The Right to Know in the Workplace

Abstract

The makers of public policy cannot avoid the deep and often strident public controversy over the nature and scope of basic moral rights. There are persuasive defenders on both sides of the issue. Forging public policy in the absence of a broad public consensus is nothing more than the arbitrary imposition by government of some preferred, but not necessarily privileged, moral view. It hardly seems the legitimate role of a democratic government, even in the name of moral leadership, to so impose views that are deeply controversial and not capable of broad-based support by the population at large. It is better by far, for reasons of stable public policy, that we seek the painful path of building a general public consensus among the well-informed and well-meaning citizenry. If no such consensus can be achieved, then the law will, as a matter of necessity, settle the issue in the interest of the efficient discharge of general social functions. . .and that is really not a particularly unfortunate outcome.