Individuals, Groups, and Business Ethics

Chris Provis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136664083
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Ética empresarial

Corporate social responsibility has become a heavily discussed topic in business ethics. Identifying some generally accepted moral principles as a basis for discussion, Individuals, Groups, and Business Ethics examines ethical dimensions of our relationships with families, friends and workmates, the extent to which we have obligations as members of teams and communities, and how far ethics may ground our commitments to organisations and countries. It offers an innovative analysis that differentiates amongst our genuine ethical obligations to individuals, counterfeit obligations to identity groups, and complex role-based obligations in organised groups. It suggests that often individuals need intuitive moral judgment developed by experience, reflection and dialogue to identify the individual obligations that emerge for them in complex group situations. These situations include some where people have to discern what their organisations' corporate social responsibilities imply for them as individuals, and other situations where individuals have to deal with conflicts amongst their obligations or with efforts by other people to exploit them. This book gives an integrated, analytical account of how our obligations are grounded, provides a major theoretical case study of such ethical processes in action, and then considers some extended implications.

1
Ethical principles and ethical decision making

Ethics can often be an area of dispute and contention. Nevertheless, there are some areas of wide agreement. In the next section of this chapter, I set out some generally accepted principles, to establish ethical common ground for subsequent analysis of obligations we have in various group settings. Such principles include requirements of beneficence, justice and fairness, respect, honesty and good faith. In the following section, I emphasise the fact that sometimes these principles can make others’ expectations of us an important source of our obligations, a point that will be important later, especially when we consider individuals’ role requirements in organisations. I shall then turn to consider some secondary ethical principles, which may modify or refine application of the general principles. These include provisions to do with self-defence, coercion and ‘help and hindrance’. The last will also be important when we examine the responsibilities that individuals have in organisations. Then the chapter will turn to some issues about how these principles figure in decision making, with a basic account of moral conflict and the intuitive processes of ethical decision making.

Setting out some general, basic principles will serve to draw our attention to issues that have sometimes been pushed aside in recent years, in a social and political climate that has moved away from ethical principles and obligations and placed emphasis instead upon processes and outcomes. The last decades of the twentieth century saw a series of connected moves in social and economic policy, often referred to collectively as neoliberalism. These included efforts to extend competition and market mechanisms as widely as possible, with a mistrust of bureaucracy and government. One aspect of these moves has been emphasis on the results of what is done rather than how it is done (see e.g. Osborne and Gaebler, 1992: 14). This approach has had many benefits, but has also taken attention away from ethical demands we have on us in our social lives. Issues of efficiency and effectiveness have overshadowed issues of ethics. Analysis has primarily been about ways to improve competition and eliminate waste, rather than about different types of obligations.

It was argued some years ago that modern ethical theory had focussed too much on obligations (see e.g. Anscombe, 1958; Crisp and Slote, 1997), but it is also possible to focus too little on our obligations. Such discussion is especially important when there are pressures on us that present themselves as though they are obligations, even though they are not real obligations. Some social pressures are like that. Even though we may feel pressures to conform, nevertheless these pressures have no genuine ethical force. Some allegiances that we feel may not be genuine obligations, whether they be commitments of patriotism or merely allegiances to football teams and sporting clubs.

On the other hand, some of the social obligations we feel are quite genuine, and we ought to make room in our lives to heed them. Most communities in history have believed that people have special obligations to parents and children, and I shall suggest that these relationships do indeed create genuine obligations. But where do they stand in modern times when workers in advanced economies face challenges of ‘work–life balance’? How do we weigh obligations to families against obligations to employers and workmates? The answer is not easy, but the question is more tractable if we can see more clearly what the sources of these obligations are.

In seeing the roots of some of those obligations, we may also see more clearly how genuine obligations emerge from social structures and institutions that we create. If we are not careful, we may create obligations for ourselves that we have difficulty in meeting. In that case we run risks of uncertainty, stress and anxiety, challenges in leading ethical lives, and the temptation to push aside ethical concerns as just too hard to deal with. We shall turn to such issues in some later chapters of the book.

