Why At-Will Employment is Permissible

A worker is employed “at will” when their employer may fire them at any point and for any reason they choose (excluding illegal reasons.) Some critics object to at-will employment on the grounds that it gives employers the power to arbitrarily dismiss employees and thus dramatically worsen their lives.

I’ll argue that at-will employment is permissible. To clarify an important point upfront, simply because something is morally wrong doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t allow it. Suppose, with apologies to Seinfeld, someone decides to divorce his wife of 30 years because he learns that she eats peas one at a time instead of scooping them. How someone eats peas is no doubt an arbitrary reason for a divorce and the husband acts wrongly here. Nevertheless, he ought to be permitted to get the divorce. Similarly, it would be morally wrong to fire an employee because they don’t scoop the peas they eat for lunch in the break room. But is it permissible?

There are some reasons to think that it is. First, although this claim is counterintuitive, permitting at-will employment has advantages for employees. Imposing restrictions on employers’ ability to dismiss employees reduces their incentive to hire employees in the first place, which would have a negative effect on employment. Think of it this way: if you were legally obligated to get married after a first date, you’d go on fewer dates. Or, if you were legally obligated to stay in a job for at least two years after accepting the job offer, you’d be more reluctant to take a job.

Second, let’s grant for argument’s sake that an offer of at-will employment is a bad job offer. Still, it’s permissible to make a bad job offer. Consider the following argument:

If you may make no job offer, you may make a bad job offer.

You may make no job offer.

Thus, you may make a bad job offer.

(See the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s entry on exploitation for more about the “non-worseness claim.”)

In defense of the first premise, note that receiving a bad job offer leaves the recipient no worse off than receiving no offer (because they can always reject the offer and thus remain in the position they’d be in if they received no offer) and potentially leaves them better off (because they may decide that the bad job offer is better than either remaining unemployed or accepting any other offer they have).

It also seems permissible for an employer to make no job offers. As a general point, it’s implausible that they’d have a standing, enforceable obligation to make job offers to prospective employees, absent special moral circumstances. Suppose a restaurant owner is debating whether or not to hire an extra server. She calculates that it would likely be a profitable decision to hire someone, but decides against it because she would rather spend the time it would take undergoing the hiring process watching TV. So, she makes no job offer. Maybe this is an unwise business decision, but it’s clear that the state would be wrong to force her to do otherwise.

Consider also that employers are simply buyers of labor and we are usually happy to permit “at-will purchasing.” Suppose you see an advertisement for a used car. You’re under no obligation to make an offer. You’re also permitted to make a bad offer—for instance, maybe you only offer half of what the seller is asking for. Here again, the seller may decide to reject the bad offer, in which case they are no worse off for having received it. Or, they might decide it is their best option, in which case they are better off for having received it.

One final point: the worry that at-will employment puts workers in a precarious financial position can be addressed with a social safety net that provides them with resources in the event they are dismissed by their employers.