Affiliation:
1. Michigan State University, USA
Abstract
Who is exempting corporations from social and other responsibilities and why? For sure, CSR is now an old phenomenon; then why the continued fuss about it? Or has the meaning changed over time? The posers are plenty but the grouse for why the debate has endured is hinged on one main recurrent claim: CSR fritters away profits. This cliché has been sustained even as it is built on quicksand. Briefly, corporations are legal persons, not persons in flesh and blood. But despite this differentiation, both types of persons aspire to identify with ethical attributes such as accountability, trustworthiness, reliability, and fidelity. Hence, the author contends that corporations belong to the moral community. As such, corporations are judged on similar moral yardstick as persons with flesh and blood on conduct that they similarly share. This notion forms the core argument for this chapter while emphasizing that CSR is indispensable.
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