For Better or For Worse: Corporate Responsibility Beyond “Do No Harm”

2010 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Wettstein
Keyword(s):  
Multinational Corporations ◽  
Corporate Responsibility ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Political Obligation ◽  
Political Responsibility ◽  
Positive Duty ◽  
Recent Contribution ◽  
Do No Harm ◽  
Negative Duty

ABSTRACT:Do corporations have a duty to promote just institutions? Agreeing with Hsieh’s recent contribution, this article argues that they do. However, contrary to Hsieh, it holds that such a claim cannot be advanced convincingly only by reference to the negative duty to do no harm. Instead, such a duty necessarily must be grounded in positive obligation. In the search of a foundation for a positive duty for corporations to further just institutions, Stephen Kobrin’s notion of “private political authority” offers a promising connecting point. Political authority implies political responsibility; Political obligation, however, includes more than merely not doing any harm—it is essentially positive obligation. The implications of the new political responsibilities of multinational corporations may even go far beyond the particular duty to promote just institutions; they may be symptomatic for a much more profound shift from an individual to a collective age.

scholarly journals Zuhd and Pleasure : A Comparative Account between Imam Ali’s Nahj Al-Balāgha and Moore’s Ethics

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 104
Author(s):  
Qusthan Firdaus
Keyword(s):  
Positive Duty ◽  
Right To Work ◽  
Positive Duties ◽  
Negative Duties ◽  
Negative Duty

<div><p><strong>Abstrak :</strong> Artikel ini mendiskusikan zuhd sebagai sebuah penanda etis (an ethical bon mot) sekaligus membandingkannya dengan argumen Moore mengenai kesenangan. Memaksimalkan output dan meminimalkan input merupakan dua premis dasar yang menyusun zuhd. Keduanya membawa kepada kewajiban positif dan negatif. Kewajiban positif berakar pada hak untuk berekspresi secara bebas sementara kewajiban negatif berakar pada hak untuk bekerja pada lingkungan yang adil dan disukai. Di samping itu, argumen Moore mengenai kesenangan tidak memadai untuk menjadi sebuah penanda etis karena bersifat  subjektif. Dengan demikian, zuhd memiliki kualitas yang lebih baik daripada kesenangan untuk menjadi sebuah penanda etis.</p><p><em>Kata Kunci : Zuhud,  pleasure (Kesenangan), Penanda etis, Kewajiban posistif, Kewajiban negatif</em></p><p><em><br /></em><strong>Abstract :</strong> This article discusses about Zuhd as an ethical sign (an ethical bon mot), all at once to compare it with Moor’s argument on pleasure. Maximizing output and minimizing input  constitute two basic premises which composed zuhd. Both of  them lead to positive and negative duties. Positive duty is rooted  on right to express freely, while negative duty is rooted on right  to work in just and prefer domain. Moreover, Moor’s argument  of pleasure is unsufficient to be an ethical sigh, for it is very subjective argument. By this, Zuhd has a better quality than  pleasure to be an ethical sign or marker.</p><p><em>Keywords : Zuhud, Pleasure, Ethical bon mot, Positive duties, Negative duties</em></p></div>

scholarly journals RESPONSIBILITY AS THE FOUNDATION OF ETHICS: POLITICAL, TECHNOLOGICAL AND ECONOMIC RESPONSIBILITY

2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (28) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Dahl Rendtorff
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Responsibility ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Ethical Principle ◽  
Political Responsibility ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Ethical Duty ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Welfare State

<p>In this paper I would like to show the importance of the concept of responsibility as the foundation of ethics in particular in the fields of politics and economics in the modern civilisation marked by globalization and technological progres. I consider the concept of responsibility as the key notion in order to understand the ethical duty in a modern technological civilisation. We can indeed observe a moralization of the concept of responsibility going beyond a strict legal definition in terms of imputability. The paper begins by discussing the humanistic foundations of such a concept of responsibility. It treats the historical origins of responsibility and it relates this concept to the concept of accountability.  On the basis of this historical determination of the concept I would like to present the definition of the concept of responsibility as fundamental ethical principle that has increasing importance as the foundation of the principles of governance in modern welfare states. In this context the paper discusses the extension of the concept of responsibility towards institutional or corporate responsibility where responsibility does not only concerns the responsibility of individuals but also deals with the responsibility of institutional collectivities. In this way the paper is based on the following structure : 1) The ethical foundation of the concept of responsibility 2) Responsibility in technological civilisation 3) Political responsibility for good governance in the welfare state 4) Social responsibility of business corporations in times of globalization 5)  Conclusion and discussion : changed conditions of responsibility in modern times.</p>

scholarly journals The Crisis of Ethically Neutral Science

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mile Babić
Keyword(s):  
Multinational Corporations ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Global Science ◽  
Global Responsibility ◽  
Do No Harm ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual

