The New Generation of Scholars Appl

The New Generation of Scholars Applying Kant to Business Ethics
scholars particularly, as mentioned, the work of Barbara Herman. Although I am completing a paper that uses the traditional perfect imperfect distinction to specify what is required of corporations to help society, I fi n d the Dubbink/Liedekerke approach to be innovative and thought provoking. Another debate about corporate social responsibility is whether corporations can be held to be sufficiently like persons to be held morally responsible. Dubbink and Smith consider this issue from a Kantian perspective in their paper “A Political Account of Corporate Social Responsibility.” 55 In this article Dubbink and Smith revisit an issue that has longed plagued business ethicists, Does a business organization have the necessary and sufficient characteristics of personhood so that it can be held morally responsible independently of any individual or individuals in the corporation. John Ladd and Manny Velasquez were among the early scholars who claimed that a corporation did not have those characteristics. However, in a series of articles, Peter French argued that a corporate internal decision structure did provide a suf fi cient analogy to human personhood so that a corporation could be held morally responsible. 56 Dubbink and Smith propose a set of weaker conditions that would still allow us to speak of corporations per se of either taking or not taking ethical decisions into account. And surprising they appeal to Kantian theory to do so. I say surprisingly because Kant’s theory of ascribing moral responsibility intuitively is very strict. They argue that we humans have reason to look upon corporations as administrators of duty. “Corporations are administrators of duty to the extent that citizens come to expect that the corporation will take into account a relevant set of moral principles when it renders a judgment or decision about what course of action to take.” 57 For Dubbink and Smith, corporate moral responsibility is not about making moral judgments of praise or blame or even of being held accountable for legal sanctions. They note correctly that Kant’s ethics cannot say much about that because, as Kant observed, it is very hard to determine a person’s true motive. With that in mind what Dubbink and Smith need to show is that corporations per se have the ability to take into account moral factors in their decision making process. It should be noted that they accept as fact that corporations have a corporate internal decision making structures along the lines that French presented. The crux of their argument then seems to be as follows: 1. Corporations are capable of rational action planning. Observation and Corporate Internal Decision Making Structures 2. Corporations can act on reasons Observation
55 Dubbink, W. and J. Smith. (2011). “A Political Account of the Corporation as a Morally Responsible Actor,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, XIV(2), 223–246. 56 Ladd, John. (1970). “Morality and the Idea of Rationality in Formal Organizations,” The Monist, 54(4), 47–60 and Velasquez, Manuel. (2003). “Debunking Moral Responsibility,” Business Ethics Quarterly , 13, 531–562; French, Peter. (1979). “The Corporation as a Moral Person,” American Philosophical Quarterly , 16(3), 207–215. 57 Dubbink and Smith. “A Political Account of the Corporation as a Morally Responsible Actor,” p. 233.
70 4 Kantian Themes
3. Corporations can act on moral reasons, because there is nothing special that distinguishes moral reasons from other kinds of reasons. Analogy 4 . The moral reasons that a corporation must take into account are dictated by society Observation 5 . 1 –4 are sufficient to say that corporations are able to take ethical considerations into account in their decision making capacity. What corporations cannot do is reflectively endorse the moral principles. Corporations are not persons to that extent. Later in the paper, Dubbink and Smith point out that it is one thing to adopt an ethical principle as a reason and quite another to justify that principle or the use of that principle in a particular case. Given their comments about endorsement, I assume they think that corporations cannot give justifications for principles. But I am not convinced here. Is it meaningful to speak of a corporation justifying a principle of finance, accounting or marketing? I think it is? Then why can’t it give a justification of a moral principle as well. See premise 3 in the argument above. What I am arguing is that if the corporate internal decision-making structure is good enough to ground corporate reasons, it is good enough to provide justi fi cation for the reasons it adopts. Either a corporate decision structure works for both or it works for neither. The rub of course is that a corporation is not a conscious being so it cannot refl e ctively endorse. That, I suppose is why we have premise 4. But doesn’t any kind of rational decision making presuppose either consciousness or something sufficiently analogous? I assume that the corporate internal decision structure is what is supposed to be sufficiently analogous. Whether the corporation internal decision structure is suffi c iently analogous returns us to the original debate. A s to whether a company can also justify a moral principle if it can comply with a moral principle, Dubbink in correspondence responded as follows: You are right to argue that if a corporation can comply with a moral principle, it can also justify a moral principle-even if we would say that the actual work is done by human beings. Yet we would like to make a distinction between complying with moral principles, justifying moral principles, and grounding moral principles. Grounding is not justifying. It is more like “self-constitution” in Korsgaard’s sense. That is an interesting move and the business ethics community should look forward to more elaboration on the importance of the distinction among these three concepts. Let me return to the earlier issue of corporate personhood. Dubbink and Smith have tried to fi nesse the metaphysical question of corporate personhood be letting the moral principles be determined by society and thus eliminating the need for justification. In correspondence with Professor Dubbink on this issue, he stated that “We want to get away from ontology as far as possible. So what corporations are or are not is unimportant to us.” However, from my perspective that simply makes the theory of corporate personhood too thin. However, my correspondence with Dubbink throws some additional light on this point. A corporation per se cannot constitute it self because corporations work through proxies (human agents). Thus, corporations are different from human agents. They are “administrators of duty.” Upon further refl e ction, I think that Dubbink and Smith are really closer to the view of Ladd and Velasquez than it might appear at first. Obviously there is great potential here to reopen the corporate personhood debate and the Dubbink/Smith Kantian twist is a genuine contribution to the debate.



