In ethics, the concept of moral agency is defined as an individual’s ability to act morally or immorally in reference to those around and harm them in an unjustified manner in cases of immoral behavior (Moral Agent & Subject of Moral Worth, 2015).
Businesses, just like people, have moral obligations and are to obey the rules of what Kant called categorical imperative in order to function as sufficient parts of human society (Kant’s Moral Philosophy, n. d.). Besides, businesses have an ability to produce unjustified harm. The harmful actions of a business are usually determined by rational choices, and that is why businesses should be regarded as moral agents.
Alfred North Whitehead claimed that morality is defined by the inclinations and likes of the majority of individuals. This approach can be characterized from the point of view of moral relativism, the concept according to which morality varies from one person to another based on their personal worldviews and there is no universal set of rules (Moral Relativism, 2015).
Writing about the contemporary business environments, Feldman (2012) seems to agree with this point of view saying that the modern business ethics are dictated by the society’s orientation towards profitability. However, just like decades ago, businesses of the present days earn their revenues due to the participation of the customers, and this means that the businesses are constantly evaluated by their clients from the point of view of morality.
The core values deemed necessary for a business remain unchanged regardless of the historical period; they are trustworthiness, loyalty and integrity, respectful attitude towards the customers, products and services of high quality. In addition to the consumers, every business has the other key stakeholders – the investors, and the employees. These groups of individuals are also involved in the evaluation of the businesses. Truly, a degree of moral relativism as an explanation of varying from person to person values takes place in the evaluation process.
At the same time, this relativity is partial while the main principles are the same. For example, one of the main competitors of Amazon.com, a Chinese online retail giant Alibaba Group has been operating based on the culturally biased ethics supporting the domestic manufacturers; and as a result, the Chinese counterfeit goods have flooded the online shopping platforms of Alibaba (Youderian, 2015).
Today, to be able to compete on the global level and successfully follow through with the IPO, Alibaba Group is to stick to the global requirements of trustworthiness and integrity and eliminate the knockoff goods from its websites. One may think that this example confirms Whitehead’s statement as counterfeiting deemed acceptable in China is rejected in the West, which forces Alibaba to adjust its practices to be able to cooperate with the global firms.
However, the fact that counterfeiting is widely popular in China does not mean that it is considered moral, and that is why Kantian categorical imperative is the main driving force of the behaviors of both Western competitors and Alibaba Group.
In the article by Feldman (2012), the modern businesses are evaluated as mainly directed by the desire to maximize revenues. The author believes that several decades ago the businesses had higher purposes and were built on stronger moral principles (Feldman, 2012).
This claim maintains that the principles of utilitarianism are not used in business as the goals of corporations are based on the accumulation of capitals. In other words, the article says that the contemporary firms are driven by egoistic (maximizing personal good) rather than utilitarian values (achieving the largest amount of good for the biggest number of actors) (Ethics, 2015).
In ethics, the concepts of utilitarianism and egoism belong to teleological theories that are also referred to as consequentialist which means that they evaluate the outcomes of behaviors based on the consequences they bring to one’s self (egoism) or to the community (utilitarianism) (Ethics, 2015).
Typically, in this reference, businesses are viewed as the sources of dilemmas because being a part of an organization, an individual faces many inevitable choices as to which line of behavior to pick – the one that benefits this individual or the whole company. In other words, a business is not an individual, but a community, and therefore, should not be viewed as moral actors.
At the same time, egoistic and self-centered behaviors are rather common when it comes to corporations. Using the example of Alibaba Group and its stated objective to help the small Chinese businesses to develop and expand, the company seems to pursue utilitarian values (Youderian, 2015).
However, the reluctance of the company to address the issues with counterfeiters and implement policies fighting contraband Alibaba Group is known for shows that this business has an egoistic intention to benefit from the counterfeit retail regardless of the fact that the Western businesses criticize it and that the knocked-off brands press charges against Alibaba for this immoral practice (Buchwald & Neckes, 2014). This example demonstrates that even though a business acts based on a collective effort and decision, it has its own spheres of benefits and there for can be egoistic as a moral agent.
As mentioned earlier, a moral agency in comprised of an individual’s actions and the effect they have on the surrounding people, environments, and creatures (Moral Agent & Subject of Moral Worth, 2015). The contemporary businesses widely promote their sustainability practices and present reports as to which environmental programs they implement annually.
This is done due to the fact that the responsible attitude towards the environment is a part of categorical imperative applied these days. The modern society began to emphasize sustainability as one of the most vital modern values due to the fact that the negative impact produced by the corporations on the natural resources, people, and animals has been confirmed by the scientists as a global issue. That way, as businesses are capable of causing unjustified harm to living beings and the environment, they can be treated as moral agents and be required to adhere to a set of moral obligations.
To sum up, the claim of Whitehead states that morality is defined by the preferences of the majority in a society during a given period of time. Some of the values can be more and less relevant within various eras. For instance, the environmental concerns have not been as popular a hundred years ago as they are now.
However, regardless of the partial changeability and minor alterations in the sets of values, the core worldviews remain stable throughout centuries. This fact concerns both people and organizations. That is why the concept of categorical imperative can be applied to businesses that are required to follow a list of moral obligations and be viewed as moral agents when it comes to the consequences of their actions.
Reference List
Buchwald, B., & Neckes, J. (2014). Op-Ed | Alibaba’s Catch-22. Web.
Ethics. (2015). Web.
Feldman, J. N. (2012). Sunday Dialogue: How Corporations Behave. Web.
Kant’s Moral Philosophy. (n. d.). Web.
Moral Agent & Subject of Moral Worth. (2015). Web.
Moral Relativism. (2015). Moral Relativism – What’s It All About? Web.
Youderian, A. Alibaba vs. Amazon: An In-Depth Comparison of Two eCommerce Giants. Web.