IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/inrvec/v59y2012i4p389-407.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ethics and social capital for global well-being

Author

Listed:
  • Patricia Illingworth

Abstract

Social capital is associated with considerable benefits for individuals and communities. Because some social capital is non-excludable, people may be disinclined to undertake activities that will create it. This is especially likely when the norm of self-interest is prominent. In addition, given the birds of a feather phenomenon, social capital appears to thrive in homogenous networks, and to languish in the face of diversity. I argue that social capital meets the criteria of a moral concept and that treating it as such can address these vulnerabilities. In particular, as a moral principle, social capital would be more demanding than mere self-interest and the moral requirement of universality would trigger a duty to act impartially with respect to networks. Since market interactions can create social capital, and social capital is a moral good, market interactions are in part constitutive of the good. I also argue that global social capital is important for both global well-being and sustainable globalization. Given the benefits of social capital, including it in the choice architecture as a moral principle will be worth the investment. Copyright Springer-Verlag 2012

Suggested Citation

  • Patricia Illingworth, 2012. "Ethics and social capital for global well-being," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 59(4), pages 389-407, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:inrvec:v:59:y:2012:i:4:p:389-407
    DOI: 10.1007/s12232-012-0160-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s12232-012-0160-2
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s12232-012-0160-2?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. John Ruggie, 2008. "Protect, Respect and Remedy: A Framework for Business and Human Rights," Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization, MIT Press, vol. 3(2), pages 189-212, April.
    2. Devesh Kapur, 2001. "Diasporas and Technology Transfer," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 2(2), pages 265-286.
    3. Ruggie, John Gerard, 2004. "Reconstituting the Global Public Domain: Issues, Actors and Practices," Working Paper Series rwp04-031, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    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. Janice A. Hauge & Stanley Chimahusky, 2016. "Are Promises Meaningless In An Uncertain Crowdfunding Environment?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(3), pages 1621-1630, July.
    2. Ibrahim, Mansor H. & Law, Siong Hook, 2014. "Social capital and CO2 emission—output relations: A panel analysis," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 528-534.

    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. Nina Seppala, 2009. "Business and the International Human Rights Regime: A Comparison of UN Initiatives," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 87(2), pages 401-417, August.
    2. Glen Whelan & Jeremy Moon & Marc Orlitzky, 2009. "Human Rights, Transnational Corporations and Embedded Liberalism: What Chance Consensus?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 87(2), pages 367-383, August.
    3. Brown Dana L & Vetterlein Antje & Roemer-Mahler Anne, 2010. "Theorizing Transnational Corporations as Social Actors: An Analysis of Corporate Motivations," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-39, April.
    4. William R Kerr, 2018. "Heterogeneous Technology Diffusion and Ricardian Trade Patterns," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 32(1), pages 163-182.
    5. Domènec Melé & Carlos Sánchez-Runde, 2013. "Cultural Diversity and Universal Ethics in a Global World," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 116(4), pages 681-687, September.
    6. Li, Haiyan, 2020. "Role of overseas ethnic and non-ethnic ties and firm activity in the home country in the internationalization of returnee entrepreneurial firms," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 26(1).
    7. Davide Fiaschi & Elisa Giuliani, 2011. "The impact of business on society: exploring CRS adoption and alleged human rights abuses by large corporations," LEM Papers Series 2011/13, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    8. Ejaz Ghani & William R. Kerr & Christopher Stanton, 2014. "Diasporas and Outsourcing: Evidence from oDesk and India," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(7), pages 1677-1697, July.
    9. Florian Wettstein, 2010. "The Duty to Protect: Corporate Complicity, Political Responsibility, and Human Rights Advocacy," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 96(1), pages 33-47, September.
    10. Eero Palmujoki, 2009. "Global principles for sustainable biofuel production and trade," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 135-151, May.
    11. Eduardo Ortas & Igor Álvarez & Ainhoa Garayar, 2015. "The Environmental, Social, Governance, and Financial Performance Effects on Companies that Adopt the United Nations Global Compact," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-25, February.
    12. Ecker-Ehrhardt, Matthias, 2013. "Why do they want the UN to decide? A two-step model of public support for UN authority," TranState Working Papers 171, University of Bremen, Collaborative Research Center 597: Transformations of the State.
    13. Andreas Follesdal, 2011. "The distributive justice of a global basic structure: A category mistake?," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 10(1), pages 46-65, February.
    14. Graciela Corral de Zubielqui & Howard Harris, 2024. "Why the COVID-19 Crisis Is an Ethical Issue for Business: Evidence from the Australian JobKeeper Initiative," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 190(1), pages 123-136, February.
    15. Philipp Pattberg & Johannes Stripple, 2008. "Beyond the public and private divide: remapping transnational climate governance in the 21st century," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 8(4), pages 367-388, December.
    16. John F. Helliwell, 2004. "Demographic changes and international factor mobility," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Aug, pages 369-420.
    17. D'artis Kancs & Pavel Ciaian, 2010. "The Impact Of The Eu Blue Card Policy On Economic Growth In The African Sending Countries," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 78(3), pages 225-247, September.
    18. Mikkel Kruuse & Kasper Reming Tangbæk & Kristjan Jespersen & Caleb Gallemore, 2019. "Navigating Input and Output Legitimacy in Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives: Institutional Stewards at Work," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(23), pages 1-27, November.
    19. Sebastian Vith & Achim Oberg & Markus A. Höllerer & Renate E. Meyer, 2019. "Envisioning the ‘Sharing City’: Governance Strategies for the Sharing Economy," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 159(4), pages 1023-1046, November.
    20. Kenneth Abbott & Duncan Snidal, 2010. "International regulation without international government: Improving IO performance through orchestration," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 5(3), pages 315-344, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Well-being; Happiness; Social capital; Global social capital; Moral norms; Utilitarianism; I31; H41;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:spr:inrvec:v:59:y:2012:i:4:p:389-407. 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.