Conclusion
I continue to believe as I said in Business Ethics : A Kantian Perspective that the great ethicists such as Aristotle, Kant, and John Stuart Mill have something important to contribute to applied ethics in general and to business ethics in particular. After all if ethical theory cannot be applied by people in their daily lives as they struggle with ethical issues, then we need to rethink whether in fact these ethicists really do have signifi c ant ethical theories. Of course these theories cannot be applied deductively and in the absence of a consideration of context and situation. Applied ethics is not simply a matter of reaching into the ethical theory tool box and picking the right theory to immediately fix an ethical dilemma. But an ethical theory can help especially once the ethical situation confronting a person or institution is fully examined. All these theories make important contributions but I continue to believe that Kant’s ethical theory is the one that is most robust in business ethics. I am delighted that others find his work inspiring in that regard as well.

Hasil (Bahasa Indonesia) 1:

Generasi baru dari sarjana-sarjana yang menerapkan Kant etika bisnis scholars particularly, as mentioned, the work of Barbara Herman. Although I am completing a paper that uses the traditional perfect imperfect distinction to specify what is required of corporations to help society, I fi n d the Dubbink/Liedekerke approach to be innovative and thought provoking. Another debate about corporate social responsibility is whether corporations can be held to be sufficiently like persons to be held morally responsible. Dubbink and Smith consider this issue from a Kantian perspective in their paper “A Political Account of Corporate Social Responsibility.” 55 In this article Dubbink and Smith revisit an issue that has longed plagued business ethicists, Does a business organization have the necessary and sufficient characteristics of personhood so that it can be held morally responsible independently of any individual or individuals in the corporation. John Ladd and Manny Velasquez were among the early scholars who claimed that a corporation did not have those characteristics. However, in a series of articles, Peter French argued that a corporate internal decision structure did provide a suf fi cient analogy to human personhood so that a corporation could be held morally responsible. 56 Dubbink and Smith propose a set of weaker conditions that would still allow us to speak of corporations per se of either taking or not taking ethical decisions into account. And surprising they appeal to Kantian theory to do so. I say surprisingly because Kant’s theory of ascribing moral responsibility intuitively is very strict. They argue that we humans have reason to look upon corporations as administrators of duty. “Corporations are administrators of duty to the extent that citizens come to expect that the corporation will take into account a relevant set of moral principles when it renders a judgment or decision about what course of action to take.” 57 For Dubbink and Smith, corporate moral responsibility is not about making moral judgments of praise or blame or even of being held accountable for legal sanctions. They note correctly that Kant’s ethics cannot say much about that because, as Kant observed, it is very hard to determine a person’s true motive. With that in mind what Dubbink and Smith need to show is that corporations per se have the ability to take into account moral factors in their decision making process. It should be noted that they accept as fact that corporations have a corporate internal decision making structures along the lines that French presented. The crux of their argument then seems to be as follows: 1. Corporations are capable of rational action planning. Observation and Corporate Internal Decision Making Structures 2. Corporations can act on reasons Observation 55 Dubbink, W. dan J. Smith. (2011). "Account politik Corporation sebagai aktor bertanggung jawab secara moral," etika teori dan praktek Moral, XIV(2), 223-246. 56 Ladd, John. (1970). "Moralitas dan gagasan rasionalitas dalam organisasi Formal," Monist, 54(4), 47-60 dan band, Manuel. (2003). "Membongkar tanggung jawab Moral," etika bisnis kuartalan, 13, 531-562; Perancis, Peter. (1979). "Corporation sebagai orang Moral," Amerika 16(3) kuartalan, filosofis, 207-215. 57 Dubbink dan Smith. "Account politik Corporation sebagai aktor bertanggung jawab secara moral," hal. 70 4 Kantian tema 3. Corporations can act on moral reasons, because there is nothing special that distinguishes moral reasons from other kinds of reasons. Analogy 4 . The moral reasons that a corporation must take into account are dictated by society Observation 5 . 