What's Wrong With Exploitation
This paper offers a new answer to an old question. Others have argued that exploitation is wrong because it is coercive, or degrading, or fails to protect the vulnerable. But these answers only work for certain cases; counter-examples are easily found. In this paper I identify a different answer to the question by placing exploitation within the larger family of wrongs to which it belongs. Exploitation is one species of wrongful gain, and exploiters always gain at the expense of others by inflicting relative losses on disadvantaged parties. They do harm to their victims, even when their interactions are mutually advantageous, by failing to benefit the disadvantaged party as fairness requires. This failure is the essential wrong in every case of wrongful exploitation. At the end of the paper I assess how wrong this failure is as a way to gain at anothers expense.
What's wrong with exploitation?
Whats Wrong with Exploitation?
Exploitation is a puzzling wrong. It is usually thought to be wrong to exploit another persons attributes, for example when a pusher takes advantage of an addicts craving and sells her more drugs. But some traits can be exploited without the taint of unfairness, for instance when one player exploits the carelessness of another in a game of chess. In rare cases we might even think that an attribute deserves to be taken advantage of for example, when the greed or arrogance of a villain is exploited so that he gets what he deserves. Exploiting another persons vulnerabilities, then, is usually wrong but not always. But even when there is agreement that a given act of exploitation is wrong, there is disagreement about why it is wrong. One school of thought in the philosophical literature says that exploitation is wrong because it is coercive; the exploited are forced to benefit others, and that is not just.
1 But another group holds that exploitation is wrong
because it degrades its victims; they are treated as means, not ends.2 Still others argue that exploitation is wrong because it violates a duty we have to protect the vulnerable.
3 For most wrongs like murder, theft, or lying it is easy to understand why the conduct is bad. But exploitation is different. We know it is wrong to be an exploiter but it is not clear why it is wrong.
The problem with the preceding three solutions to the question of what is wrong with exploitation is that each seems to work well for certain cases but not others. These answers are insufficiently comprehensive and thus miss the fundamental wrong in every case of taking unfair advantage. But that fundamental wrong can be identified if we place exploitation within the larger family of wrongs to which it belongs. Exploitation is one type of wrongful gain. It shares something in common with theft, robbery, and being cheap, but it differs from these wrongs in several crucial respects.
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It's about 12 pages long. It's not exactly news but I thought some of you might be interested in it.
I was struck by the 'free rider' concept. I'm an industrious person and when I examine past situations in the light of the free rider concept I find that I was right to feel taken advantage of because of my willingness to take charge and get jobs done even though I would have had trouble saying exactly WHY I felt exploited.
Also, I'm not a member of the religion and ethics group but it seemed like the proper place to seed this. Not trying to exploit, just find the proper niche.
Class 2 exploitative transactions. When exploitative cheating is beneficial to its victims policymakers confront a dilemma. If they prohibit the transaction they may worsen the plight of the disadvantaged party. 35
By contrast, if the authorities permit the transaction they make it possible for advant- aged agents to gain at the expense of the vulnerable. Of course, if the policymakers are allies of the exploiters they will face no dilemma at all. But if their aim is to improve the lot of the least advantaged they will face a conundrum. Should they require
the terms of trade to be fair, for example by setting maximum or minimum prices, the
would-be exploiter may decide the exchange is not advantageous, in which case the
vulnerable party will fail to gain any benefits at all.
You're right John, it's a struggle.
(the blockquote seems to not be working)
Exploitation must be seen in the larger context of benefit and loss.
About #3, couldn't the same argument be made about people who sell alcohol, tobacco or even video games?
(blockquote seems to be working today.)
The Case of Green and Blue
While the analogy creates one of the logical dilemmas of the Free-Rider Exploitation, it is incomplete.
Leaving gender out of this (Green is described as a she) there comes the eventuality that Green cannot possibly continue bailing out the boat forever. At some point, Green will collapse out of sheer exhaustion shifting the onus on Blue. Blue now has to confront his own false dichotomy. Assuming Blue is a much better swimmer; the prospect of being attacked by sharks is still only degrees away from Green, who cannot swim at all, at least in the real world. If Blue continues to refuse to bail out the boat, who is depending on his assumption that being a better swimmer (Green being passed out) will save himself, he still, nonetheless, is at risk.
Unfortunately, the otherwise excellent essay fails to explore the pit-falls or consequences of exploitation. Green may very well wake up and realizing Blues refusal to help will just cause him to pass out again if he continues bailing, resigns himself to his inevitable death. Had Blue been supremely confident that his swimming ability could avoid the sharks, he would have left the boat immediately. As the human fear of death (except in unique situations like this) is pretty universal, Blue most likely will start to bail rather than subject himself to the whims of chance.
This scenario of exploitation plays itself out in the real world all the time. Employer X allows employee Y to work hard at increasing the profitability of his/her company. Employer X does not additionally compensate Y for their work nor assist Y in doing the actual work. At some point, employee Y may get sick or start to slow down as a precursor to quitting. X has put themselves in the same dichotomy Blue had.
I don't think he's trying to talk about the pitfall or consequences. He's just trying to define exploitation.
As for blue, by staying on the boat as long as possible he:
Increases his chances of being rescued without effort on his part.
Conserves his energy for as long as possible, thereby increasing his chances of survival in the event he does leave the boat by taking advantage of green's energy expenditure in bailing the boat.
In this case calories are a form of currency and only green is investing in maintaining their survival.
Sounds a lot like Hercules in Animal Farm doesn't it?
I was kind of sorry this seed got so little traction, so I'm giving a bump. If it still goes nowhere, then so be it.