The first step, then, is to consider the sources of our social obligations. I noted that most communities in history have believed that people have special obligations to parents and children, but we cannot rely on common opinion. For example, obligations of patriotism have also been widely accepted, but I shall argue that these are often of questionable force. The fact that communities accept one thing or another does not go very far in helping us to see sources of obligations. The goal of the book is to address prescriptive or normative questions, rather than descriptive questions. In that respect, it must be distinguished from studies in a number of other areas. Historians have given accounts of the norms and values of past societies, their evolution and development; sociologists and anthropologists have considered the mores and customs found in a wide variety of different communities; while psychologists and evolutionary biologists have given explanations about rules of behaviour and moral perceptions. I shall allude to work in some of those areas, but all of those studies are essentially descriptive, in the sense that they address questions about what people do and what they believe or perceive, rather than directly addressing the question of what we ought to do. This book aims directly at prescriptive ethical questions about what we ought to do, and touches on descriptive issues only in order to move towards answers to those prescriptive questions (for useful discussion of the difference between the sorts of questions, see Cohen, 2004: ch. 1). There is room for worthwhile discussion and analysis of prescriptive issues, and such analysis is essential if we are to distinguish genuine obligations from other pressures on us that masquerade as obligations but have no real moral force.

In this chapter I therefore set out some ethical principles that most readers will agree to, and which can be used as a partial basis for some further discussion. In doing so, I adopt Aristotle’s methodological view that ‘our treatment of this science will be adequate, if it achieves that amount of precision which belongs to its subject matter’ (Aristotle, 1934: I, iii, p. 7). The principles are imprecise, but meaningful enough to allow us to draw worthwhile conclusions in the rest of the book. In setting them out, I emphasise some in particular that will be important later.

SOME ETHICAL PRINCIPLES

The idea of a principle must be distinguished from the idea of a rule. In discussing principles, I do not mean well-defined rules that form criteria against which to evaluate decisions and actions. As I will note further, ethical decision making often is not based on such rules or algorithms. The moral principles mentioned here can identify sorts of considerations that often are relevant to making decisions and explaining them, but they function by identifying the sorts of considerations that we accept as reasons for actions, not as well-defined measuring devices (cf. Scanlon, 1998: 197–202; Raz, 2000: 56–57; Herron and Gilbertson, 2004).

Because ethical principles are not precise rules, there is considerable overlap amongst them, and there are various arguments that some ethical principles may in fact be reduced to others. So far as possible I shall avoid those arguments. Instead, I will be examining a series of ethical principles and asking how they apply to us as members of groups. Do we have obligations to avoid harming groups, as we do to avoid harming individuals? Do groups have an independent existence that can be impacted upon through our principled or unprincipled behaviour? Do we have obligations of loyalty to groups as we may have to individuals? I shall call on the general ethical principles to address such questions.

One widely accepted principle is that we ought to pay attention to the consequences of what we do, seeking good outcomes and avoiding harmful ones. We may refer to this as the principle of beneficence. The idea is a natural one, with some very old versions: the Hippocratic Oath includes the statement ‘I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.’ Many notable social obligations are grounded in this principle. In a simple case, for example, if others are relying on us to play our part in social arrangements, they may suffer if we fail to do so.

Extending ideas of beneficence, some theorists argue that all ethical obligations can be accounted for by reference to consequences of actions, like the good or suffering created for others. The general view is most often known nowadays as ‘consequentialism’. In modern times, it can be traced back to Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism (Bentham, 1962 [1789]). Consequentialism is controversial, and some have argued that different ethical principles like principles of justice or good faith should have an ethical weight independent of their resulting consequences (see e.g. Scheffler, 1988). Consequentialist moral theory has been associated historically with laissez-faire economic doctrine, and it is no coincidence that neoliberalism may have fallen into the error of focussing too much on consequences, in outcome-based approaches to social policy.

