AE on Moriarty’s “Do CEOs Get Paid Too Much?

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Syllogism
1. According to the agreement view of justice in wages, a wage of $8 million per year for a
CEO is just only if it results from an arm’s-length negotiation between an informed CEO
and an informed group of owners.
2. Negotiations between an informed CEO and an informed group of owners are not at
arm’s-length.
3. Therefore, according to the agreement view of justice in wages, CEO’s shouldn’t be paid
a wage of $8 million per year. [1,2]
4. According to the desert view of justice in wages, the CEO should be paid what he or she
deserves to be paid.
5. CEO’s are paid on average 301 times the amount that employees are each paid, which is
a yearly amount of $8 million.
6. Therefore, according to the desert view of justice in wages, the CEO must be 301 times
more deserving than employees to be paid a yearly amount of $8 million per year. [4,5]
7. CEOs are not 301 times as deserving as their employees.
8. Therefore, according to the desert view of justice in wages, CEO’s shouldn’t be paid a
wage of $8 million per year. [6,7]
9. According to the utility view of justice in wages, the CEO should be offered an amount
that attracts, retains and motivates them, as well as be the most cost-effective wage to
offer.
10. There is no evidence that offering $8 million per year to a CEO is necessary to attract,
retain, and motivate them, as well as be the most cost-effective wage to offer.
11. Therefore, according to the utility view of justice in wages, the CEO’s shouldn’t be paid
a wage of $8 million per year. [9,10]
12. Therefore, according to the agreement view, the desert view, and the utility view of
justice in wages, CEO’s shouldn’t be paid a wage of $8 million per year. [3,8,12]
13. There are three views of justice in wages: the agreement view, the desert view, and the
utility view.
14. Therefore, by the three views of justice in wages, CEO’s shouldn’t be paid a wage of $8
million per year. [12,13]
 Critical Evaluation

I will be addressing premise #7. I think sometimes CEOs can be 301 times as deserving

as other workers, which would invalidate the desert view part of the argument for why CEOs are

paid too much. The CEO is one person. Generally, in larger companies, there are hundreds or

thousands of workers. Adding up the salary of each worker based on the average would generate

a number that is much higher than what the CEO is making. In some companies where the work

is similar for many workers like in a factory, the added value of 301 workers would be small.

Because most of them do the same thing, overall value placed on them together is constrained.

This means that the value of 301 workers combined is not the same as 301 times the value of one

worker; it is much less. Thus, the CEO is not so disproportionately paid over them when

considering this.

There is no reason to think they can’t be 301 times as deserving as the others. The CEO

is at the highest level, which means that he should be paid the most. He is the one that takes

responsibility for any ethical or fraud issues that occur in the company. As stated in the article,

CEOs have spent an average of 13 years with the firm before becoming CEO. It’s not their talent

that make them worth $8 million compared to another CEO making much less because their

talent can only be so much more than another’s. It’s the experience that allows them to drive the

future of the company. In the business world, there might be two people working at the same

level in a job. One could be a person who’s worked there for many years, and the other could be

a new college graduate, who is just as skilled. They work at the same level, but the experienced

worker earns much more to do the same job. In this way, experience is a huge factor in how a

position is paid. Few people can possess the experience to be a CEO and also have the insight to

run a company, which is why the price of one is so high. Combining 301 employees in the
company together that don’t have experience with upper management level tasks would never

get a combined value of what the CEO can do. Thus, a CEO can be worth 301 employees

because the CEO can have more experience than 301 employees combined.