Hostname: page-component-74656f9884-54qdv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-10T04:29:51.512Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Decent Termination: A Moral Case for Severance Pay

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Tae Wan Kim
Tae Wan Kim*
Affiliation:
Carnegie Mellon University
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the 'Save PDF' action button.

People are often involuntarily laid off from their jobs through no fault of their own. Employees who are dismissed in this manner cannot always legitimately hold employers accountable for these miserable situations because the decision to implement layoffs is often the best possible outcome given the context—that is, layoffs in and of themselves may be “necessary evils.” Yet, even in circumstances in which layoffs qualify as “necessary evils,” morality demands that employers respect the dignity of those whose employment is involuntarily terminated. In this paper I argue that to preserve the dignity of employees who are involuntarily terminated, in most cases employers have a substantial reason to offer a special kind of unemployment benefit, “severance pay.” To support my claim I draw and expand upon Bernard Williams’s analysis of “agent-regret,” which I believe greatly helps to address and articulate employers’ obligations in the context of involuntary termination.

Keywords

severance paylayoffagent-regretnecessary evilshumiliationexpressive theory

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , April 2014 , pp. 203 - 227
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2014

References

REFERENCES

Anderson, E. 1993. Value in ethics and economics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Anderson, E.S., & Pildes, R.H. 2000. Expressive theories of law: A general restatement. University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 148 (5): 1503–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3312748 Google Scholar
Baron, M. 1988. Remorse and agent-regret. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 13 (1): 259–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4975.1988.tb00126.x Google Scholar
Bishow, J., & Parsons, D.O. 2004. Trends in severance pay coverage in the United States, 1980-2001. Retrieved in 2012 from http://ssrn.com/abstract=878144.Google Scholar
Ciulla, J.B. 2000. The working life: The promise and betrayal of modern work. New York: Three Rivers Press.Google Scholar
Diamond, C. 1978. Eating meat and eating people. Philosophy, 53 (206): 465–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0031819100026334 Google Scholar
Donaldson, T. 1994. When integration fails: The logic of prescription and description in business ethics. Business Ethics Quarterly, 4 (2): 157–69. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3857487 Google Scholar
Donaldson, T. 2012. The epistemic fault line in corporate governance. Academy of Management Review, 37 (2): 256–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amr.2010.0407 Google Scholar
Enoch, D. 2012. Being responsible, taking responsibility, and penumbral agency In Heuer, U. and Lang, G. (Eds.), Luck, value and commitment: Themes from the ethics of Bernard Williams. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199599325.003.0005 Google Scholar
Feinberg, J. 1985. Offense to others. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Garraty, J.A. 1978. Unemployment in history: Economic thought and public policy. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Goodpaster, K. 2010. Corporate responsibility and its constituents. In Brenkert, G. and Beauchamp, T. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of business ethics. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hampton, J. 1992. Correcting harms versus righting wrongs: The goal of retribution. UCLA Law Review, 39: 1659–1702.Google Scholar
Hausman, D.M., & McPherson, M.S. 2006. Economic analysis, moral philosophy and public policy. New York: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511754289 Google Scholar
Hawkins, E.D. 1940. Dismissal compensation: Voluntary and complusory plans used in the U.S. and abroad. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Holzmann, R. 2005. Editorial. Empirica, 32 (3–4): 251–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10663-005-4929-3 Google Scholar
Holzmann, R., Pouget, Y., Vodopivec, M., & Weber, M. 2012. Severance pay programs around the world: History, rationale, status, and reforms. In Holzmann, R. & Vodopivec, M. (Eds.), Reforming severance pay. Washington, D.C.: The World Bank.Google Scholar
Holzmann, R., & Vodopivec, M. 2012. Reforming severance pay. Washington, DC: The World Bank.Google Scholar
Hursthouse, R. 2003. Normative virtue ethics. In Darwall, S. (Ed.), Virtue ethics. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Kim, T., & Strudler, A. 2012. Workplace civility: A Confucian approach. Business Ethics Quarterly, 22 (3): 557–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/beq201222334 Google Scholar
Levi-Strauss, C. 1966. The savage mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Liao, M. 2006. The right of children to be loved. Journal of Political Philosophy, 14 (4): 420–40.Google Scholar
Liao, M. 2012. Why children need to be loved. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 15 (3): 347–58.Google Scholar
Lim, S., & Cortina, L.M. 2005. Interpersonal mistreatment in the workplace: The interface and impact of general incivility and sexual harassment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90: 483–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.903.483 Google Scholar
Lim, S., Cortina, L.M., & Magley, V.J. 2008. Personal and workgroup incivility: Impact on work and health outcomes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93 (1): 95–107. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.93.L95 Google Scholar
Margalit, A. 1998. Goldblum, N., Trans.). The decent society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Margolis, J.D., Grant, A.M., & Molinsky, A.L. 2007. Expanding ethical standards of HRM: Necessary evils and the multiple dimensions of impact. In Pinnington, A.H., Macklin, R., & Campbell, T. (Eds.), Human resource management: Ethics and employment. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McFadden, T. 2011. Severance payments increasingly subject to avoidance as fraudulent transfers. The American Bankruptcy Institute Journal 30 (1).Google Scholar
McMahon, C. 2013. Public capitalism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Molinsky, A., & Margolis, J. 2005. Necessary evils and interpersonal sensitivity in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 30 (2): 245–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/AMR.2005.16387884 Google Scholar
Nagle, T. 1979. Moral questions. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Noer, D.M. 2009. The wounds: Overcoming the trauma of layoffs and revitalizing downsized organizations. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Nolte, C. 2007. Sam Kagel-Arbitrator in major labor disputes San Francisco Chronicle (May 27).Google Scholar
Raz, J. 2012. Agency and luck. In Heuer, U. and Lang, G. (Eds.), Luck, value and commitment: Themes from the ethics of Bernard Williams. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199599325.003.0006 Google Scholar
Rorty, A.O. 1980. Agent regret. In Rorty, A.O. (Ed.), Explaining emotions. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Scanlon, T.M. 2008. Moral dimensions. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Schlozman, K., & Verba, S. 1979. Injury to insult: Unemployment class, and political response. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Schreck, P., van Aaken, D., & Donaldson, T. 2013. Positive economics and the norma-tivistic fallacy: Bridging the two sides of CSR. Business Ethics Quarterly, 23 (2): 297–329. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/beq201323218 Google Scholar
Shiffrin, S.V. 2000. Paternalism, unconscionability doctrine, and accomodation. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 29: 205–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1088-4963.2000.00205.x Google Scholar
Smith, P., Phillips, T.L., & King, R.D. 2010. Incivility: The rude stranger in everyday life. New York: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511781803 Google Scholar
Tannenbaum, J. 2007. Emotional expressions of moral value. Philosophical Studies, 132: 43–57.Google Scholar
Walton, D. 2003. Ethical argumentation. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Wasserman, D., & Liao, S. 2008. Issues in the pharmacological induction of emotions. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 25 (3): 178–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5930.2008.00414.x Google Scholar
Weber, R. 1982. Severance pay, sales of assets, and the resolution of omitted cases. Columbia Law Review, 82 (3): 593–607. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1122075 Google Scholar
Williams, B. 1981. Moral luck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139165860 Google Scholar
Williams, B. 1981. Moral luck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139165860 Google Scholar
Wolf, S. 2004. The moral of moral luck. In Calhoun, C. (Ed.), Setting one’s moral compass: Essays by women philosophers. New York: Oxford University Press,2004.Google Scholar