However, there is little disagreement that consequences of actions are often relevant to their ethical evaluation. Our later discussion will touch on some questions about consequentialism, but initially what will loom larger is whether the sorts of consequences in question concern individual human beings, or if their effects on groups should have some separate weight of their own. We know well enough what is harmful or beneficial to individuals. Can we separately harm or benefit groups in their own right, in ways that are ethically significant? In Chapter 2 I will take up this question in more detail.

We may set some other principles alongside beneficence. One is justice. There is widespread acceptance that justice is a relevant consideration for ethical evaluation. Principles of justice are at the foundation of some notable social obligations. Issues of justice can often be phrased as issues of fairness (cf. Rawls, 1972). So I shall speak of ‘fairness’, rather than using the word ‘justice’, but that does not mean to imply a distinction between justice and fairness. I shall take it that ethics often requires us to have regard for what is fair, even though it is sometimes contentious what that involves. For example, there is likely to be contention amongst people who argue that justice requires equal treatment for different individuals, and others who say that justice requires analysis of what different people deserve, taking into account factors like the amount of effort they have put in, and the amount of disadvantage they have to contend with. Those different considerations of fairness will sometimes be in tension, and they may also be in tension with regard for consequences. The possibility of such moral conflicts is important below.

The same sort of tensions can arise from another ethical principle, ‘respect’. Just as it is not always possible to state a rule for ‘justice’ that specifies what to do in any situation, neither is it always possible to state the ethical principle of ‘respect’ in a unique, well-defined way. Indeed there is considerable overlap between the two conceptions. Kant expressed the idea of respect for persons by saying ‘act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end’ (1964: 96). Such an idea may be tied to ideas of justice and the fair treatment of persons. However, as I have said, we are not engaged in the task of trying to untangle those ties, nor do I wish to strengthen them so as to assert that justice and respect are one and the same. The principle of ‘respect for persons’ will be used as a guide in assessing what ethics requires of us, without us having to determine whether justice and respect are distinct considerations. As with all the principles, we are mostly interested in how these principles apply in situations where individuals’ membership of groups is a prominent factor. We may consider how individuals’ obligations are shaped by requirements to consider groups’ welfare, or be fair to groups or respect them, and we may ask how being a group member shapes requirements towards other individuals, whether these are requirements of beneficence, fairness or respect.

Like considerations of beneficence, justice and respect, there is wide acceptance also that requirements of honesty and good faith are ethically important. Once again, I shall avoid questions about whether these requirements are separate and independent, or somehow reducible to those others. For our purposes it is more important to notice the link that such requirements have with others’ expectations. Because others’ expectations are especially connected with the ethics of roles we play in groups, let me explore this area in more depth.

Obligations and expectations

A prominent form of honesty is honesty in communication, and that is tied to respect for persons, since respecting others involves consideration for them as autonomous agents with scope to make responsible decisions, with a need for an understanding of the world that is as accurate as our own. There will be many situations where the implications are not just to do with outright lying, but with deception by other means, giving a false impression, withholding some relevant information, and so on (Provis, 2010a).

Linked with the general requirement of honesty that emerges from the obligation to respect others is the need to have regard for their expectations. A similar consideration underpins the requirement to act in good faith, the obligation to keep promises, to stand by one’s word. Just as our obligations of honesty go beyond the requirement to refrain from explicit lies, so obligations of good faith go beyond keeping explicit promises. I shall argue that requirements to meet others’ expectations are often an important factor in assessing our social obligations. Scanlon has compared this sort of consideration with the accepted need to keep one’s promises:

there are many other ways in which one can behave wrongly in regard to other people’s expectations about what one will do: one can fail to take care about the expectations one leads others to form, fail to warn them that their expectations are mistaken or (without promising anything) intentionally lead others to form false expectations when their doing so is to one’s advantage. Not every action falling under the last two descriptions is wrong, but many are. There are no familiar and widely taught principles – analogous to ‘Keep your promises’ – that cover these cases. Yet once the question arises we are able to see the wrongness of these actions in much the same way that we see the wrongness of breaking a promise or of making a promise that one does not intend to keep.

