ABSTRACTIn this article, I begin to develop and defend a reformed concept of ‘cheating’ as ‘wrongful competitive norm violating’. I then use this to reject Oliver Leaman’s view that cheating is som...

Henry Hansmann has claimed we have reached the “end of history” in corporate law, organized around the “widespread normative consensus that corporate managers should act exclusively in the economic interests of shareholders.” In this paper, I examine Hansmann’s own argument in support of this view, in order to draw out its implications for some of the traditional concerns of business ethicists about corporate social responsibility. The centerpiece of Hansmann’s argument is the claim that ownership of the firm is most naturally (...) exercised by the group able to achieve the lowest agency costs, and that homogeneity of interest within the ownership group is the most important factor in achieving lower costs. He defends this claim through a study of cooperatives, attempting to show that homogeneity is the source of the competitive advantage most often enjoyed by shareholders over other constituency groups, such as workers, suppliers and customers, when it comes to exercising control over the firm. Some business ethicists, impressed by this argument, have taken it to be a vindication of Milton Friedman’s claim that profit-maximization is the only “social responsibility” of management. I would like to suggest that this conclusion does not follow, and that the “Hansmann argument” lends itself to a less minimalist view, what I refer to as a “market failures” approach to business ethics. (shrink)

Business, management, and business ethics literature pay little attention to the topic of AI robots. The broad spectrum of potential ethical issues pertains to using driverless cars, AI robots in care homes, and in the military, such as Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems. However, there is a scarcity of in-depth theoretical, methodological, or empirical studies that address these ethical issues, for instance, the impact of morality and where accountability resides in AI robots’ use. To address this dearth, this study offers a (...) conceptual framework that interpretively develops the ethical implications of AI robot applications, drawing on descriptive and normative ethical theory. The new framework elaborates on how the locus of morality and moral intensity combine within context-specific AI robot applications, and how this might influence accountability thinking. Our theorization indicates that in situations of escalating AI agency and situational moral intensity, accountability is widely dispersed between actors and institutions. ‘Accountability clusters’ are outlined to illustrate interrelationships between the locus of morality, moral intensity, and accountability and how these invoke different categorical responses: illegal, immoral, permissible, and supererogatory pertaining to using AI robots. These enable discussion of the ethical implications of using AI robots, and associated accountability challenges for a constellation of actors—from designer, individual/organizational users to the normative and regulative approaches of industrial/governmental bodies and intergovernmental regimes. (shrink)

This article develops a liberal theory of the virtues in business. I first articulate two key liberal values embodied within market society: self-authorship and mutual benefit. Self-authorship is a mode of autonomy given expression through the effective exercise of economic liberties. Mutual benefit involves the intentional pursuit of the well-being of one’s transaction partners within economic exchange. These values are uniquely realized, I argue, within business, conceptualized as a distinct, firm-level, social practice. More specifically, individuals realize self-authorship by purposively integrating (...) cospecialized resources, forms of knowledge, and business functions to facilitate mutually beneficial transactions. Through their commitment to mutual benefit, businesspersons establish ongoing, cooperative relationships with customers, members of other firms, and various stakeholders more generally. These relationships are constitutive of a distinct liberal notion of the common good. The practice of business and the common good in a market society are sustained by a range of individual-level virtues. I recount these virtues and, before concluding, discuss several other theoretical implications of this account. (shrink)

This article is concerned with the moral permissibility of corporate political activities under the existing legal framework in the United States. The author unpacks and examines the standard case for and against the involvement of business in lobbying and electoral activities. And the author provides six objections against the standard arguments and proposes that the wrongness of corporate political activities does not have much to do with its potential social consequences but rather with nonconsequentialist considerations. The author’s ultimate aim is (...) to make sense of the intuition that corporate political spending is morally objectionable. The author argues that his case against corporate political spending fares better than the standard case. What is wrong with the current system of regulation of corporate lobbying and campaign finance is that it is inconsistent with the principles of political equality and consent. By taking advantage of this unfair regulatory framework, business firms are making a contribution to undermine the basis of a robust democratic regime at both the societal and the corporate level. (shrink)

Are there any advantages to thinking and speaking about ethical business in the language of citizenship? We will address this question in part by looking at the possible relevance of a vast literature on individual citizenship that has been produced by political philosophers over the last fifteen years. Some of the central elements of citizenship do not seem to apply straightforwardly to corporations. E.g., “citizenship” typically implies membership in a state and an identity akin to national identity; but this connotation (...) of citizenship is obviously problematic for multinational corporations. However, the language of citizenship does help to focus our attention on various legal and political virtues (or vices) for corporations—topics that have been largely neglected by discussions under other rubrics, such as CSR or sustainability. We finish with an evaluation of the potential benefits and costs of conceptualizing and talking about ethical business practices in the language of citizenship. (shrink)

Joseph Heath defends competitive markets and conceptualizes business ethics with reference to Pareto efficiency, which he takes to be the “implicit morality of the market.” His justification for markets is that they generate Pareto efficient outcomes, meaning that markets optimally satisfy consumer preferences. And, for Heath, business ethics is the set of normative constraints—regulation and beyond-compliance norms—needed to preserve that outcome. The present paper accepts Heath’s claim that the economic justification for markets is ethical, in that satisfying consumer preferences is (...) a good. But, contra Heath, the ethical consideration at work is a consequentialist one; and acknowledging this consequentialism exposes limitations of Heath’s “market failures” approach to business ethics. We suggest two limitations, and we expect many will accept our argument that Heath’s conception of business ethics is too narrow. The present paper outlines two broader implications. First, acknowledging that the justification for markets is ethical eliminates the apparent—and false—conflict between purportedly amoral economic activity on one hand and ethical considerations on the other; instead, business ethics is a matter of weighing the consequentialist ethical benefit of economic activity and markets against other moral arguments/other ethical considerations. Second, Heath restricts business ethics to the constraints needed to protect the market’s ability to efficiently satisfy consumer preferences, constraints he calls “efficiency imperatives”; this restriction supports the widespread tendency to think that all social problems are economic; and, a business ethics so-conceived diminishes the perceived importance of noneconomic values—this attitude is dangerous. (shrink)

It is commonly believed that the moral norms of “everyday” or “traditional” morality apply uniformly in all business contexts. However, Joseph Heath has recently argued that this is not the case. According to Heath, the norms of everyday morality apply with respect to “administered” transactions, but not “market” transactions. Market transactions are, he argues, governed by a distinct, “adversarial” morality. In this essay, I argue that Heath’s attempt to show that competitive contexts are governed by a distinct, adversarial morality does (...) not succeed. I then undertake the task of showing that, contrary to what is commonly thought, competitive actions can be reconciled with the norms of traditional morality. (shrink)

One of the prevailing explanations of the corporate scandals of the Enron era and the recent financial crisis is the failure of professional gatekeepers—such as auditors, corporate lawyers, and securities analysts—to detect and disrupt corporate misconduct. The alleged solution to this failure—typically proposed and justified on consequentialist grounds—is to impose legal liability on professionals. The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the normative foundations of gatekeeper liability. In the course of this paper, I shall defend the claim that (...) gatekeeper liability may be morally objectionable not only on grounds of fairness but also on consequentialist grounds. The expected contribution of this paper is threefold. First, it systematizes the framing and moral justification of gatekeeping duties. Second, it calls into question the normative underpinnings for targeting intermediaries instead of primary wrongdoers. Third, it anticipates some negative results of gatekeeping strategies in the accounting profession, specifically in the realm of clientele selection, the expectation gap, and auditor compensation. (shrink)