Sweatshops, Harm, and Interference: A Contractualist Approach

Journal of Business Ethics · 2021 · Volume 169 · Issue 1

Abstract

Activists and progressive governments sometimes interfere in the working conditions of sweatshops. Their methods may include boycotts of the products produced in these facilities, bans on the import of these products or tariffs imposed by the home country, and enforcing the host country’s laws that aim at regulating sweatshops. Some argue that such interference in sweatshop conditions is morally wrong since it may actually harm workers. The reason is that the enterprise that runs the sweatshop may choose to lay off some workers as the result of effective interference in order to maintain their profit at the desired level. If successful, this argument would prohibit any interference in sweatshop conditions on moral grounds. In this article, I argue in dissent and build a contractualist argument in favor of the moral permissibility of interference in sweatshops. I base my argument on anex anteinterpretation of T.M. Scanlon’s contractualism.

Keywords

Interference in sweatshops, Harm to sweatshop workers, Ex antecontractualism, Contractualism and sweatshops, The choice argument, Expected victim

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