IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jbuset/v149y2018i1d10.1007_s10551-016-3109-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Bystander in Commercial Life: Obliged by Beneficence or Rescue?

Author

Listed:
  • Wim Dubbink

    (Tilburg University)

Abstract

Liberalist thinking argues that moral agents have a right (or duty) to pursue an ordinary life. It also insists that moral agent can be bystanders. A bystander is involved with morally bad states of affairs in the sense that they are bound by moral duty, but for a non-blameworthy reason. A common view on the morality of commercial life argues that commercial agents cannot and ought not to assume the status of bystander, when confronted with child labor, pollution, or other overwhelmingly big morally bad states of affairs (oMBS). According to the common view, the agent will get overdemanded. In this paper, the overdemandingness charge is interpreted as a criticism of the liberalist position. According to this charge, bystander status must be given up in the market because otherwise the right (or duty) to pursue a personal life is crushed. In this paper, we demonstrate that the overdemandingness charge fails. It does not make sense if bystander status is grounded in the duty of beneficence. It would make sense if the status were grounded in the duty of rescue but that duty does not apply in relation to oMBS. The condition of ‘subjective urgency’ is not fulfilled. Hence, liberalist thinking can withstand the charge of overdemandingness and commercial agents cannot assume a right never to acknowledge bystander status (on account of the overdemandingness argument).

Suggested Citation

  • Wim Dubbink, 2018. "The Bystander in Commercial Life: Obliged by Beneficence or Rescue?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 149(1), pages 1-13, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:149:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s10551-016-3109-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-016-3109-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-016-3109-7
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10551-016-3109-7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Soule, Edward & Hedahl, Marcus & Dienhart, John, 2009. "Principles of Managerial Moral Responsibility," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(4), pages 529-552, October.
    2. Hsieh, Nien-hê, 2004. "The Obligations of Transnational Corporations: Rawlsian Justice and the Duty of Assistance," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(4), pages 643-661, October.
    3. Dunfee, Thomas W., 2006. "Do Firms with Unique Competencies for Rescuing Victims of Human Catastrophes Have Special Obligations? Corporate Responsibility and the Aids Catastrophe in Sub-Saharan Africa," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(2), pages 185-210, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Miranda J. Welbourne Eleazar, 2022. "Immoral Entrenchment: How Crisis Reverses the Ethical Effects of Moral Intensity," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 180(1), pages 71-89, September.
    2. Gastón Reyes, 2023. "The All-Stakeholders-Considered Case for Corporate Beneficence," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 188(1), pages 37-55, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Eric Orts & Alan Strudler, 2009. "Putting a Stake in Stakeholder Theory," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 88(4), pages 605-615, October.
    2. Andreas Ostermaier & Dominik Aaken, 2020. "Freedom trumps profit: a liberal approach to business ethics," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 90(5), pages 947-962, June.
    3. Tadhg Ó Laoghaire, 2023. "Why (Some) Corporations Have Positive Duties to (Some of) the Global Poor," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 184(3), pages 741-755, May.
    4. Victor Oltra & Jaime Bonache & Chris Brewster, 2013. "A New Framework for Understanding Inequalities Between Expatriates and Host Country Nationals," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 115(2), pages 291-310, June.
    5. Claus Frederiksen, 2010. "The Relation Between Policies Concerning Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Philosophical Moral Theories – An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 93(3), pages 357-371, May.
    6. Gastón Reyes, 2023. "The All-Stakeholders-Considered Case for Corporate Beneficence," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 188(1), pages 37-55, November.
    7. Nien-hê Hsieh, 2009. "Corporate Social Responsibility and the Priority of Shareholders," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 88(4), pages 553-560, October.
    8. Aminu Ahmadu Hamidu & Md Harashid Haron & Azlan Amran, 2016. "Exploring the Drivers and Nature of Corporate Social Responsibility Practice from an African Perspective," International Review of Management and Marketing, Econjournals, vol. 6(4), pages 696-703.
    9. Wim Dubbink & Luc Liedekerke, 2014. "Grounding Positive Duties in Commercial Life," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 120(4), pages 527-539, April.
    10. Ahmad Aminu, Hamidu & Md. Harashid, Haron & Azlan, Amran, 2015. "Corporate Social Responsibility: A Review on definitions, core characteristics and theoretical perspectives," MPRA Paper 75040, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Akrum Helfaya & Amr Kotb & Rasha Hanafi, 2018. "Qur’anic Ethics for Environmental Responsibility: Implications for Business Practice," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 150(4), pages 1105-1128, July.
    12. Rüdiger Hahn, 2009. "The Ethical Rational of Business for the Poor – Integrating the Concepts Bottom of the Pyramid, Sustainable Development, and Corporate Citizenship," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 84(3), pages 313-324, February.
    13. Aminu Ahmadu Hamidu & Md Harashid Haron & Azlan Amran, 2016. "Exploring the Drivers and Nature of Corporate Social Responsibility Practice from an African Perspective," International Review of Management and Marketing, Econjournals, vol. 6(4), pages 696-703.
    14. Monowar Mahmood & Janet Humphrey, 2013. "Stakeholder Expectation of Corporate Social Responsibility Practices: A Study on Local and Multinational Corporations in Kazakhstan," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(3), pages 168-181, May.
    15. Brian Berkey, 2021. "Sweatshops, Structural Injustice, and the Wrong of Exploitation: Why Multinational Corporations Have Positive Duties to the Global Poor," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 169(1), pages 43-56, February.
    16. Gregory Wolcott, 2015. "The New (Old) Case for the Ethics of Business," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 132(1), pages 127-146, November.
    17. Diana Robertson, 2009. "Corporate Social Responsibility and Different Stages of Economic Development: Singapore, Turkey, and Ethiopia," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 88(4), pages 617-633, October.
    18. Lisa Herzog, 2017. "No Company is an Island. Sector-Related Responsibilities as Elements of Corporate Social Responsibility," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 146(1), pages 135-148, November.
    19. Pasi Heikkurinen & Jukka Mäkinen, 2018. "Synthesising Corporate Responsibility on Organisational and Societal Levels of Analysis: An Integrative Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 149(3), pages 589-607, May.
    20. Kirsten Martin, 2023. "Predatory predictions and the ethics of predictive analytics," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 74(5), pages 531-545, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:149:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s10551-016-3109-7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.