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Author: | Altman, M. C. |
Title: | The decomposition of the corporate body: What Kant cannot contribute to business ethics |
Journal: | Journal of Business Ethics
2007 : SEP I, VOL. 74:3, p. 253-252 |
Index terms: | business ethics corporate responsibility theories |
Language: | eng |
Abstract: | Applying Kant's moral theory on business ethics is quite popular, even though the idea of collective responsibility disagrees with the concept of moral agency found in Kant's ethics. The author argues that corporate policies should not be regarded according to the moral law, but parallel to legal constraints. They may affect to person's actions, but person's maxim is not determined by those policies. A business lacks the conditions necessary for constraint by moral law; it has no reason, and there exist only individual's intentions, but no collective ones. Thereby an organization has no moral obligations. Here appears the dilemma to either use Kant's categorical imperative to the actions of certain persons and give up the notion of collective responsibility, or use a diverse moral theory to the actions of businesses themselves. |
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