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Applied Ethics - Sweatshop Essay
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Can someone who values welfare and autonomy consistently support sweatshop regulation? - Received a 1st
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Can someone who values welfare andautonomy consistently support sweatshop
regulation?
Sweatshops are a form of employment that is known for having poor working conditions and pay (J.
Snyder, 2010). There has been debate over whether or not sweatshops should receive greater
regulation. Two values that can be considered in this debate are autonomy and welfare. In this
essay, I will outline different types of sweatshop regulation. Then, I shall discuss each of the two
values in turn; firstly by defining them both, and then explaining whether or not someone who
holds that value can consistently support sweatshop regulation. In the case of autonomy, I shall
argue that autonomy will need to be violated in order to implement sweatshop regulation, due to a
distinction between general and individual will. In the case of welfare, I shall argue that someone
who values welfare can also support sweatshop regulation, due to a distinction between
quantitative and qualitative welfare.
Here, I will outline different types of sweatshop regulation. Two types of regulation include
boycotts and the banning the sales of sweatshop products. These are more indirect methods of
regulation, since it is the consumer’s actions that lead to the disturbance of Multi-National
Companies (MNCs) business practice. This does not necessarily lead to the MNC having to do
anything in terms of sweatshop regulation as a result, but it does cause a shock to that business. In
addition, there are more legally-demanding actions that can occur, such as legislation on workers
rights, pay, working conditions, contracts, and so on. This is a more direct method of regulation,
since the MNC would have to abide by these new rules, or face substantial legal consequences
(Pearson & Seyfang, 2001). If these regulations were to be implemented, then this would affect the
lives of the sweatshop workers, since they would no longer be doing the same sweatshop work.
However, there are arguments against the implementation of sweatshop regulations. Two
examples of this are on the grounds of autonomy, and on the grounds of welfare. I shall discuss
these in turn now.
, There are various ways in which autonomy can be defined. For instance, autonomy can be
perceived as an agent acting on their highest preferences (Frankfurt, 1988c), or as an agent
evaluating which actions are most worth performing (Watson, 1975), or as an agent’s actions being
harmonious with their long-term goals (Bratman, 1979). A consistent theme throughout all of these
definitions is the agent having freedom and control over what choices they make, specifically
relating to themselves and how they behave or act. I consider this to be a non-controversial
understanding of autonomy, as it is consistent with the above examples. From here, we can begin
to consider the implications of violating autonomy. Zwolinski, who prominent opposes sweatshop
regulation, makes his views clear on why autonomy should not be violated. He states that it would
fail ‘to respect the … desires, goals and projects that are expressive of (their) authentic self’ or ‘will’
(Zwolinski, 2007). Essentially, if a worker chooses sweatshop work, this autonomy should not be
violated.
The aspect that I would like to focus on here is the use of “will”. There are two types of will: general
and individual (Femia, 1993). Since autonomy is to do with the choices an individual makes, I
believe it is fair to take from this that “will” is referring to an individual will as opposed to a general
will. The notions of general will and individual will can be explored to help illustrate the
incompatibility of autonomy and sweatshop regulations, by making a distinction between individual
desires and what is better for a collective group of people.
I shall now outline and discuss general will and individual will. General will is understood as the will
of all. It always exists, is empirically desirable and is the real, moral will for those people. On the
other hand, individual will is what a given individual desires. It is what they want, and does not
depend on what is desired by society (or any other collective group of people). Moreover, it is
important to clarify that the sum of individual wills is not the equivalent of a general will. As a basic
example, imagine a scenario where there were five children and a bag of ten sweets. It could be
possible that each of the five children would want to have the whole bag to themselves – this
would be the individual will. However, it would be better for the sweets to be shared out instead
(e.g. each child gets two sweets each, since they all wanted the same amount of sweets initially).
This would be the general will. That way, even though none of the children received the amount of
sweets they individually wanted, sharing the sweets meant that no child received nothing, which
would had been the worst case scenario for each individual. I believe the outcome from the general
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