Thomas Donaldson

Human agency can act as a concept that defines the good and can give rise to the existence of goodness in the world. The American philosopher Christine Korsgaard has used the concept of agency within a Kantian framework to develop an anti-realist account of value. However, Korsgaard’s requirement that agents constitute themselves overlooks the importance of social context to human identity and autonomy development and risks excluding the majority of human activity from moral consideration. This paper will argue that the dependence of human agents on social influences is better accounted for in an agency-based virtue ethics system, which also provides a reason for acting morally that can inform all human activity. The concept of human agency offers virtue ethics an agent-independent value concept to guide the integration of conflicting virtues in practical reasoning. In agency-based virtue ethics, virtues are the character traits that tend towards the effective realisation of human agency.

This paper examines ethical customer boycotts, instances where individuals choose to boycott for ethical reasons. By focusing on the commercial freedom of the customer, it offers a new framework for distinguishing between permissible and impermissible boycotts. It concludes that individual ethical boycotts are almost never morally impermissible. The scope of the paper is limited. It does not attempt to answer the important question of when an individual boycott decision is objectively good or bad. Rather, it attempts to answer the prior question of when a decision to boycott—made by someone who believes their decision is morally right—is doing something that is morally permissible. In defending this position, the paper distinguishes between “objective ought” and moral permissibility. The paper argues that focusing on the right of a consumer to choose is the best way to approach the question, “May I boycott this product?” The approach shifts the emphasis in the boycott debate from prevailing frameworks based on democratic values, intentional harm, and libertarianism, toward a customer’s right to choose. It proposes a cosmopolitan interpretation that relies on the default right of market participants to refrain from commercial exchanges except under extraordinary circumstances. Among other benefits, this approach addresses gaps in alternative accounts that overlook a significant portion of customer boycott decision-making. The paper explains why the threshold for boycott impermissibility is very high: (1) because any claim of impermissibility must overcome the default presumption of freedom in commercial exchange; (2) because an unusual “hard duty” follows from a determination of boycott impermissibility; (3) because a boycotter’s true intent is difficult to discern; and (4) because boycotts serve as alternatives to violence. The account offered here implies that even decisions to boycott that are objectively wrong may be morally permissible. Finally, the paper shows why certain kinds of anti-boycott laws threaten an individual’s moral right to boycott.

A teacher–student dynamic has long shaped the West’s approach to business ethics, one relying on Eurocentric moral frameworks to instruct non-Western cultures. This approach presumes the superiority of Eurocentric concepts but is fraying badly. New realities, especially the Global South’s growing military and commercial power, epitomized by BRICS and the SCA (Shanghai Cooperation Organization), have fueled a return to indigenous cultural roots. For business, the impact is profound, with Asian companies demonstrating the financial power of their indigenous moral systems even as resistance to the Western politicization of human rights grows. Meanwhile, efforts at decolonization have fallen short, aggravating resistance to a simple diet of Western moral concepts. It is time to acknowledge that the teacher–student dynamic is long past its prime. This dynamic undermines moral autonomy, a core principle of Western ethics, while disparaging the ability of non-Western moral systems to express foundational moral truths. Evidence shows that ethics, and with it, ethical reform, thrives best when planted in native soil. Indigenous frameworks frequently achieve better results that Western transplants when used for both institutional reform and business success.

This paper has two components. The first, longer component (sections 1–6) is a critical exposition of Armstrong’s views about the metaphysics of mathematics, as they are presented in Truth and Truthmakers and Sketch for a Systematic Metaphysics. In particular, I discuss Armstrong’s views about the nature of the cardinal numbers, and his account of how modal truths are made true. In the second component of the paper (section 7), which is shorter and more tentative, I sketch an alternative account of the metaphysics of mathematics. I suggest we insist that mathematical truths have physical truthmakers, without insisting that mathematical objects themselves are part of the physical world.

This paper, presented at the Conference on Value Issues in Business at Millsaps College, is divided into three parts. The first sketches the logic of the evolution of U.S. business and suggests reasons for its remarkable success. The second assesses the power of U.S. business in modern society, both from an economic and political perspective. The third attempts to formulate the underlying philosophy of U.S. business using ideals such as the work ethic, entrepreneurism, democracy, and equality. Some of these ideals, the paper suggests, are irreconcilable.

Most management researchers pause at the threshold of objective right and wrong. Their hesitation is understandable. Values imply a “subjective,” personal dimension, one that can invite religious and moral interference in research. The dominant epistemological camps of positivism and subjectivism in management stumble over the notion of moral objectivity. Empirical research can study values in human behavior, but hard-headed scientists should not assume that one value can be objectively better than another. In this article, we invite management researchers to rethink this presumption. We show how accepting at least a limited form of moral objectivity, namely, an epistemic orientation that seeks objective moral reasons, can benefit management research by 1. guiding research practice; 2. using patterns of moral objectivity as clues for formulating empirical hypotheses for psychological explanations; and 3. adding prescriptive power to empirical theories.

