Corporate Beneficence and COVID-19

IF 0.5 Q3 SOCIAL SCIENCES, INTERDISCIPLINARY
Daniel Ostaș, Gastón de los Reyes
{"title":"Corporate Beneficence and COVID-19","authors":"Daniel Ostaș, Gastón de los Reyes","doi":"10.1177/0971685820973186","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the motives underlying corporate responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis begins with Thomas Dunfee’s Statement of Minimum Moral Obligation (SMMO), which specifies, more precisely than any other contribution to the business ethics canon, the level of corporate beneficence required during a pandemic. The analysis then turns to Milton Friedman’s neoliberal understanding of human nature, critically contrasting it with the notion of stoic virtue that informs the works of Adam Smith. Friedman contends that beneficence should play no role in corporate settings. Smith, by contrast, emphasizes the need for prudence, beneficence and self-command in all human endeavours. The article then uses these competing frameworks to reflect on a published survey of 145 corporate responses to COVID-19. In many of these responses, the benefit to a non-financial stakeholder is clear, while the financial consequence to the firm remains nebulous. This supports the contention that during a pandemic, beneficence provides a more complete explanation of many corporate actions than the profit motive alone. The article contests Friedman’s Chicago School profit imperative and goes beyond Dunfee’s SMMO by endorsing the more full-throated embrace of beneficence and stoic virtue found in the works of Smith.","PeriodicalId":44074,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Human Values","volume":"27 1","pages":"15 - 26"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5000,"publicationDate":"2020-11-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0971685820973186","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Human Values","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0971685820973186","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"SOCIAL SCIENCES, INTERDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2

Abstract

This article explores the motives underlying corporate responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis begins with Thomas Dunfee’s Statement of Minimum Moral Obligation (SMMO), which specifies, more precisely than any other contribution to the business ethics canon, the level of corporate beneficence required during a pandemic. The analysis then turns to Milton Friedman’s neoliberal understanding of human nature, critically contrasting it with the notion of stoic virtue that informs the works of Adam Smith. Friedman contends that beneficence should play no role in corporate settings. Smith, by contrast, emphasizes the need for prudence, beneficence and self-command in all human endeavours. The article then uses these competing frameworks to reflect on a published survey of 145 corporate responses to COVID-19. In many of these responses, the benefit to a non-financial stakeholder is clear, while the financial consequence to the firm remains nebulous. This supports the contention that during a pandemic, beneficence provides a more complete explanation of many corporate actions than the profit motive alone. The article contests Friedman’s Chicago School profit imperative and goes beyond Dunfee’s SMMO by endorsing the more full-throated embrace of beneficence and stoic virtue found in the works of Smith.
企业效益与新冠肺炎
本文探讨了企业应对新冠肺炎大流行的动机。分析始于托马斯·邓菲的《最低道德义务声明》(SMMO),该声明比对商业道德准则的任何其他贡献都更准确地规定了疫情期间所需的企业福利水平。然后,分析转向米尔顿·弗里德曼对人性的新自由主义理解,将其与亚当·斯密作品中的坚忍美德概念进行批判性对比。弗里德曼认为,慈善不应该在企业环境中发挥任何作用。相比之下,史密斯强调在人类的所有努力中都需要谨慎、仁慈和自律。文章随后使用这些相互竞争的框架来反思一项已发表的对145家企业应对新冠肺炎的调查。在许多回应中,非金融利益相关者的利益是显而易见的,而对公司的财务后果仍然模糊不清。这支持了这样一种观点,即在疫情期间,慈善比单纯的利润动机更能完整地解释许多企业行为。这篇文章质疑了弗里德曼的芝加哥学派的利润要求,并超越了邓菲的SMMO,支持了史密斯作品中对仁慈和坚忍美德的更全面的拥抱。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
求助全文
约1分钟内获得全文 求助全文
来源期刊
Journal of Human Values
Journal of Human Values SOCIAL SCIENCES, INTERDISCIPLINARY-
CiteScore
1.40
自引率
14.30%
发文量
28
期刊介绍: The Journal of Human Values is a peer-reviewed tri-annual journal devoted to research on values. Communicating across manifold knowledge traditions and geographies, it presents cutting-edge scholarship on the study of values encompassing a wide range of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. Reading values broadly, the journal seeks to encourage and foster a meaningful conversation among scholars for whom values are no esoteric resources to be archived uncritically from the past. Moving beyond cultural boundaries, the Journal looks at values as something that animates the contemporary in its myriad manifestations: politics and public affairs, business and corporations, global institutions and local organisations, and the personal and the private.
×
引用
GB/T 7714-2015
复制
MLA
复制
APA
复制
导出至
BibTeX EndNote RefMan NoteFirst NoteExpress
×
提示
您的信息不完整,为了账户安全,请先补充。
现在去补充
×
提示
您因"违规操作"
具体请查看互助需知
我知道了
×
提示
确定
请完成安全验证×
copy
已复制链接
快去分享给好友吧!
我知道了
右上角分享
点击右上角分享
0
联系我们:info@booksci.cn Book学术提供免费学术资源搜索服务,方便国内外学者检索中英文文献。致力于提供最便捷和优质的服务体验。 Copyright © 2023 布克学术 All rights reserved.
京ICP备2023020795号-1
ghs 京公网安备 11010802042870号
Book学术文献互助
Book学术文献互助群
群 号:481959085
Book学术官方微信