PHIL 322
November 15, 2016
Paper #2 Sweatshop labor is consistent of containing three main elements of underpaid workers, dangerous working conditions, and long working hours. While many of these workers would prefer to not work in a sweatshop, and hope for better working conditions the economy in which holds these sweatshops are underdeveloped, and suffer from poverty. Sweatshops are known to be a symptom of poverty. I will argue with Zwolinski in which sweatshop labor is morally admissible because of the moral weight expressed when workers make the choice to work in the working conditions of sweatshops. Zwolinski says that an individual’s consent or choice can be transformed into “alters the normative relations in which others …show more content…
Not only has this been claimed by philosophers such as Zwolinski, but also by top economists who explain that removal of sweatshops would cause more harm to the economy since sweatshops are a symptom of poverty. As we have learned from many philosophers and basic ethics, it is morally wrong to cause harm to another being. I support the claim by Zwolinski not only because of the potential harm to the worker, but also because it is also morally wrong to violate one’s autonomy. To stop someone from acting in their individual freedom is not morally admissible. I believe this because, I think that the violation of autonomy is greatly upheld in the United States through rights, and legal …show more content…
This is a reasonable claim to make because the choice is severely constrained due to the poverty in which workers need to survive in. For a worker to be unemployed for long periods of time in such a state of poverty, could ultimately lead to death. Not to mention these workers lack the education needed to get higher paying jobs. This argument is not entirely correct however, as Zwoinski explained that while complying may undermine some of the moral transformation it still is not undermining all of it. To still remove sweatshops with conditions that lack full autonomy would leave the workers left with worse options to provide income or left to