I am not sure that the company would be legally required to hire you under the circumstances you outline. In many jurisdictions it may well be able to argue that -- qualified though you may be -- you are less suitable than other candidates because you are less likely to be loyal to the company and hence likely to be less effective at promoting its business interests. Be this as it may, there is a clearer and cleaner example of your asymmetry: while you are free not to buy from the company, it is not free not to sell to you.

What's the moral rationale for this legal asymmetry? Strong versus weak may well have something to do with it -- and, relatedly, the fact that companies selling to individuals face millions of potential customers whereas individuals buying from companies may not have many to choose from (imagine you had protested against Microsoft and Gates then refused to license you to use Windows).

A further point is that companies are artificial agents created pursuant to constitutive rules laid down by the state. These rules are known in advance and those who do not want to create or purchase a company under such conditions can refrain. This element of voluntariness makes the burdens involved more acceptable. When you consider opening a business in the US, you know beforehand that you'll have to serve people whose skin color or religion differs from your own and you know beforehand that potential customers will be free to shop elsewhere even at higher prices. This element of voluntariness is absent in the case of individuals. Rosa Parks didn't decide to be born in the US on the understanding that businesses would be free not to serve her.

Another point is economic efficiency. It would be very costly for the legal system to ensure that individuals do not boycott businesses -- and it's very much less costly, by contrast, to enforce the rule that businesses must not refuse to serve willing customers. Conversely, permitting businesses to exclude potential customers is likely to be more costly to the economy (e.g., by forcing people to drive long distances to get served) than permitting customers to boycott businesses. (To be sure, much-disliked businesses may go under, but this is a large loss to their owners, not to the economy.)

One relevant factor here is whether the seniority privileges you describe are unjust. If they are long-standing rules fairly administered, then they may not be. Unlike privileges based on race or gender or religion, such seniority privileges do treat everyone equally over time. Everyone is disadvantaged early in her/his tenure on the job, and everyone has an equal opportunity to be advantaged later on (but what about those who die early?). If the privileges are morally defensible in this way, then gratitude is appropriate when a more senior worker waives a privilege for the benefit of a more junior one.

Now suppose that, for some reason, the seniority system is not morally defensible after all. Even in this case a senior worker may not be morally obliged to waive her/his privileges. After all, s/he is not responsible for the flaws of the system, and s/he is also not a net beneficiary of these flaws (having presumably gone through many years of disadvantage early in her/his tenure). Once again, then, if s/he waives a privilege for the benefit of a more junior worker, gratitude would be an appropriate response.

Gratitude would not be called for (in the way you suggest) only if the system is morally flawed and the more senior person who waives a privilege for a more junior one either has contributed to the design or perpetuation of the flawed system or has been a net beneficiary from its flaws.

I'm having a bit of trouble finding the argument here. Let's take a "transaction" that most of us think is just fine: accepting a proposal of marriage. If Pat agrees to marry Robin and then gets cold feet, Robin can't force the issue. But what of it?

Or take another example: I agree to buy your house. I sign the contract. And then I back out. In most jurisdictions, far as I know, you can't sue me for specific performance; you can't force me to buy the house, though there are various damages that you would be entitled to recover from me.

As things stand in most places, a contract for an act of prostitution isn't enforceable, and so Travis has no legal claim against Elise -- particularly if she gives back the money. But suppose that these sorts contracts were legal, since your issue is presumably with people who think they should be. In that case, there's still no reason to think that Travis has some sort of right to rape Elise, though depending on the legal regime, he might have a civil claim against her that would allow him to recover monetary damages.

In fact, there's a strong whiff of red herring here. All of us agree that some kinds of consensual arrangements are legitimate, and the law recognizes a good many. That means we'll always face the question of what someone is entitled to if the other party reneges on a legitimate agreement. The answer will depend on the case. It might be nothing at all; not all private agreements amount to enforceable contracts. It may be that some sort of monetary damages are in order. It might be, depending on the case, that requiring the original agreement to be kept is the remedy. It all depends. But the fact that people sometimes go back on consensual agreements tells us nothing at all about whether private acts between consenting individuals should always be permitted. In particular, someone who thinks prostitution should be legal doesn't need to be committed to the bizarre view that a prostitute who has a change of mind should be required to submit to rape.

This sort of case is the best example of a reason why organizations should be very leery of any system of recognition or reward that has the consequence of making its members feel they are subject to invidious comparisons.