Current crisis of morality in scientific and technical civilization leads us to a common ruin because modern science (which is free of morality) is inextricably linked to technology, and can therefore be called technoscience. As such, today it has a monopoly on knowledge of the world and therefore has the greatest power in history and is in tight collusion with the holders of power: the economy, politics, medicine, media, countries and multinational corporations. To have the greatest imaginable power (which, according to Kant, corrupts the freedom of mental reasoning), while being free from the morals that limit that power, means to turn the world into a world of the most modern barbarism and violence, destruction and self-destruction. Only morally responsible science is capable for future and it is the premise of a civilization capable of the future. Only responsible science can prevent science from turning into a comprehensive dogma. Therefore, science must be free from any ideology that depicts reality in black and white and thus produces vanity, hatred and violence. Global science requires a global ethos (global responsibility). Science cares about the truth that liberates us from lies and connects us into a single community. The fundamental ethical imperative primum non nocere (“first, do no harm”) is valid everywhere and forever. Ethically responsible science requires a change in the consciousness of the individual and a rediscovery of the idea of brotherhood. No human action should undermine and destroy existing reality, but rather improve it.

Contributing and Benefiting: Two Grounds for Duties to the Victims of Injustice

2005 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norbert Anwander
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Global Poverty ◽  
Positive Duty ◽  
Thomas Pogge ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Negative Duty ◽  
Harmful Effects ◽  
Do So

Contrasting his own position with that of those who conceive the moral challenge of global poverty in terms of a positive duty to help, Thomas Pogge suggests that “we may be failing to fulfill our stringent negative duty not to uphold injustice, not to contribute to or profit from [emphasis added] the unjust impoverishment of others” (p. 197). We should conceive of our individual donations and of possible institutionalized initiatives to eradicate poverty not as helping the poor but “as protecting them from the effects of global rules whose injustice benefits us and is our responsibility” (p. 23, emphasis added). Pogge also claims that such activities should be understood in terms of compensation: “The word ‘compensate’ is meant to indicate that how much one should be willing to contribute toward reforming unjust institutions and toward mitigating the harms they cause depends on how much one is contributing to, and benefiting from, their maintenance” (p. 50, emphasis added).In characterizing wrongful involvement in an unjust social order and the compensatory duties that arise from it, Pogge refers to the terms contribution/responsibility as well as to benefit/profit (the latter are used interchangeably). The first of these factors is unobjectionable: we can take it for granted that there is a negative duty not to contribute to injustice and that those who are responsible for harmful institutions should compensate their victims. I want to raise doubts, however, about the role that Pogge assigns to benefiting from injustice in the determination of our duties toward the victims of injustice. I shall do so by challenging his claim that there is a negative duty not to benefit from injustice, and that the role that benefiting from injustice plays in determining our duties to work toward reforming unjust practices and mitigating their harmful effects is best understood in terms of compensation.

scholarly journals HOBBES AS A SOCIOBIOLOGIST. RETHINKING THE STATE OF (HUMAN) NATURE

2017 ◽  
Vol 58 (136) ◽  
pp. 163-183
Author(s):  
Darat G Nicole
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Obligation ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Shed Light

ABSTRACT In the following text we aim to present a proposal of interpretation of Hobbes's work from sociobiology viewpoint. Despite the fact it may strike some at first as an anachronism or straightforward wrong, reading the philosopher of Mamelsbury from a sociobiological perspective, can shed light on some particular aspects of his argument, particularly those referring to the construction of human nature and its influence on the modulation of the state of nature and on the justification of authority and political obligation. So, Hobbes proceeds as a sociobiologist since he offers us a tale about the emergence of morality from where it didn't exist before and moves from there to a specific understanding of political authority.

scholarly journals Pogge, poverty, and war

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 446-469
Author(s):  
Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen
Keyword(s):  
Poor People ◽  
Positive Duty ◽  
Ceteris Paribus ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
Thomas Pogge ◽  
Rich People ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Negative Duty ◽  
Economic Injustice ◽  
Do So

