Friday, April 21 2023, 4pm Peabody Hall, Room 115 The charge of exploitation is a common one. Numerous modern-day practices involving employment, medicine, and banking have been described exploitative. Exploitation is also a really interesting kind of moral wrong. Nearly all scholars who write about exploitation agree that while some instances of exploitation are extremely harmful to the exploited as well as a rights violation (e.g. human trafficking), exploitation can be consensual and mutually beneficial and yet still morally wrong. This presents an interesting philosophical challenge. Given the ubiquity of allegations of exploitation, as well as the seriousness of the charge, it seems like Kantians should have something to say about the phenomenon. My aim in this paper is to construct a plausible Kantian account of the wrongness of exploitation when it is both consensual and mutually beneficial. Melissa Seymour Fahmy (Ph.D. Indiana University, Bloomington) has a primary research interest in Kantian ethics with particular focus on the duties of love and respect, as well as the intersection of morality and happiness. Dr. Fahmy also has research and teaching interests in biomedical ethics especially with regard to the ethics of assisted reproduction. Her current research project involves developing and defending an interpretation of Kant’s formula of humanity for the purpose of applying this principle to cases that present as exploitation despite consenting parties.
