Helena Li

IR3GT/10th/10th GT
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Interview Transcript

Benjamin Ferguson, PhD: Assistant Professor in Ethics at VU of Amsterdam

Date of Interview: December 17, 2018 at 4 p.m. (recording ended too early) --- Resumed call on
January 1, 2018

HL: Good Afternoon Professor, thank you for your time today.
BF: No problem.
HL: So to begin with, professor, I’m curious as to how you started your research. From reading
your research and please correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s the conflict of morality between the
main character, Alice, and the decision of purchasing her clothing from a certain company and
its effect on the workers. You also discussed about the effect of boycott and its influence on
working conditions, correct?
BF: Mhm. Yes, so actually, my wife’s name is Alice and this interest sparked me when she had
the conflict of choosing the different brand of clothes to purchase and the prices of it. Which then
led me to be curious about the morality of whether we should choose to purchase...

Phone didn’t record past this part.

Fast forward to January 7th, 2018 when we called again to discuss the materials he sent me
and the controls of my research outline.

HL: Hi Professor, thank you for agreeing to call me again.

BF: Hello, no problem.
HL: As of the materials you sent me, I read your recent paper (2018) about Exploitation,
browsed through the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and began reading “The Ethical and
Economic Case Against Sweatshop Labor” that Benjamin Powell and Matt Zwolinski had wrote
together. So, I just had one question about a concept you mentioned in your Exploitation paper.
BF: Okay.
HL: I was a bit confused about the Roemer’s Property Relations Account in your context. Could
you explain a bit about what that regards.
BF: Yes, so the Roemer’s Property Relations Account is basically when one person exploints
another person if the exploiter is better off and the exploited person is worse off, than they would
be compared to some base-line. That base-line, there are different theories about or different
accounts of what a just society looks like. A society that has more income, equality may be more
just or lacks different kinds of discrimination may be more just, these kinds of things. And
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IR3GT/10th/10th GT
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Roemer wants to say that whatever your view about a just society looks like is, that society
should be baseline for an accounted exploitation. So suppose you think that everyone should
have an equal amount of money, as long as everyone has an equal amount of money, then that
society is just. Then Roemer says, well suppose that someone has an unequal amount of

money, so you have more money than me. Then because of that, you get more and I get less,
then you exploit, that’s what Roemer is saying

HL: So, it’s kind of like and I’m quoting, “But if A gets a better price because he lies to B about
the product, the ensuing transaction is unfair (and fraudulent).”

BF: Yeah, it’s kind of like that. So Roemer talks about different theories of justice and they all
have their own accounts of exploitation because it depends on what you think of that base-line or
what society should look like (what that is). But, I don’t think that I would focus so much on
Roemer’s Theory of Exploitation. I think that a better theory for you would be Steiner’s Theory
of Exploitation. It’s very similar to Roemer’s, but Steiner makes it a bit easier and less technical,
so what Steiner says is “look, if Ben gets more and Helena gets less, then either would have
gotten because one of was wrongfully disadvantaged, then I would exploit you. So, if the reason
someone got more than they should have, has to do with the prior injustice, then that’s
exploitation. So, if racial groups in America are discriminated against and this makes these racial
groups poorer, then when non-discriminated groups do better when they interact with the
discriminated groups, then the non-discriminated groups are exploiting. Or, when people in low
income countries work in sweatshops and therefore because of colonialism, for example, then
these prior injustices, if they mean that the sweatshop workers get less and that the corporations
or people in wealthy countries get more, then that’s exploitation.

HL: Mhm, that makes sense. So, today I would like to talk with you about my upcoming research
outline and the controls of my claim. Just to refresh your memory of what my research regards
since the connection quality of our chat was lagging last time. ​My research regards the benefits
workers receive from their labor, and how the banning of sweatshops would cause the workers
harm rather help. ​With the incorporation of advocacy to ban sweatshops and the automation
industry taking over sweatshop labor for efficiency, the future generations of sweatshop workers
are left unemployed. As of the remaining sweatshop workers right now, we should advocate to
improve working conditions and wages. However, for the future generations, we should help
implement high quality education. Not only are the future generations given other opportunities
to work towards, but they longer have to fear the chances of being unemployed as the automation
industry develops. Does that make sense?
 Helena Li
IR3GT/10th/10th GT
Turn in: 24

BF: Yeah, I think so. I mean the automation angle is really important because a lot of, you know
if you’re reading a newspaper article or a magazine article a lot of people say “Hey, automation
is going to solve sweatshops, because we won’t have sweatshops anymore and it will be
automated. Automation would solve sweatshops, we wouldn’t have sweatshops anymore but that
would be much worse for sweatshop workers. So there’s two directions you go, we can get rid of
sweatshops by paying fair wages, or we can get rid of them by automating products and not
paying the people anything. At the least where they are right now, it’s better than
automation, even though there still wouldn’t be sweatshops. But what we really want is for these
people is for them to be employed and paid a fair wage.