According to Thomas Pogge, rich people do not simply violate a positive duty of assistance to help the global poor; rather, they violate a negative duty not to harm them. They do so by imposing an unjust global economic structure on poor people. Assuming that these claims are correct, it follows that, ceteris paribus, wars waged by the poor against the rich to resist this imposition are morally equivalent to wars waged in self-defense against military aggression. Hence, if self-defense against military aggression is just, then, ceteris paribus, so are defensive wars against the imposition of economic injustice. While I do not think Pogge’s analysis of the causes of global poverty is correct, I defend these inferences against various challenges.

scholarly journals A FAIR PLAY ACCOUNT OF LEGITIMATE POLITICAL AUTHORITY

Legal Theory ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Tosi
Keyword(s):  
Political Authority ◽  
Political Obligation ◽  
Fair Play ◽  
State Legitimacy ◽  
Cooperative Scheme

ABSTRACTThere is an emerging consensus among political philosophers that state legitimacy involves something more than—or perhaps other than—political obligation. Yet the principle of fair play, which many take to be a promising basis for political obligation, has been largely absent from discussions of the revised conception of legitimacy. This paper shows how the principle of fair play can generate legitimate political authority by drawing on a neglected feature of the principle—its stipulation that members of a cooperative scheme must reciprocate specifically by submitting to the scheme's rules.

"Bottom Power:" Theorizing Feminism and the Women's Movement in Sierra Leone (1981-2007)

2008 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 491-513 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynda Day
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Multinational Corporations ◽  
Women's Movement ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Political Activism ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Women In Politics ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Male Privilege ◽  
Economic Marginality

Abstract This paper examines the theory and praxis of women's political activism in contemporary Sierra Leone. In spite of the steady upswing in the number of women elected or appointed to positions of political authority, the growing influence of women in politics runs into male resistance which privately and derisively refers to women's newly held positions of authority and public clout as "bottom power." This essay proposes that male pushback results from a neo-liberal women's movement that frames women's economic marginality and lack of access to political power as the result of patriarchy and male privilege, rather than using an African feminist framework which recognizes women's lack of resources as primarily the result of the appropriation of the country's wealth by multinational corporations, lending agencies and members of the elite. If viewed from this perspective, the women's movement would be framed as a socially transformative struggle for all sectors of society, and not as a contest between men and women for power.

Splitting the Difference: Killing and Letting Die

Dialogue ◽  
1981 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-78
Author(s):  
Douglas N. Walton
Keyword(s):  
Intensive Care ◽  
Hospital Staff ◽  
Positive Duty ◽  
Intrinsic Difference ◽  
Discontinuation Of Treatment ◽  
Anselm Of Canterbury ◽  
Killing And Letting Die ◽  
Letting Die ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Negative Duty

Routinely, in Arriving at decisions on what treatments to recommend in intensive care wards, the moral presumption is that there is an intrinsic difference between the positive duty to save lives and the negative duty not to take lives. The discontinuation of treatment – say stopping chemotherapy or removing a ventilator – is thought of as a “negative” action, an allowing to die, not “positively”, say as an act of suicide by the patient, or a killing by the hospital staff. But the distinction between “positive” and “negative” here, despite its grave ethical import, is elusive and difficult to grasp firmly. St. Anselm of Canterbury was fond of citing the trickiness of the distinction between “to do” (facere) and “not to do” (non-facere). In answer to the question “What's he doing?” we say “He's just sitting there.” (positive), really meaning something negative: “He's not doing anything at all.” Sometimes the “negative” action is described in “positive” terms, or vice versa, and that makes one wonder if the distinction might be somehow trivial, a bit of jesuitry too insubstantial to bear much serious ethical weight.

scholarly journals BUSINESS STRATEGY AND CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY: PERCEPTION AND PRACTICE IN THE OIL INDUSTRY AND THE ROLE OF NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS

2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 951-963 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asad K. Ghalib ◽  
Patricia Agupusi
Keyword(s):  
Multinational Corporations ◽  
Business Strategy ◽  
Corporate Responsibility ◽  
Oil Industry ◽  
Ethical Standards ◽  
Short Term ◽  
External Stakeholders ◽  
Responsible Behaviour ◽  
Corporate Social

This paper examines the strategies for the implementation of corporate social responsibility of various multinationals, with a particular focus on the oil industry. The role of non-governmental organisations towards inducing a more responsible behaviour is explored. By drawing on literature and reflecting on documented actions of various multinational corporations, particularly from the extractive sector, we find a commonalty that cuts across the board: a considerable disparity exists between policies, strategies and actions that these organisations display in the interest of their inherent, short-term economic gains. Such gains jeopardize interests of both internal and external stakeholders as well as the environment especially in the developing world. We argue that the disparity in implementation can be linked to weak structural institutions and lack of ethical standards in most developing countries.

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