Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Spring 2001
OCLC FAST subject heading
Dispute resolution (Law)
Abstract
Most scholarship on negotiation ethics has focused on the topics of deception and disclosure. In this Article, I argue for considering a related, but distinct, ethical domain within negotiation ethics. That domain is the ethics of orientation. In contrast to most forms of human interaction, a clear purpose of negotiation is to get the other party to take an action on one's behalf, or at least to explore that possibility. This gives rise to a core ethical tension in negotiation that I call the object-subject tension: how does one reconcile the fact that the other party is a potential means to one's ends with general ethical requirements for treating people? In response, I argue that there is a general moral duty to respect other people, a duty that is not overridden by the fact of negotiation. I examine the nature of this duty and its implications for both direct principal-to-principal negotiations and legal negotiations conducted indirectly through lawyers.
Recommended Citation
Jonathan R. Cohen, When People Are the Means: Negotiating with Respect, 14 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 739 (2001), available at http://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/facultypub/40
Included in
Dispute Resolution and Arbitration Commons, Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons