Plum Creek Timber (A)

Max H. Bazerman; Hannah  Bowles; Dov  Brachfeld; Jack  Troast

Case | HBS Case Collection | August 2000 (Revised February 2001)

Plum Creek Timber (A)

by Max H. Bazerman, Hannah Bowles, Dov Brachfeld and Jack Troast

Abstract

Plum Creek Timber Co., the nation's sixth largest private timberland owner and forest products company, must decide whether to enter negotiations with the U.S. government to establish a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) on its Pacific Northwest properties for a threatened fish species, the bull trout. Under the Endangered Species Act, Plum Creek could voluntarily create an HCP in exchange for long-term regulatory assurances from the U.S. government. The company has to weigh several factors in its decision to proceed with the negotiations: whether it can replicate the success of a recent HCP for spotted owls, the likelihood of government or third-party lawsuits against the company, the costs of coordinating with multiple state and federal environmental agencies, and the value of regulatory predictability.

Keywords: Conflict of Interests; Negotiation Process; Negotiation Participants; Environmental Sustainability; Business and Government Relations; Forest Products Industry; United States;

Format: Print

19 pages

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Citation:

Bazerman, Max H., Hannah Bowles, Dov Brachfeld, and Jack Troast. "Plum Creek Timber (A)." Harvard Business School Case 801-131, August 2000. (Revised February 2001.)

Working Paper | 2019

Veil-of-Ignorance Reasoning Favors the Greater Good

Karen Huang, Joshua D. Greene and Max Bazerman

The “veil of ignorance” is a moral reasoning device designed to promote impartial decision-making by denying decision-makers access to potentially biasing information about who will benefit most or least from the available options. Veil-of-ignorance reasoning was originally applied by philosophers and economists to foundational questions concerning the overall organization of society. Here we apply veil-of-ignorance reasoning in a more focused way to specific moral dilemmas, all of which involve a tension between the greater good and competing moral concerns. Across six experiments (N = 5,785), three pre-registered, we find that veil-of-ignorance reasoning favors the greater good. Participants first engaged in veil-of-ignorance reasoning about a specific dilemma, asking themselves what they would want if they did not know who among those affected they would be. Participants then responded to a more conventional version of the same dilemma with a moral judgment, a policy preference, or an economic choice. Participants who first engaged in veil-of-ignorance reasoning subsequently made more utilitarian choices in response to a classic philosophical dilemma, a medical dilemma, a real donation decision between a more vs. less effective charity, and a policy decision concerning the social dilemma of autonomous vehicles. These effects depend on the impartial thinking induced by veil-of-ignorance reasoning and cannot be explained by a simple anchoring account, probabilistic reasoning, or generic perspective-taking. These studies indicate that veil-of-ignorance reasoning may be a useful tool for decision-makers who wish to make more impartial and/or socially beneficial choices.

Keywords: policy-making; procedural justice; Ethics; Decision Making; Fairness;

Citation:

Huang, Karen, Joshua D. Greene, and Max Bazerman. "Veil-of-Ignorance Reasoning Favors the Greater Good." Working Paper, July 2019. View Details

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