Consumer boycotts have become a frequent form of social protest in the digital age. The corporate malpractices motivating them are varied, including environmental pollution, lack of minimum labour standards, severe mistreatment of animals, lobbying and misinformation campaigns, collaboration or complicity with illegitimate political regimes, and systematic tax evasion and tax fraud. In this article, I argue that organised consumer boycotts should be regarded as a legitimate and purposeful instrument for structural change, provided they conform to a number of normative criteria. (...) In order to show this, the practice and empirical context of consumer boycotts are first outlined. I then lay out and refute three general objections to this practice. Although each of these objections fails, their discussion generates insights concerning the normative standards with which boycotters must comply if they want their campaigns to be both legitimate and successful. These normative criteria are detailed along the lines of two guiding principles, proportionality and transparency. In the final step, I elaborate on structural change as the deeper purpose of consumer boycotts. (shrink)

The purpose of the paper is to examine trade boycott of Arab countries of Danish goods and role of WTO.

There are confusions regarding the nature of the theories of Swaraj and Boycott. Here in this book I tried to search for their underline sense in the new light of spirituality.

This article defends the conclusion that the soccer World Cup in Qatar should not be boycotted by rich countries from the Global North. This conclusion is underpinned by considerations about the economic background conditions in guest workers’ home countries. Three arguments are considered for the view that the World Cup should be boycotted. It is argued that each of these arguments is unsound. Section 7 contains a discussion of an argument for a boycott that centers on the process through (...) which Qatar was awarded the World Cup. This argument is rejected. The article lists several ways in which guest workers in Qatar are wronged, but this fact about how guest workers are treated does not justify a boycott by rich countries from the Global North. (shrink)

In July 2020, more than 1000 companies that advertise on social media platforms withdrew their business, citing failures of the platforms (especially Facebook) to address the proliferation of harmful content. The #StopHateForProfit movement invites reflection on an understudied topic: the ethics of boycotting by corporations. Under what conditions is corporate boycotting permissible, required, supererogatory, or forbidden? Although value-driven consumerism has generated significant recent discussion in applied ethics, that discussion has focused almost exclusively on the consumption choices of individuals. As this (...) article underscores, value-driven consumerism by business corporations complicates these issues and invites further examination. We propose principles for the ethics of boycotting by corporations, indicate how these principles relate to different CSR paradigms, and show how these insights can help assess recent instances of corporate boycotting. (shrink)

Today, many people have realized that the climate change and biodiversity loss issues lie in how and to what extent humans consume products for their lives in the Anthropocene era. Consumerism has pushed natural resource exploitation to its peak, and the depletion of resources is becoming increasingly prevalent. The beauty and personal care industry has a large market and high profits, especially in the high-income segment. However, this advantage also carries the risk of facing scrutiny, investigations, and criticism from civil (...) society organizations, environmental activists, and consumers. More than anyone else, the industry is vulnerable to the perils of unfavourable societal assessments, particularly the repercussions of consumer-led boycott actions. In this discourse, we suggest that, given the current circumstances, it is imperative for multinational beauty corporations to take a proactive role in allocating resources towards the development of sustainable agriculture practices. This entails not only advocating for the widespread adoption of environmentally conscious production methods but also dedicating efforts towards conducting research and innovation in the area of nature-friendly manufacturing techniques. Doing so will help demonstrate their commitment to the environment and actively provide convincing evidence to consumers of their social responsibility through emission reduction and biodiversity conservation activities. (shrink)

This paper makes an argument for the democratic value of distrust. It begins by analyzing distrust, since distrust is not merely the negation of trust. The account that it develops is based primarily on Martin Luther King Jr.’s work in Why We Can’t Wait. On this view, distrust is the confident belief that another individual or group of individuals or an institution will not act justly or as justice requires. It is a narrow normative account of distrust, since it concerns (...) a specific normative task. Distinctions between vertical and horizontal distrust, as well as trust and agnostic trust are also discussed. This paper argues that distrust’s democratic value lies in its ability to secure democracy by protecting political minorities from having their voices ignored. As such, distrust can be viewed as a kind of Madisonian “check and balance” that works to prevent tyranny. Distrust also works to secure democracy by forging new or alternative forms of democratic participation. The main example discussed in this paper is King’s involvement in the Birmingham Campaign during the Black Civil Rights movement in America. In this case, King and his supporters’ distrust of fellow White citizens and political institutions led to alternative forms of political expression such as non-violent protests, boycotts, and other forms of civil disobedience, all of which led to greater racial justice by working to alleviate White tyranny. (shrink)

This chapter offers an overview of issues posed by the problem of immoral artists, artists who in word or deed violate commonly held moral principles. I briefly consider the question of whether the immorality of an artist can render their work aesthetically worse (making connections to chapters in the Theory section of the handbook), and then turn to questions about what the audience should do and feel in response to knowledge of these moral failings. I discuss questions such as whether (...) audiences have reason not to purchase or consume work by these artists, whether their shows and exhibitions should be canceled, and how fans might grapple with the emotional turmoil they feel when artists whom they love act or speak in ways that are morally condemnable. (shrink)

