieving the employee of their financial burden be, on balance, a good or bad thing?
It could be argued that moral duty is created. There are many relationships in life and, although this essay only focuses on economic relationships, we have to consider familial dependent-based relationships. The employee who is undergoing financial burdens may actually be the sole breadwinner of his/her family and, therefore, by not assisting them, the employer is inadvertently harming the rest of the employee’s family. So, by giving financial assistance to the employee, the employer would be generating large amounts of happiness for large amounts of people too – they would be immediately and certainly supporting an entire household of people.
It has been argued from a variety of different ethical theories that, in the established circumstance (ie. an employee needs financial aid and there is no opportunity cost), a moral duty is created for the employer to pay their employee more than the established amount in the contract. However, it is vital to note that this conclusion is incredibly situational. For example, if there was an opportunity cost meaning that if the employer were to help the employee, an entire village would lose ration funding, Utilitarian thinking would immediately retract the moral duty as the happiness caused by the employer is not the maximum amount possible. But, for the situation established in the introduction, there is a moral duty.
Source(s):
English standard version (ESV) - Version information - BibleGateway.com. (n.d.). BibleGateway.com: A searchable online Bible in over 150 versions and 50 languages. https://www.biblegateway.com/versions/English-Standard-Version-ESV-Bible/