I still can't shake the feeling that boycotts are immoral

Great Debates
1

I tried this thought on a different message board, and the difference between Dopers and the rest of the world quickly became apparent. Here goes:

[ul][li]It is immoral for an employer to fire or not hire an employee for her political dealings. Now, whether it is legal is completely immaterial since legality and morality are not the same thing.[/li][li]Arguments apply to similar situations, unless they can be shown to have a relevant difference. In this case, suppose that I hire a house painter as an employee. If I found out that she supported letting Turkey into the EU, it would be immoral for me to fire her for that, and it would also be immoral for me to fire her if she donates money to a group that advocates that goal. Suppose instead that rather than hiring her as an employee, I purchased her services as an independent contractor. The situation is exactly identical with the exception of some legalistic mumbo-jumbo, hence the rule applies equally: It would be immoral to purchase the services of an independent contractor just because she donates money to a group advocating for Turkey to join the EU.[/li][li]But…with the independent contractor I’m a customer and she’s the business. If it is immoral for me not to do business with an independent contractor because of her politics, then it’s immoral for me to do the same with a mom & pop store. [/li][li]We can see where this is heading, so let’s cut it off at the pass. Let’s say that refusing to do business with a person is immoral; but against a corporation, that’s different. [/li][li]But coprorations fail to be meaningfully different from privately owned firms. First, because many one- or two-person operations are incorporated for liability & stuff, and second, because some privately owned firms are quite large and operate in what one would consider to be the corporate sphere.[/li][li]If corporations aren’t meaningfully different from private firms, and if it is immoral to refuse to do business with a private firm because of politics, then it is with corporations as well.[/li][li]Boycotts are nothing more than refusals to do business with firms because of politics. [/li][li]Boycotts are immoral[/ul][/li]Please note: If you think it is moral to fire an employee because of her politics, then you have effectively countered my thinking; but you have won no real victory if you can’t convince me of that moral stance.

Aside from the caveat above…thoughts?

2

There are other reasons for Boycotts you know, including shady & un-ethical business practices.

3

Good call—I was thinking too narrowly, I guess. Let’s set those aside, however, and leave it to politics, if that’s okay.

4

I have a pretty simple view of boycotts. It comes from the little bit of libertarian writings I’ve taken the time to read.

If it’s voluntary and it’s OK with you, then it’s moral, for you.

So if you don’t want to give money or employment opportunities to me or anyone else because we disagree with your religion, your politics, or whatever, that’s your right. I, of course, can disagree.

Another point: boycotts can effect change without getting the government involved. That’s definitely OK with me.

5

You’d need a much better string of premises before I’d ever accept that, let alone what follows. There are regulations in place to (ideally) prevent discminiation based on race and such, but a blanket statement is unsupported. If it was immoral to refuse to do business with a person, any self-employed artist could demand that I buy their work, even if I don’t like it.

6

This idea that boycotts are immoral doesn’t wash with me. After all, the libertarians on this board are constantly extolling how wonderful the market is because it allows you to vote everytime you make a purchase. I think their view is naive and simplistic in the extreme, but I find it more annoying to now be told that there are certain things that it is immoral for me to “vote through the marketplace” on. My gut response is “FTS!!”

7

If I can choose not to buy a product because I think it’s crap, I can choose not to buy a product because I think its manufacturers are bastards.

8

I think that it would be immoral for me to patronize a business with owners I considered to be politically immoral. For example I would not knowingly buy a Zero Halliburton camera case or any other Halliburton product because I believe that Halliburton Oil has exploited its political connections to become war profiteers.

9

The possibility of a retail purchase contract is not an existing enployment contract. You are comparing apples with oranges.

10

jsa: * It is immoral for an employer to fire or not hire an employee for her political dealings.[…] Boycotts are nothing more than refusals to do business with firms because of politics. Boycotts are immoral.*

Actually, those two situations are not necessarily as parallel as you make them out to be. IANAL, but it seems clear to me that US law has decided (e.g., in determining protected categories for discrimination) that the position of an employee or customer is more crucial, and hence more privileged, than the position of an employer or producer.

