1. MGX5020: Business ethics in a global environment
Week 9:
Limits of the Market:
Commodification and
Sacralisation
www.monash.edu.au

2. Your Tutor (me)
Nathan Eva
– nathan.eva@monash.edu
– 9903 4065
– Building N Level 5 Room 14
– www.slideshare.net/nathaneva
www.monash.edu.au
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3. Week 8 Lecture
• Environmental Responsibility
– Agriculture; Water; Air; Climate Change; and Nuclear Energy
• Who should pay the costs?
– Regulation
> Firms are required by law to meet prescribed environmental
standards
– Incentives
> Government provides firms with a tax break for purchasing and
using pollution-control equipment
– Pricing Mechanisms
> Programs designed to charge firms for the amount of pollution they
produce
• Does nature have a value? And does it have rights?
www.monash.edu.au
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4. Assignment 1
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Guided Reading Activities
Weeks 2-11 (Only 2 to go!)
Worth 20%
Need to submit at least 8 of 10
Handed in to Cristina
Put your name, my name, your student number and
class time on the front
• Info on Moodle
www.monash.edu.au
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5. Week 9 Lecture
1. Key elements of Confucianism as ethical doctrine
–
Reciprocity and Collective enhancement
2. Business and virtue in Confucianism
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Similarities to Kantian ethics
3. Influences of Confucianism on current business
practices
–
Contributions to Chinese business ethics
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6. Organ market in Pakistan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi7A_jK64qc
1. How do you feel about the donation of cadaveric organs?
Why?
2. How to you feel about the sale of cadaveric organs? Why?
3. How do you feel about the donation of live organs? Why?
4. How do you feel about the sale of live organs? Why?
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7. Commodification of the Market
1.
2.
3.
Intrinsically, i.e. we value them because we think they have
characteristics or significance that is particular to them and cannot
be substituted by another similar thing?
Instrumentally, i.e. we value them as far as they are useful/
instrumental to our lives?
In exchange, i.e. we value them to the extent that they may be
exchanged with other things?
Distinction between 1 and 2: Objectification
Distinction between 2 and 3: Commodification
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8. Commodification of the Market
• What things do you consider acceptable to buy and
sell?
• What are items have intrinsic value, value-in-use
and value-in-exchange?
• Is there anything that you think should not be
bought or sold?
– What is the reason you feel that these should not be
bought or sold
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9. Sacralisation – Walzer’s blocked exchanges
Walzer argues that the sales of the following should never take place.
Why do you think he thinks these should not be bought and sold?
1. Human beings
2. Political power and influence
3. Criminal justice
4. Freedom of speech, press and religion
5. Marriage and procreation
6. The right of exit from a community
7. Exemption from military service
8. Political office
9. Basic welfare services (e.g. police protection, primary and secondary schooling)
10. Desperate exchanges
11. Prizes and honours
12. Divine grace
13. Love and friendship
www.monash.edu.au
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10. Business and the Sacred
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqhJcimn9XM
Contrast the western conception of property rights (e.g. individual, and
earned by changing or ‘improving it’ with the Aboriginal Australian
conception of land.
a. How do they significantly differ?
b. Should significant Aboriginal lands be bought and sold? Should they
be mined or developed?
c. Would your answer to the same question differently if we were
discussing Temple Mount? Golgatha? Makkah? Kapilavastu?
ANZAC Cove?
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