(Scanlon, 1998: 202)

If I lead others to have certain expectations, this may create just as much of an obligation on me whether I do so by explicit statement, or in some other way. Legal obligations are not always a perfect guide to moral obligations, but certainly the law acknowledges that obligations can be incurred through inducing expectations in others by means other than explicit statements.

For example, in Schneider v. Heath (1813) 3 Camp. 505, a ship was sold with ‘all faults’ (in other words, the seller did not warrant its soundness). There was a defect in the bottom of the ship which the seller prevented the buyer from discovering by taking the ship out of dry dock and keeping it afloat. In these circumstances, the seller was held liable. On the same footing, in the Canadian case of Gronau v. Schlamp Investments Ltd (1975) 52 DLR (3d) 631, the vendor of a house concealed some cracking in a wall with temporary brick work, and this was held to amount to actionable fraud.

(Duggan et al., 1994: 29)

In this sort of case, the obligations we have as a result of inducing expectations in others overlap with the obligations we have not to deceive them, and we see here cases where our obligation not to deceive others is wider than the obligation not to tell them explicit lies.

The overlap between our obligations to be honest with others and our obligations to keep faith with them grows out of the ‘double aspect’ of obligation inherent in any statement of intent. Suppose that I give people to understand what I intend to do. In my initial communication to them, my obligation is to not deceive them about what I shall do. Subsequently my obligation is to do what I have indicated. I can fulfil my obligation either by getting my message to conform to my intention, or my subsequent action to conform to my message. Whichever the case, my obligation, when I have induced expectations in others, is fairly clear, and the principle that we have an obligation to meet others’ expectations when we have created them seems unexceptionable. There may be circumstances where the obligation is reduced or removed, for example when it becomes clear that there will be previously unanticipated consequences. If this does not occur then I have a clear obligation to indicate truthfully what I will do, and to do what I have said.

But are there cases where I have obligations to meet others’ expectations even when it is not I who have induced those expectations? The answer seems to be yes, at least in some cases. This kind of situation will be important in some of our subsequent discussion. While our obligations are all the stronger if we have some responsibility for others’ expectations, as some writers have noted (e.g. Scanlon, 1998: 296–309), the expectations alone create some obligations for us, if failing to conform to them will indeed result in others’ harm or discomfiture. They may not be simple obligations to do what is expected, but they are significant obligations nonetheless.

An example is where you have expectations of me as a result not of what I have said or done but as a result of what someone else has said or done. If my son tells the neighbour’s children that I will take them all to the beach, perhaps more in a spirit of optimism than on the basis of any indication I have given, I may feel some obligation when they arrive with towels and swimwear. Is my felt obligation a real one? Is there some obligation on my part because I shall sadden them by refusal? Of course, even if I do have some obligation, it may well be over-ridden by other commitments I have, or countered by rights I have to carry out plans of my own. Perhaps my son has to accept blame if the trip does not go ahead, for raising the others’ expectations unreasonably. There are various factors like these that we could look at more closely. Nevertheless, in some such cases we have real obligations, and I may have some obligation as a result of the expectations my son has given to the neighbour’s children. Often, we do not welcome obligations created for us by others, but some such there are, and we shall discuss more weighty examples in later chapters.

To a large extent the obligations we have to others to meet their expectations are obligations based in considerations of respect, but to some extent they are also based in considerations of beneficence. Others may suffer if they have made plans that rely on us playing our part in social arrangements. There are certainly cases when one individual incurs an obligation through inducing an expectation in others: promising is the basic case, and has attracted so much analysis by moral philosophers just because it is such a basic case. But knowing that others have expectations and doing nothing to discourage them can equally leave us with obligations, in many circ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Ethical principles and ethical decision making
• 2 Ethics, society and individuals
• 3 Individuals, expectations and groups
• 4 Institutions, norms and ethics
• 5 A hypothetical case: Endeavour organisation
• 6 Conflicts of obligations
• 7 Obligations, exploitation and identity
• 8 Decisions, groups and reasons
• References
• Index