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mskitty43
mskitty43
Student
Community / Jr. College

Is cost-benefit analysis a legitimate tool and what role should it play in moral deliberation?

Moral Issues in Business

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Posted by mskitty43 on Friday October 30, 2009 at 8:45 AM and tagged with reference, wiliam shaw.

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  1. pohnpei397 Teacher
    Community / Jr. College

    eNotes Editor

    Cost-benefit analysis is clearly a legitimate tool for businesses to use in deciding what actions to take.  As Friedman has argued, the role of business is to make money and a cost benefit analysis is a very useful tool in figuring out how to do so.

    When it comes to morals, however, cost-benefit analysis is much less useful unless one believes in utilitarianism.  For most other understandings of morality, a person should not be asking "what do I gain and lose" when trying to figure out what to do.  People should, instead, be asking "what's the right thing to do."  Cost-benefit analysis can't really help with that.

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    Posted by pohnpei397 on Friday October 30, 2009 at 9:11 AM