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Perfecting Imperfect Duties: Collective Action to Create Moral Obligations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Allen Buchanan
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Abstract

Ethical problems in business include not only genuine moral dilemmas and compliance problems but also problems arising from the distinctive characteristics of imperfect duties. Collective action by business to perfect imperfect duties can yield significant benefits. Such arrrangements can (1) reduce temptations to moral laxity, (2) achieve greater efficiency by eliminating redundancies and gaps that plague uncoordinated individual efforts, (3) reap economies of scale and achieve success where benefits can be provided only if a certain threshold of resources can be brought to bear on a social problem, (4) solve assurance problems where voluntary compliance by some parties depends upon their perception that competitors are doing their fair share, and (5) produce higher levels of contribution than would occur through independent action in response to imperfect duties, stimulated by the perception that there is a fair distribution of burdens of contribution among all parties involved.

Type
Articles
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , January 1996 , pp. 27 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 1996

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References

Notes

1 It would be a mistake to say that the recognition of the importance of compliance problems is entirely new in the business ethics literature. The point, rather, is that there is a growing emphasis on compliance problems and a clearer awareness of the need to examine incentives for compliance.

2 See, for example, “Business Ethics as Moral Imagination” (working paper), Joanne B. Ciulla, 1993. For a valuable statement of the importance of creativity and imagination in procedures for analyzing ethical problems in business, see Denis, Collins and Thomas, O'Rourke, Ethical Dilemmas in Business (Cincinnati: South-Western Publishing Co., 1994), p. 10.Google Scholar

3 An outstanding example is Robert, Solomon, Ethics and Excellence: Cooperation and Integrity in Business (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).Google Scholar

4 For an enlightening synoptic history of the development and uses of the distinction between perfect and imperfect duties, see J. B. Schneewind, “Philosophical Ideas of Charity: Some Historical Reflections,” forthcoming in Faces of Charity, J. B. Schneewind, Dwight Burlin-game, and Robert Payton, eds. For a critical discussion of how the distinction between perfect and imperfect duties has been used to draw the line between justice and charity, see Allen, Buchanan, “Justice and Charity,” Ethics, vol. 97 (1987), pp. 558–75.Google Scholar

5 For a valuable discussion of the role of the distinction between “negative injunctions” (such as “Don't discriminate on racial or gender grounds”) and “affirmative duties” (such as “Endeavor to help increase the opportunities of minorities and women”), see John, G. Simon, Charles, W. Powers, and Jon, P. Gunnemann, The Ethical Investor: Universities and Corporate Responsibility (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), pp. 15–22.Google Scholar These authors offer several criteria to guide decisions about when affirmative duties are included in the “moral minimum” that is ethically required of all persons, including business people. However, their discussion does not address cases where these criteria are not met, but where one nevertheless does recognize an affirmative, albeit indeterminate duty to contribute to a worthy moral goal.

6 In some cases, of course, affirmative action initiatives enhance a corporation's competitiveness, by utilizing highly qualified women or minorities who otherwise would be overlooked. But even in these cases, there may be significant short-term financial costs to the corporation that takes such steps.

7 For an illustration of this point in the case of a policy of not engaging in bribery in international business activity, see Richard, T. De George, “International Business Ethics,” Business Ethics Quarterly, Vol. 4, No. 1 (1994), p. 5.Google Scholar

8 Allen, Buchanan, “Private and Public Responsibilities in the U.S. Health Care System,” in Robert, P. Huefner and Margaret, P. Battin, eds., Changing to National Health Care (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1992), pp. 235–49.Google Scholar

9 The most obvious concern is loss of competitiveness vis a vis other firms in the same industry. However, if all firms in a given industry agreed to and complied with an assignment of determinate obligations to help some need group but other industries did not, the former might conceivably be penalized by suffering a lack of competitiveness in capital markets. This possibility can be viewed in two ways: as an argument for economy-wide (cross-industry) collective action, or as indicating that in determining how duties are limited by excessive costs we must take into account a sufficiently broad conception of the loss of competitiveness as a cost. Given the complexity and difficulty of securing an economy-wide voluntary assumption of specific duties among firms in diverse sectors of the economy and the costs of attempting to utilize government to impose economy-wide duties, it may generally be more reasonable simply to recognize that the risk of loss of competitiveness in capital markets must be taken into account in determining how substantial a burden a given industry ought to assume in devising a collective action scheme.

10 For an enlightening analysis of the importance of the assurance of reciprocity in successful collective action, see David, Schmidtz, The Limits of Government (Boulder: Westview Press, 1991), pp. 92–151.Google Scholar

11 Chan Kim, W. and Mauborgne, Renee A., “Implementing Global Strategies: The Role of Procedural Justice,” Strategic Management Journal, vol. 12 (1991), pp. 125–43.Google Scholar Kim and Mauborgne provide evidence that perceived fairness enhances voluntary compliance of subsidiaries in the implementation of global strategies in multinational corporations. This article also provides references to a wide range of social psychology literature in which the compliance-enhancing effects of perceptions of fairness is documented.

12 Collective action involving educational institutions, computer software and hardware producers, government granting agencies, and organizations for disabled persons is already in progress to ensure accessibility to the “information superhighway.” In March of 1994 the Asilomar Conference on Access to GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces) issues a set of “Recommendations to Promote Accessible Interfaces.” These included the establishment of an Electronics Industry Association “Seal of Accessibility” for products meeting specific requirements designed to maximize accessibility for disabled users.

13 I am indebted to Denis Collins and to two reviewers for this journal for their valuable comments on a draft of this paper.