Even so, I do think that special effort and special merit also deserves special recognition. A system of nominations is supposed to bring attention to the most deserving cases, and if this system operates properly, then credit goes where credit is due. But, to be perhaps a bit too blunt, it sounds to me as if your co-workers are actually doing your best to make sure this system will not work effectively or fairly, by refusing to take part in it. By refusing to nominate your colleague, you do what is in your power to deny them the recognition they deserve. How can that be right? Instead you and your other co-workers are going to sit idly by and watch someone undeserving get that recognition, because you are unwilling to allow the system to work as it should!

Now I suspect that things have gotten to this point because you and your co-workers suspect that even if you did make an appropriate nomination, the wrong person would be rewarded. So this is a kind of passive resistance to a system you regard as unfair. If that's what's going on, then perhaps a more appropriate response would be for some representative of those who think like this to go (privately and discretely!) to whoever it is who is responsible for making these decisions, explaining to that person why there is so much reluctance to make nominations this year.

Anyway, I really think that the best way to make sure the most deserving candidate gets the appropriate recognition is to nominate that person, and have your co-workers do the same. The one who doesn't deserve it should not win by default, and might learn much of value by being denied the credit they crave. So for heaven's sake don't continue to sit on your hands. If something is broke, fix it!

If having a dollar means having some thing or other, then no one could have a dollar if there weren't any. But bits of language of the sort "have a ___" often don't call for filling the blank with the name of a thing. If someone has a cold, or an idea or a worry or a lot of work to do, there isn't some thing they're carrying around in their nose or their head or have stored in their office.

Unlike colds and good times, dollars once were bits of stuff and mostly still are -- at least in one sense. But having a dollar has never been simply a matter of having a bit of paper. What makes the piece of paper a dollar is that the person who has it has a certain amount of economic power, so to speak (which, by the way is another example of "having" something that's not a thing.) Money is already a lot more abstract than the creased bits of cash in your wallet let on. And so in the cashless economy you're imagining, that's what having a dollar or a euro or a million such would amount to: having what we're calling, rather crudely, a certain amount of economic power; having the capacity to acquire goods, services, whatnot with a certain value.

And as you in effect point out, we're already quite comfortable with this idea. If you're anything like me, most of your financial transactions these days consist of swiping debit cards, filling in online forms and signing on various dotted lines. Most of my available cash exists only in abstract form. When I get paid, it's by way of an electronic transaction between my university and my bank. I don't even get paper notifications anymore.

Of course, somehow this doesn't stop me from ending up with pointless pocketfuls of pennies, which I'm told are worth more these days as copper than as cash!

Perhaps, as you'd expect, it depends on what we mean.

One scenario: the artist used the profits from his musical career to underwrite drug dealing and prostitution. In that case, you're supporting drugs and pimping at least in the sense that you're helping to provide the cash that keeps it running.

Another scenario: the artist isn't dealing drugs and pimping, but his fame and the reach of his CD sales helps him encourage others to do what he used to do. In that case, your money is still supporting criminal activities, though quite a bit less directly.

I'm guessing the most likely scenario is this: far as you know, he isn't still carrying on any criminal enterprises. Far as you, he probably does mean to glorify those things, and far as you know, he probably does have at least some marginal success in encouraging others to do the things he used to do. In other words, even if he's no longer an active criminal, there's something unsavory here, and the more successful he is financially, the more that's so. But I'm also guessing that you just like his music and aren't interested in promoting drugs or pimping. Where does that leave you?

Nowhere particularly clear. On the one hand, most of us spend money that supports businesses whose practices may be undesirable even if not criminal, and many of us even know some specific cases. Corporation X sells a product I want, but contributes to causes I deplore, or engages in labor or environmental or business practices that I oppose. These days, purity isn't easy to come by. A few years ago, for better or worse, the town where I live declared itself a "nuclear free zone," meaning that they wouldn't do business with any company that had a stake in the nuclear industry. Turned out this was almost impossible to pull off without tying themselves in knots.

But there is a difference. I may buy something from a company whose practices I don't like. But when I do, I may be doing it with my nose held, so to speak -- in spite of what I don't like about them. I'm not vicariously indulging in their vices. That's where the music case seems a little different. The connections among the artist, the message and what the consumer expresses by supporting the artist seem tighter and more intimate. If someone spouts whole-heartedly misogynist lyrics, the excuse that I'm buying their records just because I like the music is a bit malodorous. Hiving off the obnoxious content from everything else and putting it in a box might be possible, but I have a feeling I'd suspect myself of bad faith.