E.g., it’s illegal for a racist employer to fire an employee because she’s black. It’s not, however, illegal for a racist employee to quit because her new boss is black. Similarly for businesses refusing to serve black customers vs. customers refusing to patronize black-owned businesses.

This may seem like an unfair distinction to you, but I think it reflects the principle that employment and commercial transactions are much more crucial to the employee or customer than to the business. [There’s a legal name for this kind of weighting of the impact on the individual over the impact on the business, but I can’t think of it.] Therefore, racial discrimination against employees and customers is forbidden, while such discrimination against businesses by employees and customers is tolerated.

That same principle would seem to suggest that it’s less immoral for a customer to boycott a business on political grounds than for an employer to fire an employee on political grounds.

11

I think it’s immoral because we don’t really make the right people suffer.

Now say I don’t support one company. Not going to make much difference. Say 1000 of us don’t. Well the company is now losing money and has to cut costs. What does it do?

Cuts it from benefits, health care, salary. Cuts employees. Cuts childcare. You see? So the people who end up suffering are our friends and neighbors.

12

But how would you prove a customer refused to patronize a business because it was black-owned?Unless the customer actually stood at the door and announced they weren’t coming in cos the owners were black or had a sign about it,you can’t prove anything.There are loads of shops I’ve never been into in town purely because I’ve never needed to/wanted to.Doesn’t mean I’m discriminating against them…

13

I’m not sure proof has a whole lot to do with it. It is often very difficult to prove discrimination in hiring too. I suppose that you could argue that you would be able to get better statistics on this than the reverse. Still, I think the argument comes down to more than just whether you can get statistics on it.

I’ve also noticed that there has been some subtle switching on the reasons for the boycott here. I would argue that boycotting a business on the basis of the race of the owners is immoral by my moral standards, even if not illegal.

14

Saying that boycotts are immoral because they are about politics is like saying that politics is immoral. Of course, a lot of politics is immoral, but politics itself is not immoral: in fact it’s essential.

Some boycotts are immoral. If the customers in a particular neighbourhood boycotted the local shop because it was owned by Jews or by Blacks, that would be immoral, because it would be based on improper discrimination.

However, when the Blacks in Montgomery, Alabama, boycotted the buses because the bus company practiced illegal and immoral discrimination, how can you argue that that boycott was immoral because it was “political”? In fact, it was the best moral position for them to take.

15

IB: But how would you prove a customer refused to patronize a business because it was black-owned?Unless the customer actually stood at the door and announced they weren’t coming in cos the owners were black or had a sign about it,you can’t prove anything.

True. But my point is that even if the customer did make such an explicit announcement, it would still be legal for them to boycott the business on those (racist) grounds. Whereas if a business owner explicitly announced that they were refusing to serve black customers, or refusing to hire black job applicants, that’s not legal.

jshore: I would argue that boycotting a business on the basis of the race of the owners is immoral by my moral standards, even if not illegal.

I agree. My point here is just to make it clear that the OP’s initial assumption of a perfect ethical reciprocity between employers and employees, or between businesses andcustomers, is not entirely justified.

The individual (employee or customer) is legally allowed more latitude to discriminate against the business than vice versa. If we believe that that legal distinction represents a valid moral principle—i.e., individuals are more personally and substantially affected by these issues than businesses are, so it’s only fair to interfere less with their choices—then we probably have to extend that principle to discrimination on political grounds too.

That is, even if we agree it’s immoral for a business to fire an employee for their political views, that doesn’t necessarily imply it’s immoral for an employee to quit in protest of the company’s political views. Similarly, it might be immoral for a company to refuse to do business with, say, Bush supporters, but not immoral for Bush supporters to boycott a company espousing anti-Bush positions.

Because the individual, according to this principle, should have a less restricted right to discriminate than the company does, so the situations aren’t ethically parallel. Do I mak msylef claer? :slight_smile:

16

But you’re relying on law to make that distinction, which is conflating morality with legality, and that is a fallacy as I understand it. Simply because the law demarcates legal from illegal behavior, it does not follow that immoral and moral behavior is similarly demarcated.

There seem to be a number of points raised that hinge on a similar theme: What the law has to say about it. I have to reject those because I don’t consider the law to be an arbiter of moral standing.