In response to criticism of empirical or “positive” approaches to corporate social responsibility (CSR), we defend the importance of these approaches for any CSR theory that seeks to have practical impact. Although we acknowledge limitations to positive approaches, we unpack the neglected but crucial relationships between positive knowledge on the one hand and normative knowledge on the other in the implementation of CSR principles. Using the structure of a practical syllogism, we construct a model that displays the key role of empirical knowledge in fulfilling a firm’s responsibility to society, paying special attention to the implications of the “ought implies can” dictum. We also defend the importance of one particular class of empirical claims; namely, claims from the field of economics. Even positive economic theory, which is often criticized for endorsing profits rather than values, can cooperate in intriguing ways with non-economic concepts in the implementation of CSR goals.

In an engaging and provocative paper, Linda Trevino and Gary Weaver spell out the differences between the methodological approach characteristic of the natural sciences on the one hand and that of normative inquiry on the other (Trevino and Weaver, 1991). Near the end of their paper they raise a haunting question that will have increasing significance as the management literature in ethics evolves: namely, “Can the two approaches be integrated?”As C. P. Snow (1962) noted, no one can deny either the stark differences between the two worlds of normative and empirical inquiry, or the mutual suspicion shown by their inhabitants. The methodology of natural science implies a non-normative, thoroughly descriptive vision of the world in which reality awaits discovery by the scientist prepared to use increasingly sophisticated techniques. In contrast, the methodology of normative inquiry, i.e., that of traditional moral philosophy, implies a world-vision in which most important issues are allocated to ethics, where empirical pursuits are frequently trivial and always require ethical guidance, and where empirical theories contain normative presuppositions unrecognized as normative even by their scientific adherents.

This paper identifies six basic languages of morals and shows that while in general it is impossible to say that one moral language is better, some languages are better for the purpose of characterizing international corporate responsibility. In particular, moral languages that imly minimum rather than perfectionist standards of behavior, and which are not overly dependent on analogy with human moral psychology, are better than ones ranging broadly over both minimum and maximum standards and requiring analogy to human beings. Languages based in rights and duties, avoidance of harm, and social contracts, are better for understanding international corporate ethics than ones based in virtues, self control, or the maximization of human happiness.

The large, professionally managed corporation is the distinctive economic institution of the twentieth century. It has proved uniquely effective in mobilizing resources and knowledge; increasing productivity; and creating new technologies, products, and services. Corporations have proliferated and grown because they meet the needs of various members of society: customers, workers and communities, as well as investors. The worldwide spread of corporate activity has produced an increasingly integrated and interdependent global economy.The success of the corporation, however, inevitably gives rise to questions and criticisms. Corporations are spontaneous and voluntary associations in which diverse individuals and interests collaborate for the creation and distribution of wealth. Some critics question whether organizations with the vast scale and scope of contemporary multinationals can be effectively controlled and directed toward these purposes. Others are concerned about the limited range of interests directly represented in corporate governance, and the lack of openness in corporate decision-making. And, as multinational corporations expand their activities and linkages, both corporate managers and their critics search for principles for action that transcend national borders and cultural values, and modes of operation that will achieve the broad purposes of the corporation on a long-term and sustainable basis, without undue conflict with diverse human and social norms.

Michael Porter argues that some nations manifest a competitive advantage deriving from key elements of their economic structure. Some nations are thus disposed by structure to possess what Porter calls a "competitive advantage of nations" (Porter, 1990). In this paper I examine the prospect of an ethical advantage of nations, and in particular, of a set of advantages that extend far beyond the simple dimension of trust so often discussed. I consider, further, how such a range of ethical features would be structured, and what the implications of those features would be. Three conclusions are reached: 1. Morality may create economic advantages for nations in ways that extend beyond the notion of an idealized market; 2. In order for ethics to drive economic advantage, ethical concepts must rise to the status of intrinsic value; and 3. If claims for national ethical success factors are true, then nations should attend to the issue of moral education.

In this reply to Professor Hodapp's criticism of my social contract theory, I focus on the misinterpretations I believe Professor Hodapp makes of the social contract tradition as well as my version of the contract. By misinterpreting the underlying purpose of social contract theory, he neglects the contract's heuristic or functional dimension, something that leads him to downplay the importance of the contract as a conceptual catalyst. And by adopting an overly narrow notion of rationality, he imagines circularity where none exists. Later, Professor Hodapp questions the effect of the contract upon individual liberties, and in doing so broaches a critical issue. But I attempt to show that his concerns are eliminated by close attention to the theory itself.