Here's a case. Suppose that I stumbled across some artist whose language I didn't even speak. I start buying hisCDs, and then a friend who knows the language points out that what he's singing amounts to Nazi propaganda. I don't think I'd feel good about where my money went, and I don't think I'd want to put any more in the artist's coffers.

So: buying this artist's CDs isn't the worst thing you could do. But it doesn't seem entirely pure and innocent either. And the less incidental the glorification of crime to the music, the harder it is to claim that you've stayed on the unsullied side.

You're right that compromise can be used as a form of control. But so can being uncompromising. Compromise can sometimes impede efficiency; but sometimes it can facilitate it. From where I sit, I don't think that one can defend as a general principle either the idea that compromise or being uncompromising is better. When and where to compromise is a matter of art--or, perhaps in more philosophical terms, a matter of prudence, in the sense of practical wisdom. Much depends upon the context: what sort of people are involved, what's at stake, what the purpose and mission of the institution is, what sort of time and resource constraints one faces. There's a great deal of difference in making a decision about what to do about an imminent ICBM attack and what sort of retirement hobbies one might explore. In addition, compromise does work better, in my experience, when those involved have cultivated certain complementary habits and sensibilities. That is compromise works best when people value compromise, appreciate when to persist, when to give way, how to listen, how to argue a point in a civil and logical and sensitive way, how to be circumspect, how to see and appreciate the strengths and weakness of others in a group, how to see and appreciate one's own strengths and weaknesses, and how to be patient. I myself try to work towards consensus as much as possible. But I also recognize that there are contexts where consensus, as well as compromise, simply doesn't matter.

The "invasive advertising techniques used on television" would make torrenting TV shows justifiable only if we had some sort of right to watch these shows without advertising. But I don't think we have such a right. TV shows are produced or purchased by networks at some cost, and they recoup that cost (and earn a profit) by selling time for advertisements. That you dislike or even disapprove of these advertisements doesn't give you the right to make use of their products in ways that the networks oppose. They own the shows, and thus they can determine the conditions under which they are broadcast.

If you want to take a stand against advertising, don't watch the TV shows at all. Or just buy them on DVD. That way you can pay for them without submitting yourself to those invasive advertising techniques.

This is an interesting question. Actually, I think you're asking two different questions here: (1) Do corporations have a duty to behave in an ethical manner, and (2) Does ethical behavior necessarily involve charity?

The answer to the first question is certainly that corporations do have a duty to behave ethically. They have duties, for instance, not to include false or misleadings statements in their advertisements, not to use harmful chemicals in their products (whether these products are life-saving drugs or sparkly party hats), not to contaminate the water supply, and so forth. The second question is more difficult. After all, ethical theorists disagree about whether and to what extent individuals have a positive duty to give to charity (or, more generally, to be beneficent). And even if you're convinced that individuals do have such a duty, that hardly settles the question of whether corporations have one as well.

I tend to favor utilitarian or consequentialist moral theories. A utilitarian might argue that the best overall consequences would come about if corporations concentrated all of their energy solely on their business and left the charity to the owners or shareholders who receive the profits of this business. This sort of focus on business would insure that the profits available for donations to charity are as large as possible. On the other hand, if the CEO of a corporation has sufficient reason to believe that the shareholders will not donate a significant share of the profits to charity, then perhaps he or she has an obligation to order donations from the corporation itself. But this raises a host of ethical questions concerning the obligations executives have regarding shareholders.

Discrimination is wrong if it has no basis in a solid ethical reason for treating people differently, so I don't think you are right in saying that "any religion-based discrimination is wrong". A religion is entitled to take a negative view of a particular sort of behaviour and then to discriminate against the actor, and the distinction you draw between religious groups and others is not that relevant here. I work for a secular and public university in America, but could not insist on my right to lecture in German, for instance, if the reasonable expectation is that I would teach in English, nor to invite students for tutorials at 4 am, when the working hours of the institution are different. Nor do I think I could display in my office pornographic images or fly a swastika flag from my window. Why not? Because as you say "this scenario would be contrary to the belief system in place". Here we need to distinguish between minor and major deviations from the norm. The former is alright while the latter does raise serious difficulties.

Of course, someone who works for a church organization and who goes awry might reasonably expect to be forgiven.