Plum Creek Timber (B)

Max H. Bazerman; Jack  Troast; Hannah  Bowles; Nicole  Nasser

Case | HBS Case Collection | June 2001 (Revised November 2001)

Plum Creek Timber (B)

by Max H. Bazerman, Jack Troast, Hannah Bowles and Nicole Nasser

Abstract

Plum Creek Timber Co. decides to go ahead with negotiations for a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) on its Pacific Northwest properties. HCP represents a new form of public-private-sector collaboration and innovation to improve upon command-and-control environmental policy solution. Throughout the negotiation process, the company must manage several factors: identifying which native fish species to include beyond the bull trout, matching "best science" standards with cost-efficient conservation commitments, minimizing the regulatory burden while enhancing species protection, and fostering support and avoiding conflict with a range of interested stakeholders, from environmental activists to forest products executives.

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

Format: Print

26 pages

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Citation:

Bazerman, Max H., Jack Troast, Hannah Bowles, and Nicole Nasser. "Plum Creek Timber (B)." Harvard Business School Case 801-399, June 2001. (Revised November 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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