Since Uber’s founding in 2009, individuals associated with Uber have engaged in (or been accused of engaging in) numerous categories of corporate malfeasance: failure to protect data privacy, theft of trade secrets, sexual misconduct (including sexual assault and sexual harassment), lack of worker safety, lack of consumer safety, and racial discrimination. Thus, Uber is a good test case for the question of whether corporate behavior can provide moral justification for a boycott. More specifically, an examination of the 2017 #deleteUber (...) controversy will invite the reader to consider questions such as the following: When is a personal boycott morally justified, and when (if ever) is a personal boycott morally obligatory? How are personal boycotts related to larger-scale organized boycotts? What are the factors that make an organized boycott morally justified (or unjustified)? Is there a sound argument for the conclusion that we should #deleteUber? (shrink)

A -/- abortion and infanticide/ academic freedom/ academics/ action/ act-omission doctrine/ addiction and dependence/ adoption/ advertising/ affirmative action/ age of consent/ age of criminal responsibility/ age of majority/ agent/ aggression/ agriculture/ aid, foreign/ AIDS/ air/ akrasia/ allies/ altruism/ American Civil War (1861-1865)/ American exceptionalism/ American War of Independence (1775–1783)/ anarchic social order/ anarcho-capitalism/ anarchy/ animal rights/ animal welfare/ apartheid/ apathy/ appeasement/ apriorism/ aristocracy/ arms trade/ arms race/ artificial intelligence/ arts and sciences/ assassination/ asset stripping/ asylum seekers/ atomism, social/ Austrian School (...) of economics/ authoritarianism/ authority/ autonomy, intellectual/ axis/ -/- B -/- balance of trade/ balance of power (international)/ banking/ bankruptcy, insolvency, and limited liability/ barriers to entry/ begging/ belief/ betting/ big business/ bigotry/ biodiversity/ bioethics/ black market/ blackmail/ blasphemy/ booms and slumps/ borders, political/ boxing and dangerous sports/ boycott/ bribery/ British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)/ BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy)/ bureaucracy/ business cycles/ . (shrink)

Determining the human activity that social processes consist in is a central task for the philosophy of the social sciences. This paper asks: which conception of agency arising from contemporary action theory is the most suitable for social science explanation? It is argued that a movement-centered, Davidsonian picture of agency is not suitable for explaining certain social processes such as strikes and boycotts because, instead of intentional bodily movements, they are explained by the intentional omissions of agents. I propose that (...) instead of intentional bodily movements, social processes are better explained by phenomena in which an agent is taking an active relation both to her mental or bodily processes as well as to what is happening around her. Thus, to fully explain social processes, a comprehensive theory of agency that can account for intentional actions and intentional omissions and a conception of agency that includes both materialist and volitionalist aspects is needed. (shrink)

Contemporary political philosophy in the West is the philosophy of democracy, is democratic theory. Philosophy under democracy has become complacent. Even the recent reaffirmation of communism by influential philosophers such as Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek failed to inspire a significant following. There has been no radical philosophical reaction to the near-collapse of the capitalist economic system, mainly because any criticism of capitalism would imply a criticism of democracy ("the best possible political shell for capitalism", as Lenin said). Techno-philosophical alternatives (...) to democracy, such as anarcho-capitalist "seasteading", and calls for the suspension of democracy to cure climate change are originating outside academic departments of philosophy. Is there still philosophy if everyone agrees? Is philosophy still philosophy if discontent with the-one-and-only-truth can only be voiced from outside the academy? Or does political philosophy more and more resemble Plato's cave? This paper will venture outside the cave, outside the comfort zone of western academic philosophy as always-already-democratic. Only in this way can it seek to engage in a meaningful dialogue with non-western worldviews. Only by stepping into the light will we illuminate why still, in the twenty-first century, scholars may be justified in studying not democracy, but anti-democracy. Where are the niches of anti-democratic thought that may yet save us from the destruction wrought upon the world by the failing capitalist-democratic complex? What are the political trends against democracy we miss at our peril and what are their philosophical implications, worldwide? What are the new alternatives to democracy that emerge in our day? Free of self-imposed prejudice, this paper rejects the boycott of thought that does not comply with western inhibitions, and refuses to shy away from the encounter of philosophical positions emanating from non-democratic political practices. Philosophy is not blind, it does not condone any ideologies uncritically, and philosophy does not equal democracy. (shrink)

This study examines the xenophobic attacks on Nigerians in South Africa, its ethical implications and responses of the Nigerian government. The study was guided by two objectives while it adopted the normative theory by Plato and Aristotle. The study looked at conceptual clarification like the concept of xenophobia. The study adopted ex-post research design while data was sourced through secondary source such as textbooks, journal articles, newspapers, magazines and internet while the data generated was analyzed through content analysis. The findings (...) of the study showed that there are Nigerians that are employees of labor in South Africa as well as Nigerians that are lecturers in South Africa universities that have contributed to their educational sector and there are also Nigerian students in their schools who pay fees as foreign students and these have contributed positively to South Africa economy and thus the reasons for these xenophobic attacks are not in accordance to the universalization of the norms of any society. The study also found out that the Nigerian government has responded in several ways which include, summoning of the South Africa ambassador to express her displeasure over the attacks on Nigerians, in the same vain Nigerians have used social media to call on the Nigerian government to boycott South African companies such as MTN, DSTV and Shoprite and also the immediate evacuation or repatriation of Nigerians in South Africa. Based on the findings the study recommended among others that the Nigerian government should let the South African government to know that the actions that are carried out by South Africans that has led to deaths of Nigerians no matter the actions that must had led to that does not fall within the moral principles of any society and the government of Nigeria should establish a bilateral commission with South Africa that will be meeting regularly to ensure protection of the two countries’ national interests. (shrink)