CHAPTER 9
The Workplace (2): Today’s Challenges
Learning Objectives
After completing this chapter students should be able to:
Have a clear sense of workers’ rights in general and the demarcation of the zone of privacy.
Consider some of the moral issues raised by the ways in which employers seek to examine,
influence, and judge the private lives of their employees and prospective employees.
Glossary
1. false positives: If a test is less than 100% accurate, then it’s possible for it to have the wrong
results. It’s a “false positive” when a test is used to find for something and the test false indicates
that it’s found. For example, an imperfect lie detector test will find that some people lie who don’t
in addition to finding that some people don’t lie who do. In some cases more innocent people will
be found “guilty” than people correctly identified as “guilty.” If a 90% accurate lie detector test is
Chapter Summary Points
1. Individuals have a legal right to privacy, in particular a right to control certain information about
themselves, to shelter aspects of their lives from public scrutiny, and to make personal decisions
autonomously, free from illegitimate influence. Shaw and Barry seem to assume that we also
have a moral right to privacy and argue that organizations shouldn’t infringe on an individual’s
personal sphere unless they can justify that infringement.
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4. Polygraph tests, personality tests, drug tests, and the monitoring of employees on the job can
intrude into employee privacy. The exact character of these devices, the rationale for using them
to gather information in specific circumstances, and the moral costs of doing so must always be
carefully evaluated.
5. Health and safety remain of foremost moral concern in the workplace. Employers have a moral
obligation not to expose their workers to needless risk, and employees have a right to know about
and refuse hazardous work. The scope of occupational hazards, including shift work and stress,
and the number of employees harmed by work–related injuries and diseases are greater than many
people think. Enforcement of existing regulations has too often been lax.
Teaching Suggestions
It can be a good idea to help students examine the examples, arguments, assumptions, and theories found
in the chapter. I will examine some of the assumptions and arguments here.
1. Do we have a right to privacy? Shaw and Barry agree that we have a right to privacy, but very little
argument is offered. I will provide two arguments that can be given to justify our moral right to privacy.
a. It‘s intuitive to think we have a right to privacy. Our right for privacy protects others from attaining
our phone number, street address, and social security number. This personal information can be used by
others to harm us, so it seems reckless for employers to spread such information around indiscriminately
or release it to the public. If we didn’t have a right to privacy, then employers who make such information
public would be doing “nothing wrong,” but that’s a counterintuitive position.
2. What is coercion? Shaw and Barry argue that privacy isn’t an absolute right and employers sometimes
legitimately need private information from employees. That informed consent must not be coerced. Shaw
and Barry assume that employers can coerce applicants to doing things by threatening to disqualify their
application for employment; and employers can coerce employees into doing things by threatening them
by losing their jobs, losing advancement opportunities, or being demoted. They argue that applicants can’t
voluntarily choose not to be submitted to invasive personality or lie detector tests because the threat of
being disqualified for employment is coercive. However, not everyone agrees that such forms of
“pressure” used by employers threaten the voluntary nature of an applicant’s consent, or constitute
coercion.
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Questions for Discussion
1. To what extent may an employer infringe upon or monitor the private life of an employee? For
example, suppose that an employee (male or female) works as an “exotic dancer” during off hours. Does
the employer have the moral right to ask that the employee to stop working as an “exotic dancer” because
it impacts or has the potential to impact on the company’s image?
2. Does an employer have the moral right to require, as a condition of employment, that its employees
participate in organizations (e.g., community non-profit organizations) apart from the business? Does an
employer have the moral right to base promotions and raises, in part at least, upon an employee’s
participation in organizations apart from the business? Does it matter what the organization is? What
principles, if any, are involved?
Additional Resources for Exploring Chapter Content
Further Reading
Internet Resources
Warren and Brandeis—Harvard Law Review, Right to Privacy
http://www.lawrence.edu/fast/boardmaw/Privacy_brand_warr2.html
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