The foundations of corporate responsibility

Abstract

The thesis of this paper is that corporate activity can best be understood on analogy with the acitivity of persons. The ground for this analogy lies in the nature of activity itself which is common to both and to find a ground therein an analysis of the features of activity is presented based upon a comparison of ‘activity’ and ‘process’ by Alburey Castell. Activity is said to be bi-polar with one pole the purpose or goal to be handled in utilitarean fashion and the other pole concerned with the maintenance of the presuppositions of activity.

While any goal chosen will have hypothetical ‘oughts’ as its conditions, it is argued that the presuppositions of activity are categorical ‘oughts’ in that they cannot be denied without asserting them. And since one of these presuppositions is freedom of choice, thus giving activity the power to destroy its own possibility, these presuppositions function in the context of practice as categorical norms and are universal in their applicability as preserving the possibility of responsible activity for everyone else as well as myself. All activity whether it be other-regarding or self-regarding (self-interest in the business world) is subject to the norms of its own possibility, its enabling conditions, and this constitutes the moral ground for personal, managerial and a basis for inquiry into corporate responsibility.

All of these ideas are put forth within the wider context of the problem of corporate legitimacy and constitute a prolegomena to it.