Study Questions for Chapter 6,

Business Ethics: Concepts and Cases

Spring 2002

Revised February 12, 2002

Instructor: Dr. Garrett

Page numbers refer to pages in the fifth edition.

1. How are the concepts of contractual rights and contractual duties defined on pp. 94-96.

These terms relate to the specific contracts that particular human beings like you and I (or particular organizations like a business or a university) enter. They do not refer without further qualification to the duties "created" by the imaginary social contract in social contract theory or to the general duties associated with the Contract Theory outlined in chapter 6. Contractual duties in the chapter 2 sense may be applications of the Duty to Comply described in chapter 6.

2. How does John Rawls justify the right to form and the duty to keep contracts? (340) See also http://www.wku.edu/~jan.garrett/320jrpfi.htm.

3. What conditions must be met if a genuine contract is to exist? Explain. (340-41) Which of the duties that Velasquez mentions in the following pages must be followed if a genuine contract is to exist? (344-45)

4. State the basic duty to comply. (341)

5. How does the notion of an "implied contract" enrich our notion of this duty? (341-42)

6. How should we understand the terms "maintainability," "service life," and "reliability." There are duties in relation to these things under the contract theory: how could we express them in simple statements? (342-43)

7. What is the relationship between product safety and risk? What makes a risk unreasonable? What conditions must be met if a seller is to be judged in accord with its duties regarding product safety? How are these conditions related to the buyer's voluntary choice to purchase the product? (343)

8. State the due care view of business's duties to consumers. (348-51) What is "negligence" and how does it relate to the duty to exercise due care? (You should be able to figure this out from 349-50, although negligence does not appear to be explicitly defined there. It is illustrated.)

9. How would Rawls' second principle (especially the part called the Difference Principle) support something like the Due Care principle? (See p. 117 or http://www.wku.edu/~jan.garrett/320jrpfi.htm).

10. To what kind of cases does the due care view seem more relevant than the contract theory of such duties? (What does vulnerability have to do with it?) (348-49)

11. What application does due care have in the areas of design, production, and information? (350-51)

12. Does due care theory oppose government regulation of product sale? Explain. (351)

13. Why is the contract theory criticized as based on unrealistic assumptions? (346-48)

14. What "problems" have been noted in relation to the due care approach? (352)

15. What is unhelpful in the view that advertising is simply "providing information about a product or service"? (355-56)

16. What is a more helpful way of defining "commercial advertising"? (356)

17. What three terms or factors are involved in an act of communication? (362)

18. What are three necessary conditions of deception pertaining to its author? (362)

19. Briefly state the responsibilities of owners or managers of media businesses with respect to advertisement deception? (362) What makes this a complex issue?

20. How does the nature of the audience affect whether an advertisement deceives? (362-63)

21. What is puffery? Do ads that use puffery necessarily deceive? Explain. (350)

22. How does the author define the right to privacy in the "more narrow sense"? (365)

23. Distinguish physical and psychological privacy. (365)

24. What protective functions does privacy have? (365-66)

25. What enabling functions does privacy have? (366)

26. State (in complete sentences) six main guidelines proposed for protecting consumer privacy while enabling businesses to do their legitimate work. (366-368).

Discussion: Evaluate these guidelines in terms of their protection or promotion of human freedom.