Research
I publish mainly in business ethics, though I also have interests in political philosophy, and at the intersection of these fields. I focus on questions of distributive justice – in firms, markets, and states. A list of my published papers appears below, with links to the journals in which they are published (when available). If you can't get access to a paper, email me to request a copy.
Publications
Book
Business Ethics: A Contemporary Introduction (New York: Routledge, 2022).
Articles and chapters
“On the Ethics of Selling Psychic Services,” Public Affairs Quarterly 37:4 (2023): 331 – 351.
“Why Online Personalized Pricing is Unfair,” Ethics and Information Technology 23:3 (2021): 495 – 503.
“Business Ethics,” in Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2021 Edition). [This revises my 2016 entry.]
“On the Origin, Content, and Relevance of the Market Failures Approach,” Journal of Business Ethics 165:1 (2020): 113 – 124.
“What's in a Wage? A New Approach to the Justification of Pay,” Business Ethics Quarterly 30:1 (2020): 119 – 137.
“Business Ethics,” in Duncan Pritchard (ed.), Oxford Bibliographies in Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019).
“Against Pay Secrecy,” Journal of Applied Philosophy 35:4 (2018): 689 – 704.
“Risky Pay and the Financial Crisis: Who's Responsible?” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 42:1 (2018): 156 – 173.
“Desert-based Justice,” in Serena Olsaretti (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Distributive Justice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 152 –173.
“Employee Ethics and Rights,” in Eugene Heath, Byron Kaldis, and Alexei Marcoux (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Business Ethics (New York: Routledge, 2018), pp. 474 - 489.
“Accountable to Whom? Rethinking the Role of Corporations in Political CSR,” Journal of Business Ethics 149:3 (2018): 519 – 534. Co-author: Waheed Hussain.
“Wanted: Positive Arguments for Markets,” Journal of Value Inquiry 51:4 (2017): 641-645.
“Is 'Equal Pay for Equal Work' Merely a Principle of Nondiscrimination?” Economics and Philosophy 32:3 (2016): 435 – 461.
“Corporations, the Democratic Deficit, and Voting,” Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy 12: special issue (2014): 429 – 450. Co-author: Waheed Hussain.
“Compensation Ethics and Organizational Commitment,” Business Ethics Quarterly 24:1 (2014): 31 – 53.
“The Connection between Stakeholder Theory and Stakeholder Democracy: An Excavation and Defense,” Business and Society 53:6 (2014): 820 – 852.
“Smilansky, Arneson,and the Asymmetry of Desert,” Philosophical Studies 162:3 (2013): 537 – 545.
“Justice in Compensation: A Defense,” Business Ethics: A European Review 21:1 (2012): 64 – 76.
“Does Distributive Justice Pay? Sternberg’s Compensation Ethics,” International Journal of Applied Philosophy 25:1 (2011): 33 – 48.
“Business Ethics and (or as) Political Philosophy,” Business Ethics Quarterly 20:3 (2010): 427 – 452. Co-authors: Joseph Heath and Wayne Norman.
“Participation in the Workplace: Are Employees Special?” Journal of Business Ethics 92:3 (2010): 373 – 384.
“Rawls, Self-Respect, and the Opportunity for Meaningful Work,” Social Theory and Practice 35:3 (2009): 441 – 459.
“How Much Compensation Can CEOs Permissibly Accept?” Business Ethics Quarterly 19:2 (2009): 235 – 250.
Reprinted in Laura P. Hartman, Joseph Desjardins, and Chris MacDonald (eds.), Business Ethics: Decision-Making for Personal Integrity and Social Responsibility, 2nd edition (McGraw-Hill, 2011), 3rd edition (McGraw-Hill, 2013), and 4th edition (McGraw-Hill, 2017).
“Deserving Jobs, Deserving Wages,” in Jeffery Smith (ed.), Normative Theory and Business Ethics (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), pp. 119 – 146.
“Business Ethics: An Overview,” Philosophy Compass 3:5 (2008): 956 – 972.
“McMahon on Workplace Democracy,” Journal of Business Ethics 71:4 (2007): 339 – 345.
“Ross on Desert and Punishment,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 87:2 (2006): 231 – 244.
“On the Relevance of Political Philosophy to Business Ethics,” Business Ethics Quarterly 15:3 (2005): 453 – 471.
“The Epistemological Argument Against Desert,” Utilitas 17:2 (2005): 205 – 221.
“Do CEOs Get Paid Too Much?” Business Ethics Quarterly 15:2 (2005): 257 – 281.
Reprinted in a shortened version in (1) Laura P. Hartman and Joseph R. Desjardins (eds.), Business Ethics: Decision-Making for Personal Integrity and Social Responsibility (McGraw-Hill, multiple years); (2) Tom L. Beauchamp, Norman E. Bowie, and Denis G. Arnold (eds.), Ethical Theory and Business, (Pearson, multiple years); and (3) W. Michael Hoffman, Robert E. Frederick, and Mark S. Schwartz (eds.), Business Ethics: Readings and Cases in Corporate Morality (Wiley, multiple years). (4) Reprinted under the title, “How to (Try to) Justify CEO Pay,” in Robert Kolb (ed.), The Ethics of Executive Compensation (Blackwell, 2006).
“Against the Asymmetry of Desert,” Noûs 37:3 (2003): 518 – 536.
“Desert and Distributive Justice in A Theory of Justice," Journal of Social Philosophy 33:1 (2002): 131 – 143
Reviews, replies, and other short pieces
“Executive Compensation,” in George R. Goethals, Allison T. Scott, and Georgia J. Sorenson (eds.), Encyclopedia of Leadership Studies, 2nd edition (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2023), pp. 342-345.
“7 Hard-Earned Lessons from a Curriculum Makeover,” Chronicle of Higher Education, September 6 (2022), URL = <https://www-chronicle-com.ezp.bentley.edu/article/7-hard-earned-lessons-from-a-curriculum-makeover>. Co-authors: Andrew Aylesworth, Chris Beneke, Robyn M. Betts, Nathan C. Carter, and Suzanne Dove.
“Why We Should be Leery of Companies Entering Political Fray,” The Hill (op-ed), April 13, 2021.
“Why Overcoming the Taboo of Sharing Salaries is Critical to Reaching Equal Pay,” Fast Company (op-ed), March 24 (2021).
“The Potential Downside to Amazon's Recent Charitable Endeavor,” The Hill (op-ed), July 17 (2019).
Review of Eugene Heath and Byron Kaldis (eds.), Wealth, Commerce and Philosophy: Foundational Thinkers and Business Ethics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (2018).
Entries in Robert Kolb (ed.), Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society, 2nd edition (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2018): Compensation [3300 words] | Divestment [1800 words] | Evil, Problem of [1300 words] | Incentive Compensation [1400 words] | Unconscionability of Contracts [1500 words].
“The Demands of Stakeholder Theory for Corporate Governance,” Business Ethics Journal Review 4:8 (2016): 47 – 52.
“The Sky's the Limit: A Response to Kolb,” Business Ethics Quarterly 21:4 (2011): 686 – 691.
Review of Christopher McMahon, Public Capitalism: The Political Authority of Corporate Executives (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), Philosophical Review, 124:3: 422 – 425.
“Teaching & Learning Guide for Business Ethics: An Overview,” Philosophy Compass 4:1 (2009): 1 – 4.
Entries in Robert Kolb (ed.), Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2007): Desert [3000 words] | Self-Respect [2000 words].
Review of Serena Olsaretti, Liberty, Desert, and the Market (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004), in Business Ethics Quarterly 15:4 (2005): 734 – 735.