HL: Right. In result to the automation, the people and growing generation are left with nothing.
So the purpose of my project is to help towards that aspect.

BF: Mhm

HL: And can I go over with you the controls of my outline to see if there’s anything that I can
improve upon?

BF: Sure.

HL: So, the goal of this paper is to say why sweatshops are good rather than bad. And this is
what I’m going to focus on: sweatshops provide stable income, banning sweatshops leave
workers to prostitution or subsistence farming, workers only take sweatshop jobs because they’re
desperately poor and low on options. So again, if sweatshops were banned, the workers are left
with basically nothing. I think that my controls definitely need to be improved upon, do you have
any suggestions?

BF: Well, I think that the main thing you should do, so what you’re doing, there’s multiple
options that you should be looking at. There’s fair wage, sweatshop wage and non-employment.
What you could talk about is why sweatshops are better than non-employment, or maybe a way
to think about it is: fair wage, sweatshop wage and nothing. And you want to put these in order,
from best to worst. Right? Well you have to think about what order they should go in morally
speaking, morally best and morally worst. But what you given are reasons to think that
sweatshops are morally better than not being employed. It could be, and I think a lot of people in
this debate are talking past the moral. Some people would say, “Well this sounds like you’re
defending sweatshops but sweatshops are really bad, don’t you want people to be paid a fair
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wage?” And you can say, “Yes, I think that sweatshops are morally better than not being
employed, but morally worse than being paid an unfair wage.” so it’s these three things that
we’re comparing, and I think that’s something you should focus on.

HL: And I developed this chart outline before I had the discussion with you about the automation
industry coming in (December 17, 2018). So, maybe I could include that in the paper as well or
in the conclusion, even if we’re trying to ban sweatshops the development of the automation
industry is technically already banning or taking sweatshops away.

BF: Yes. However, some moral philosophers feel that there is a distinction between banned and
unavailable, I think. So, I don’t have enough money to drive a Ferrari, but I’m not banned from
owning a Ferrari. I kind of like that I live in the world where I could, if I really wanted to. If I
changed my professions and I changed my priorities in life, then I could probably have an Italian
sports car. But if I was banned from having such a car, then I wouldn’t have that really available
to me even though it’s not really effectively an option. So, some people feel, especially political
philosophers called Libertarians, they’re worried about banning things. So they say, “Look, if
automation comes in and changes things, that’s just reducing these jobs. It’s not the government
saying you can’t have these jobs.” So Libertarians are really worried about the effect of ban on
peoples’ free choices, even if people really wouldn’t be likely to choose these things, they don’t
like the idea of someone banning. So I think there is a difference between automation and
prohibition on sweatshops, but not be a very meaningful difference.

HL: So in your opinion, would it be more meaningful to include that in the conclusion or as a
separate argument?

BF: Well, so the automation angle is one way to get rid of sweatshops. So what I would say in
your paper or what you’re asking is, “how should we respond to sweatshops?” What should our
response be? And you think that education would be a good thing and you also think that
workers should be paid a higher wage. But there’s another response to sweatshops, which is to
ban them perhaps or to get rid of them through automation. In that case, I think you can say that
banning and automation would be bad responses to sweatshops, because they make the people
more concerned about life without sweatshops--worse off. Right? And I think you can
incorporate that into the main part of the paper. The main paper as I understand it is “how should
we respond to sweatshops,” what kinds of things should we be doing, and you can have
arguments for what direction we shouldn’t be going in.
 Helena Li
IR3GT/10th/10th GT
Turn in: 24

Reflection of the Interview

Although the first interview conducted with my advisor did not fully record, I was able to

set up another conference with him a few weeks after to discuss the controls of my research

paper, and the materials he sent me. However, I can say with full confidence that the second

conference proceeded much more smoother than the first. Learning not to be afraid to ask

questions about different concepts, or asking for their suggestion on your view of the topic, is

key to improving knowledge.

For my next interview, I intend to plan the process more thoroughly. I realized that along

the discussion with my advisor, I was asking questions regarding my topic while they pop up in

my head. I did not create a specific path to follow, which may have prevented my learning of the

subject and delayed specific knowledge needed for my project. Also, I hesitated when to

interrupt my advisor while he was speaking, “When should I ask him that question before he

moves on to something else? How do I sound polite?” Overall, I learned that interrupting is to

ask questions is perfectly fine, as long as you do it at the right time, which takes practice.

For me, personally, talking to my advisor was the most difficult part. I found myself not

knowing what words to use, speaking too fast and jittery. Thankfully, in the second conference, I

felt much more comfortable and realized that it’s not too terrible after all! Having an objective,

list of items to discuss and questions really are important.