1 –4 are sufficient to say that corporations are able to take ethical considerations into account in their decision making capacity. What corporations cannot do is reflectively endorse the moral principles. Corporations are not persons to that extent. Later in the paper, Dubbink and Smith point out that it is one thing to adopt an ethical principle as a reason and quite another to justify that principle or the use of that principle in a particular case. Given their comments about endorsement, I assume they think that corporations cannot give justifications for principles. But I am not convinced here. Is it meaningful to speak of a corporation justifying a principle of finance, accounting or marketing? I think it is? Then why can’t it give a justification of a moral principle as well. See premise 3 in the argument above. What I am arguing is that if the corporate internal decision-making structure is good enough to ground corporate reasons, it is good enough to provide justi fi cation for the reasons it adopts. Either a corporate decision structure works for both or it works for neither. The rub of course is that a corporation is not a conscious being so it cannot refl e ctively endorse. That, I suppose is why we have premise 4. But doesn’t any kind of rational decision making presuppose either consciousness or something sufficiently analogous? I assume that the corporate internal decision structure is what is supposed to be sufficiently analogous. Whether the corporation internal decision structure is suffi c iently analogous returns us to the original debate. A s to whether a company can also justify a moral principle if it can comply with a moral principle, Dubbink in correspondence responded as follows: You are right to argue that if a corporation can comply with a moral principle, it can also justify a moral principle-even if we would say that the actual work is done by human beings. Yet we would like to make a distinction between complying with moral principles, justifying moral principles, and grounding moral principles. Grounding is not justifying. It is more like “self-constitution” in Korsgaard’s sense. That is an interesting move and the business ethics community should look forward to more elaboration on the importance of the distinction among these three concepts. Let me return to the earlier issue of corporate personhood. Dubbink and Smith have tried to fi nesse the metaphysical question of corporate personhood be letting the moral principles be determined by society and thus eliminating the need for justification. In correspondence with Professor Dubbink on this issue, he stated that “We want to get away from ontology as far as possible. So what corporations are or are not is unimportant to us.” However, from my perspective that simply makes the theory of corporate personhood too thin. However, my correspondence with Dubbink throws some additional light on this point. A corporation per se cannot constitute it self because corporations work through proxies (human agents). Thus, corporations are different from human agents. They are “administrators of duty.” Upon further refl e ction, I think that Dubbink and Smith are really closer to the view of Ladd and Velasquez than it might appear at first. Obviously there is great potential here to reopen the corporate personhood debate and the Dubbink/Smith Kantian twist is a genuine contribution to the debate. Conclusion I continue to believe as I said in Business Ethics : A Kantian Perspective that the great ethicists such as Aristotle, Kant, and John Stuart Mill have something important to contribute to applied ethics in general and to business ethics in particular. After all if ethical theory cannot be applied by people in their daily lives as they struggle with ethical issues, then we need to rethink whether in fact these ethicists really do have signifi c ant ethical theories. Of course these theories cannot be applied deductively and in the absence of a consideration of context and situation. Applied ethics is not simply a matter of reaching into the ethical theory tool box and picking the right theory to immediately fix an ethical dilemma. But an ethical theory can help especially once the ethical situation confronting a person or institution is fully examined. All these theories make important contributions but I continue to believe that Kant’s ethical theory is the one that is most robust in business ethics. I am delighted that others find his work inspiring in that regard as well.