ABSTRACT:Increasingly, global businesses are confronted with the question of complicity in human rights violations committed by abusive host governments. This contribution specifically looks at silent complicity and the way it challenges conventional interpretations of corporate responsibility. Silent complicity implies that corporations have moral obligations that reach beyond the negative realm of doing no harm. Essentially, it implies that corporations have a moral responsibility to help protect human rights by putting pressure on perpetrating host governments involved in human rights abuses. This (...) is a controversial claim, which this contribution proposes to analyze with a view to understanding and determining the underlying conditions that need to be met in order for moral agents to be said to have such responsibilities in the category of the duty to protect human rights. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:In response to criticism of empirical or “positive” approaches to corporate social responsibility (CSR), we defend the importance of these approaches for any CSR theory that seeks to have practical impact. Although we acknowledge limitations to positive approaches, we unpack the neglected but crucial relationships between positive knowledge on the one hand and normative knowledge on the other in the implementation of CSR principles. Using the structure of a practical syllogism, we construct a model that displays the key role of (...) empirical knowledge in fulfilling a firm’s responsibility to society, paying special attention to the implications of the “ought implies can” dictum. We also defend the importance of one particular class of empirical claims; namely, claims from the field of economics. Even positive economic theory, which is often criticized for endorsing profits rather than values, can cooperate in intriguing ways with non-economic concepts in the implementation of CSR goals. (shrink)

This paper proposes a description of the moral obligations of economic agents. It will show that a threefold division should be adopted to distinguish moral obligations applying to their interactions in the market, obligations applying to their interactions inside business firms and obligations applying to their interactions with agents outside the market. Competition might be permissible in the first case since markets are special patterns of social interactions (called adversarial schemes). They produce their benefits when agents try to satisfy exclusive (...) preferences at the expense of others. However, moral obligations inside the firm and moral obligations outside the market are of a different nature. This argument will be developed in the two first parts of this paper. In the third part, it will outline the relevant strengths of that account in relation with two popular views of economic agents’ moral obligations: the shareholder primacy view and the stakeholder theory. (shrink)

People are often involuntarily laid off from their jobs through no fault of their own. Employees who are dismissed in this manner cannot always legitimately hold employers accountable for these miserable situations because the decision to implement layoffs is often the best possible outcome given the context—that is, layoffs in and of themselves may be “necessary evils.” Yet, even in circumstances in which layoffs qualify as “necessary evils,” morality demands that employers respect the dignity of those whose employment is involuntarily (...) terminated. In this paper I argue that to preserve the dignity of employees who are involuntarily terminated, in most cases employers have a substantial reason to offer a special kind of unemployment benefit, “severance pay.” To support my claim I draw and expand upon Bernard Williams’s analysis of “agent-regret,” which I believe greatly helps to address and articulate employers’ obligations in the context of involuntary termination. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:In this article we investigate a philosophical problem for normative business ethics theory suggested by a phenomenon that contemporary psychologists call “bounded ethicality,” which can be identified with the putative fact that well-intentioned people, constrained by psychological limitations, make ethical choices inconsistent with their own ethical beliefs and commitments. When one combines the idea that bounded ethicality is pervasive with the idea that a person morally ought to do something only if she can, it raises a doubt about the practical (...) relevance of the moral principles that business ethics theory prescribes. We call this doubt the Radical Behavioral Challenge. It consists in the idea that people cannot generally conform to the normative ethical principles that business ethics theorists prescribe, and that these principles are therefore practically irrelevant. We answer the Radical Behavioral Challenge and explore normative implications of our answer. (shrink)

If we read the central message of Caritas in Veritate (CV) through the lens of contemporary business ethics—and the encyclical does seem to invite such a reading (CV 40–41, and 45–47)—there is first of all a diagnosis of a crisis. Then, we are offered a response to the diagnosis: charity in truth , “the principle around which the Church’s social doctrine turns, a principle that takes on practical form in the criteria that govern moral action .” (CV 6) In business (...) ethics, the norms of personal and (especially) corporate responsibility are the natural correlates to “the criteria that govern moral action.” Using this as a point of departure, I propose to relate some recent scholarship in business ethics to the message of CV — with the suggestion that there is significant convergence. I argue, further, that the encyclical breaks new ground with its suggestion that, at the center of our moral thinking in business ethics lies a logic of contribution or gift. I discuss Benedict’s understanding of the crisis, and his exhortation to reach beyond conventional interpretations of corporate responsibility, under the following four headings: Diagnosing a Crisis , Institutionalizing Conscience , A Tripartite View of Corporate Responsibility, and Comprehensive Moral Thinking. (shrink)

In the late 1990s, the Internet seemed a perfect medium for business: a facilitator of unlimited economical propositions to people without any regulatory limitations. Cases such as that of Yahoo! mark the beginning of the end of that illusion. They demonstrate that Internet service providers (ISPs) have to respect domestic state legislation in order to avoid legal risks. Yahoo! was wrong to ignore French national laws and the plea to remove Nazi memorabilia from its auction site. Its legal struggle proved (...) futile and may have harmed its business. This essay argues for the adoption of standards of corporate social responsibility (CSR). CSR considerations may trump some forms of antisocial, highly offensive expression. (shrink)

This paper addresses the concepts of moral and social responsibility on the Internet in considering the most troubling phenomenon of cyberbullying that results in loss of life. Specifically, I probe the moral and social responsibilities of Internet users (agents), of the education system in fighting cyberbullying, and of Internet intermediaries. Balance needs to be struck between freedom of expression and social responsibility. The tragic story of Megan Meier serves as an illustrative example and some further incidents in which this ugly (...) phenomenon of cyberbullying had cost young life are mentioned. It is argued that all relevant stakeholders need to think of the consequences of their conduct, that Internet abusers should be accountable for their wrongdoing, and that people who have the ability to stop or at least reduce the risk of cyberbullying should take proactive steps, exhibiting zero tolerance to cyberbullying. (shrink)