¶ … moral problem of fair trade. There exists a dilemma here, with respect to the role of corporate actors within our society -- do they serve to increase profits only, or are they bound by a different morality? The role of business in society has to be understood in the context that a business is not an entity capable of action, no matter what the purpose of its formation was. A business, ultimately, is a group of resources, including people, and those people are not separate from society as a whole -- indeed, they are society as a whole. The principles of both consequentialism and Kantian morality are applied to the problem of fair trade and it is determined that despite the enduring popularity of the "corporations are engines for profit" mentality, it is a view that is at odds with the prevailing ethics of our society, while the distributive justice principle at the heart of fair trade is in line with the values of the majority of our society.
Moral Problem
The concept of fair trade arose in the West as a response to the discrepancy between what Western consumers were paying for certain goods and what the producers of those goods were being paid. An early commodity targeted in the fair trade movement was coffee, where a consumer in the West could pay over $2 for a cup of coffee, where the farmer might be paid a few pennies for the equivalent number of beans. For some, this was simply a matter of multiple stages in between farm to mug, combined with profit-taking at each stage. For others, it represented a major ethical dilemma according to the principle of distributive justice (Miller 2010). The moral dilemma is that corporate managers should only be concerned with enhancing the profit of their enterprise (Friedman 1970), and that this conflicts with the principle of distributive justice. This paper will take the position that fair trade is an appropriate application of distributive justice, where the...
Overall, fair trade is a great way to make sure that countries work together and help one another focus on developing and moving forward. Not all fair trade is fair, but most of the options given to people who want to see fair trade are better than what they would receive if they were not part of any particular fair trade agreements. People who are interested in fair trade and
Fair Trade Live Up to Its Ethical Objectives? The aim of this paper is to analyze the relevance of fair trade to the world today and whether it practices meets the ethical issue. The study will analyze its impacts both negative and positive to the developing countries and whether it has been a success for the developed economies. I wish to state that my discussion in this study considers fair
FAIR TRADE AND CONSCIOUS CAPITALISM 1Fair Trade and Conscious CapitalismHow does fair trade support the philosophy and practices of conscious capitalism?Conscious capitalism is a business philosophy founded by the co-CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc., John Mackey, which calls for balancing between virtue and profits in conducting business (North Eastern University, 2021). The philosophy of conscious capitalism is that businesses should pursue profits in an ethical manner that protects social
Peer Discussion Like many people, I have purchased Fair Trade coffee at Starbucks, and also clothing that advertises itself as Fair Trade. Fair Trade purchases do make consumers feel better about the sourcing of goods like coffee and textiles which may be of problematic origin. I agree that conscious capitalism is what many of us are aiming for, which enables us to use our purchasing power by obtaining goods from
Significance of the Study This study is significant because it sheds light on a very important contributor to local and international trade. Trade fairs have a long history in providing a meeting place for buyers and sellers. They are an important channel of communication for B2B buyers and sellers. This is a significant area for study because there are limited channels of communication between B2B buyers and sellers. The previous sections
Trade blocks remove certain restrictions to trade. Economic blocs help promote free trade. Discrimination against imports nor interference with exports describes free trade policy and the government's role in free trade. The role of the government includes not applying subsidies to exports or tariffs to imports nor quotas. In accordance with the law of comparative advantage, policy allows the trading of partners' mutual gains derived from trade of services and
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