Joakim Sandberg

A critical issue for the future growth of socially responsible investment (SRI) is to what extent institutional investors such as pension funds can be persuaded to engage in it. This paper considers attempts at justifying such engagement stemming from a range of (re-)interpretations of the fiduciary duties owed by pension funds to their beneficiaries, and thereby develops a hypothesis concerning the most effective political or legal remedy. Previous commentary suggests that fiduciary duty either already mandates SRI for pension funds, or at least can be made to do so rather easily. In contrast with this, however, this paper finds that none of the considered interpretations is able to justify engagement on social and environmental issues across the board. Indeed, the problem to some extent seems rooted in the very concept of fiduciary duty. The paper is relevant to current attempts at justifying SRI through reinterpretations of fiduciary duty, provided mainly by legal scholars and practitioners. By addressing the more philosophical issue of how far the concept of fiduciary duty can be “stretched” to accommodate SRI (a project of conceptual rather than legal clarification), it provides an evaluation of the contemporary debate which is independent of squabbles about existing law. The paper shows that there are conceptual limits to attempts at redefining fiduciary duty. But this does not mean that pension funds' engagement in SRI is unjustified or unjustifiable more generally. A more promising way to legally mandate SRI may be through what is dubbed independent social and environmental obligations.

In response to recent scandals in the business world, many corporations have adopted various kinds of ethics programs for their employees: ethical codes, ethical training courses, compliance officers, ethical committees, and social audits. This article outlines some of the most common points of discussion pertaining to corporate ethics programs in particular and ethics in the workplace in general: whether corporations should adopt ethics programs in the first place, how such programs should be designed more exactly, and what specific values of workplace ethics such programs should include.

Many writers have commented on the heterogeneity of the socially responsible investment (SRI) movement. However, few have actually tried to understand and explain it, and even fewer have discussed whether the opposite – standardisation – is possible and desirable. In this article, we take a broader perspective on the issue of the heterogeneity of SRI. We distinguish between four levels on which heterogeneity can be found: the terminological, definitional, strategic and practical. Whilst there is much talk about the definitional ambiguities of SRI, we suggest that there is actually some agreement on the definitional level. There are at least three explanations which we suggest can account for the heterogeneity on the other levels: cultural and ideological differences between different regions, differences in values, norms and ideology between various SRI stakeholders, and the market setting of SRI. Discussing the implications of the three explanations for the SRI market, we suggest that there is reason to be sceptical about the possibilities of standardisation if not standardisation is imposed top-down. Whether this kind of standardisation is desirable or not, we argue, depends on what the motives for it would be. To the extent that standardisation may facilitate the mainstreaming of SRI, it could be a good thing – but we entertain doubts about whether mainstreaming really requires standardisation.

Stakeholder theory is one of the most influential theories in business ethics. It is perhaps not surprising that a theory as popular as stakeholder theory should be used in different ways, but when the disparity between different uses becomes too great, it is questionable whether all the ‘stakeholder research’ refers to the same underlying theory. This paper starts to clarify this definitional confusion by distinguishing between three different ways in which different lines of stakeholder research are connected with descriptive and instrumental stakeholder theory. First, a distinction is made between research connected with descriptive and with instrumental stakeholder theory as defined by Donaldson & Preston in the narrow or broad sense. Second, a distinction is made between research that interprets descriptive and instrumental stakeholder theories as either hypotheses or research areas. Third, a distinction is made between research that interprets Donaldson & Preston’s central concept of ‘stakeholder management’ as either behaviour or rationale. Finally, the paper discusses the implications of these differences for empirical research into stakeholder theory.

The just price tradition has roots in Ancient philosophy but is most straightforwardly associated with a line of medieval philosophers and theologians, such as John Duns Scotus (see Duns Scotus), St. Thomas Aquinas (see Aquinas, Saint Thomas) and others. What generally characterizes the tradition is an interest in matters of ethics and justice concerning the pricing of goods and services on commercial markets. Medieval philosophers were often critical of commerce in general – and commerce with money in particular (see Usury) – viewing it as an (at best) unfortunate practical necessity dominated by (at least strong tendencies towards) the sins of greed and deceit. The just price tradition can be seen as a part of this moral critique of commerce and profiteering in general (see Profit Motive). At the same time, however, perhaps it can also be seen as staking out a way for commercial agents to ethically redeem themselves.

Many writers in the field of business ethics seem to have accepted R. Edward Freeman’s argument to the effect that what he calls “the separation thesis,” or the idea that business and morality can be separated in certain ways, should be rejected. In this paper, I discuss how this argument should be understood more exactly, and what position “the separation thesis” refers to. I suggest that there are actually many interpretations (or versions) of the separation thesis going around, ranging from semantic, empirical and reformative to some which are straightforwardly normative. While it is generally agreed that the separation thesis should be rejected, then, there is not as much agreement on what this thesis actually says. I suggest that whether or not we should<br>reject the separation thesis, however, ultimately must depend on how we understand it more exactly—on certain interpretations, the thesis comes out as more or less trivially false, but we should demand more evidence or argument to reject it on certain other interpretations. This result presents a challenge for all those writers who are committed to the rejection of the separation thesis.

In a recent paper, Peter Singer suggests that some interesting new findings in experimental moral psychology support what he has contended all along—namely that intuitions should play little or no role in adequate justifications of normative ethical positions. Not only this but, according to Singer, these findings point to a central flaw in the method (or epistemological theory) of reflective equilibrium used by many contemporary moral philosophers. In this paper, we try to defend reflective equilibrium from Singer’s attack and, in part, we do this by discussing Singer’s own favoured moral methodology as outlined in his Practical Ethics . Although basing ethics solely on (certain kinds of) intuitions certainly is problematic, we argue, basing it solely on ‘reason’ gives rise to similar problems. The best solution would arguably be one which could strike a balance between the two—but, we suggest, this is precisely what reflective equilibrium is all about