College of Business Administration

on-site MBA Program at

Management 722
Seminar in Business Ethics and Social Institutions

Written Assignment 2

1) In Dunn's The Normative Defense for Affirmative Action, Wasserstrom is quoted as asking "Why do the most qualified deserve anything?...Suppose, for instance, that there is only one tennis court in the community. Is it clear that the two best tennis players ought to be the [only] ones permitted to use it?"
Given a shortage of resources, and the responsibility of fairly allocating such scarce 'goods,' many have suggested that we ought to determine who deserves these 'goods' and allocate on that basis alone. The question you are to address is the following:

On what basis do we deserve anything? Why?

or

2) In the article Environmentalists Pose the Greatest Danger, it may well be argued that a false dichotomy is set up--a dichotomy between viewing nature as having onlyinstrinsic value, and viewing nature as having onlyinstrumental value.

How might this tension be resolved? Outline what this resolution would 'look like' in an organizational example of your own choosing.

Return to Professor Dunn's home page.