I don’t follow that at all. Right now the orthodox view is that individuals have greater moral room to discriminate than a firm does. That seems to implicitly assume that the customer—>firm relationship is privledged relative to the firm—>employee relationship. I don’t see grounds, that I accept, that would allow for such a priveledge to obtain.

Well, I tried to be explicit when my error was pointed out. For example, the blacks boycotting the bus were boycotting because they weren’t allowed to sit in the front, and were required to give seats to whites. The boycott stopped, IIRC, when the on-bus discrimination ended, not when the executives of the companies gave up their pro-Jim Crow views. To me, that distinction is significant since it separates actual business practices from political ideology.

And I’m not a libertarian. I wouldn’t consider market-place voting an acceptable means to engage in a witch hunt.

The premise is what the premise is. If you disagree with it, that’s fine; but I don’t and I’m not going to try to convince you to agree with it. If you feel that it is perfectly moral for your boss to can you because of your stance on China’s involvement in Tibet, then that’s okay with me. It’s a non-issue because it’s not the topic of the debate.

I don’t think your conclusion really follows from the premise, however. It doesn’t follow that Huggies can insist that I must buy their diapers because I’ve concluded that their stance on Sino-Japanese trade policy is no reason for me to avoid doing business with them. I simply don’t have a need for diapers, and if I did, they may or may not be the best diaper for my diaper needs. Similarly, the artist doesn’t have ground to compel me to buy her art if I find discriminating based on politics objectionable. I may just not like her art. Or a may not be able to afford it. In the context of this topic, if I was on the market for art and then discovered that she supported Israeli settlements or was an avid holocoust denier, then, while her views would certainly offend me, I could not morally refuse to consider her art as a possibility simply because of those views.

That makes no sense to me. You’ll have to explain differently.

I used to feel that way as well. But then I thought about it and now I can’t help but conclude that was a morally wrong view for me to have. But we have to be sure to distinguish between politics and other stuff. If I can choose between two pizza joints, one of which is a front for the mob, then I wouldn’t consider my refusal to do business with them a politics-based choice. Refusing to buy a VCR from a fence is one thing, while refusing to buy a VCR because the guy selling it is a Bush voter is another.

17

Be careful. If you keep thinking as you have been in the OP, you might become one! :slight_smile:

You have a valid point in that if you think employment discrimination is immoral, then the exact same reasoning can be used to claim that boycotts for political purposes are also immoral. Implicit in the claim that boycotts are not immoral is an assumption that the business is in an unfair or unnatural position of power while the potential employee isn’t. But in a non-coercive environment, neither is a position of power.

So, I think the problem you are struggling with is that NEITHER action is immoral, as long as no coercion is in play.

18

I disagree with your first premise. I don’t consider it immoral* to not hire an individual because of politicial views. Setting aside, as I’m sure you’d ask me to anyway, the issue of not introducing people who are going to not get along with those already employed there is also the fact that you are not morally obligated to do anything with regards to your business. You are constrained by the laws, or more accurately your willingness to risk the penalty for violation of the law. It is stupid to deny qualified applicants that would not disrupt the work environment based on factors that will never come into play, but it isn’t a moral infraction. Unless you consider stupidity a sin.
*I think that moral questions, especially of this kind, are akin to asking which would win in a race, a unicorn or a centaur. The answer is, of course, a unicorn, but it has no bearing on actual reality.

19

If I know that the person I’m buying from will use his profit to support causes that I oppose, it is perfectly ethical to consider that in my decision. Why are you treating commerce as something distinct from the fabric of society when making choices?

I often am willing to pay more for a product for any number of reasons (locally produced, profits go to a good cause, organic, marketing that I like) and I don’t see how you can simply exclude the political beliefs of the owners from the picture.

20

js_africanus-HOW Is that immoral? How could you “not morally refuse?” I’m sorry, but your hypothetical scenario makes absolutely no sense.

For that matter, you can choose to boycott someone because they wear blue shirts. Doesn’t mean it’s a GOOD reason, but morality doesn’t even come into play here.

Boycotts would only become immoral, I would think, if people are trying to harass or intimidate others to participate in the boycott.