Justice, sexual harassment, and the reasonable victim standard

Journal of Business Ethics · 1993 · Volume 12 · Issue 6

Abstract

In determining when sexual behavior in the workplace creates a hostile working environment, some courts have asked, ‘Would a reasonablepersonview this as a hostile environment?’ Two recent court decisions, recognizing male-female differences in the perception of social sexual behavior at work, modified this standard to ask, “Would a reasonablevictimview this as a hostile environment?” As yet, there is no consensus in the legal community regarding which of these standards is just.We propose that moral theory provides the framework from which business people can construct just procedures regarding sexually hostile environments. We argue that the natural duty of mutual respect of persons and the natural duty not to harm the innocent compels business people to identify sexually hostile work environments from the perspective of the reasonable victim, usually from the woman's perspective.Within the context of this moral framework, a training approach designed to reduce the incidence of sexually harassing behaviors in the workplace is proposed.

Keywords

Economic Growth, Sexual Behavior, Work Environment, Sexual Harassment, Moral Theory

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