Lynne Kiesling
Interesting little conversation going on Truth on the Market … Geoff Manne posts an excerpt from a question to NYT ethicist Randy Cohen from a boy who, seeing a perpetual line for pizza at a recurring school event, goes out and buys a pizza and offers slices to kids at the back of the line for twice the price of the “school-sanctioned” slices. Is this behavior ethical? If so, then the student’s counselor was wrong to tell him he was “taking advantage of people”.
The post and the comments are interesting. I, too, have noticed that Randy Cohen doesn’t really understand the concept of mutually beneficial exchange of value for value, which is too bad. How can you be a good ethicist if you don’t understand that? Perhaps I need to send him an Adam Smith gift basket …