Business ethics & collective responsibility
Abstract
The idea that ‘business ethics’ picks out a distinct discipline within ethical theory is contentious; in particular, it is unclear why theoretical approaches to moral and political philosophy cannot satisfactorily address ethical concerns in the context of business activity, just as they can in the context of other human activities. In response, I argue that some features of the business environment require more focused analysis than currently available. This environment is characterised by the presence of large social groups – business organisations – that are not political in nature, but yet wield considerable power and are the vehicles for complex forms of collective action.
The most pressing ethical concern raised by such collective action is collective moral responsibility. I develop an account of collective responsibility that is tailored to business organisations and that combines a number of strands of moral thought – a desert-based account of moral responsibility that is of a kind with that typically applied to individual humans; a pluralistic account of how collective responsibility is generated that is rooted in irreducible group-level properties; and a moderate approach to social ontology that sees nothing mysterious in ‘distinct’ collective entities.
From this starting point I develop two detailed models that illustrate how business organisations can constitute distinct collective entities that may be held morally responsible. The first shows how such organisations may satisfy the conditions required to hold moral agency, which is typically assumed to be a prerequisite for moral responsibility. The second breaks with this tradition and argues for the possibility of ‘non-agential’ moral responsibility in cases where complex organisational structures mediate the actions of the moral agents that populate them. I conclude by showing how this distinct organisational-level responsibility, far from insulating organisation members from personal culpability, illustrates quite distinct standards against which such individuals may be judged.
Type
Thesis, PhD Doctor of Philosophy
Collections
Items in the St Andrews Research Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Some challenges for ethics in social network research
Hutton, Luke; Henderson, Tristan (ACM, 2015-08-21) - Conference itemSocial network sites (SNSes) comprise one of the most popular networked applications of late, with hundreds of millions of users. Collecting and analysing data from such systems creates myriad ethical issues and challenges ... -
Articulations of ethics : energy worlds and moral selves
High, Mette M. (Springer Nature Singapore, 2022-03-24) - Book itemThis chapter introduces the notion of ‘regimes of ethics’ to explore the diverse ways that ethics is articulated in corporate capitalism, particularly in industries that are involved in the extraction of natural resources ... -
The unity of virtues in Plato and Aristotle
Chong, I Xuan (2023-11-29) - Thesis“Unity of virtues” is the idea that virtues should be understood in holistic terms. Part I focuses on Plato’s Protagoras. It argues that, according to Plato’s Socrates, “unity of virtues” is true in the sense that all ...