Gil Hersch Presents at the Center for Humanities

Gil Hersch, a postdoctoral fellow in the PPE Program, will give a lunch-time talk that is organized by the Center for Humanities.

Dr. Hersch will speak about the topic “Can Your Boss Make You Work Out?”. The talk will take place on April 9, 2019, at noon in the Liberal Arts and Human Sciences Building (Room 005).

Here is an abstract of the talk: To what extent is corporate-level paternalism legitimate? Since there has been an increase in both quantity and variety of corporate-level wellness programs and workplace well-being policies in recent years, this is an important question to address. I compare corporate-level paternalism with state-level paternalism, and argue that the former is more permissible than the later. Consequently, if paternalistic policies are deemed legitimate by the state, they can be deemed fair game for corporations. To make this argument I rely on the difference between citizens, for whom the main expressive tool available is ‘voice,’ and employees, for whom ‘exit’ is the main expressive tool available (Hirschman, 1970). Focusing only on this difference, I argue that paternalistic policies are more permissible when the employee can avoid them through ending their relationship with the corporation (exit) than they are when the citizen can influence whether the paternalistic policy is implemented (voice).

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