Business Ethics and Extant Social Contracts

1991 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas W. Dunfee
Keyword(s):  
Business Ethics ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Theoretical Research ◽  
Priority Rules ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Social Contracts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ethical Norms

Extant social contracts, deriving from communities of individuals, constitute a significant source of ethical norms in business. When found consistent with general ethical theories through the application of a filtering test, these real social contracts generate prima facie duties of compliance on the part of those who expressly or impliedly consent to the terms of the social contract, and also on the part of those who take advantage of the instrumental value of the social contracts. Businesspeople typically participate in multiple communities and, as a consequence, encounter conflicting ethical norms. Priority rules can be devised to resolve such conflicts. The framework of extant social contracts merges normative and theoretical research in business ethics and specifies a domain for empirical studies.

Business Ethics and Extant Social Contracts

1991 ◽  
Vol 1 (01) ◽  
pp. 23-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas W. Dunfee
Keyword(s):  
Business Ethics ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Theoretical Research ◽  
Priority Rules ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Social Contracts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ethical Norms

Extant social contracts, deriving from communities of individuals, constitute a significant source of ethical norms in business. When found consistent with general ethical theories through the application of a filtering test, these real social contracts generate prima facie duties of compliance on the part of those who expressly or impliedly consent to the terms of the social contract, and also on the part of those who take advantage of the instrumental value of the social contracts. Businesspeople typically participate in multiple communities and, as a consequence, encounter conflicting ethical norms. Priority rules can be devised to resolve such conflicts. The framework of extant social contracts merges normative and theoretical research in business ethics and specifies a domain for empirical studies.

Contractarian Business Ethics: Credentials and Design Criteria

2008 ◽  
Vol 29 (10) ◽  
pp. 1337-1355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Wempe
Keyword(s):  
Business Ethics ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Choice Situation ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
The Social ◽  
Stakeholder Model ◽  
Practical Guidance

Contractarian business ethics (CBE) is in great vogue in the present study of corporate morality. Its stated ambition is to provide better practical guidance than the more general ethical theories of business ethics, such as Kantianism, pragmatism, utilitarianism, virtue ethics or the stakeholder model. But how good is this new trend in business ethics theorizing? This article aims to assess CBE's credentials as a social contract argument. For this purpose, it embarks on a comparative analysis of the use of the social contract model in two earlier domains: political authority and social justice. Building on this comparison, it then develops four criteria for any future CBE. To apply the social contract model properly to the domain of corporate morality, it should be: (1) self-disciplined, i.e. not aspire to results beyond what the contract model can realistically establish; (2) argumentative, i.e. provide principles that are demonstrative results of the contractarian method; (3) task-directed, i.e. it should be clear what the social contract thought-experiment is intended to model; and (4) domain-specific, i.e. the contractarian choice situation should be tailored to the defining problems of corporate morality.

scholarly journals Union Discourse and Perceived Violation of Contract

2008 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 479-501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominique Peyrat-Guillard
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Psychological Contract ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Senior Management ◽  
The Other ◽  
Breach Of Contract ◽  
Social Contracts ◽  
First Case ◽  
The Social

This article proposes a study of the violation of contract process through a case study. The study is based on a discourse of the union, SUD Michelin, which is contrasted both with those of another union, the CFE-CGC Michelin and of the senior management of the corporation. The results highlight the possibility of applying Morrison and Robinson’s (1997) Psychological Contract Violation model at the social contract level. The emotional reactions appearing in the literature, which are associated with contract violations, can be seen in the union discourse of the SUD. The other union does not perceive any breach of contract. These differences may be attributed to the very nature of social contracts—relational in the first case, and more balanced in the second.

Critical Times for the Social Contract

2021 ◽  
pp. 19-40
Author(s):  
Charles Devellennes
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Political Order ◽  
The Past ◽  
Social Contracts ◽  
Political Upheaval ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Fundamental Challenge ◽  
Political Turmoil ◽  
Critical Times

This chapter proposes a theory of the social contract, in the context of the gilets jaunes. This theory is detailed in the five chapters that follow. The theory proposed here is that the movement itself is best understood as a fundamental challenge to the existing social contract in France — and by extension to other social contracts throughout the world — and its history is not limited to the months of political turmoil it engendered in France or even to the past couple of years of political upheaval in the wider world, but it poses a challenge to the very future of political order. A rethinking of the social contract is necessary given this crisis, and framing the present political turmoil in philosophical terms will help shed some light on the opportunities for change that are arising, in part thanks to the movement.

The Social Contract Model of Corporate Purpose and Responsibility

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (04) ◽  
pp. 433-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nien-hê Hsieh
Keyword(s):  
Business Ethics ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Contract Theory ◽  
Social Contract Theory ◽  
For Profit ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Responses ◽  
The Many

ABSTRACT:Of the many developments in business ethics that Thomas Donaldson has helped pioneer, one is the application of social contract theory to address questions about the responsibilities of business actors. InCorporations and Morality, Donaldson develops one of the most sustained and comprehensive accounts that aims to justify the existence of for-profit corporations and to specify and ground their responsibilities. In order to further our understanding about the purpose and responsibilities of productive organizations, and as a contribution to the scholarship on Donaldson’s thought, this paper gathers together the critical responses to Donaldson’s account along with Donaldson’s replies to his critics. The paper argues that we would do well to continue engaging with Donaldson’s account because of its distinctive and challenging conception of the purpose and responsibilities of productive organizations, but that many of the insights to be gained come from reframing the role played by social contract theory.

Millennial Reservations

2000 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 291-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa H. Newton
Keyword(s):  
Business Ethics ◽  
Stakeholder Theory ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Triple Bottom Line ◽  
Bottom Line ◽  
Doing Business ◽  
The Social

Abstract:The decade in which the Business Ethics Quarterly has flourished has been a good one for business and business ethics, in which new guiding theories (like stakeholder theory), new interpretations of older ethical concepts (trust, virtue, and the social contract, for instance), and whole new paradigms of doing business (the Triple Bottom Line) have entered the literature. But practice has not kept up with theory, and the theoretical gains seem to be offset by terrible losses in the temperance of greed, the fostering of trustworthiness, and sensitivity to the natural environment.

scholarly journals "The 100" and the social contract of social TV

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Myles McNutt
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Story Line ◽  
Social Contracts ◽  
Social Tv ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Media Engagement

I explore how the controversy surrounding an LGBT story line on The 100 (2014–) points to the shifting social contracts of social media engagement between fans and the TV industry, as well as the challenges faced by fans and critics who attempted to solidify that contract in the wake of said controversy.

Youth, Social Contracting and the Postcolony

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Everatt
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Global South ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Short Term ◽  
The Past ◽  
Social Contracts ◽  
Social Contracting ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Employment Inequality

Social contracts are concerned with the legitimacy of the state over the individual. The social contract offers mutual benefit and reciprocal obligation and is intrinsic to liberalism’s assertion that freedom is normative and encroaching on freedom requires justification. The social contract is both a philosophical idea and a toolkit for defusing conflict and tying participants to core liberal values. Talk of new social contracts, including intergenerational contracts, focus on maintaining a peaceful status quo, not transcending it. For the Global South in general, and youth in particular, the experience is more contract and less social. There seems little opportunity for southern youth to move from the margins to center stage, mimicking the inability of the Global South to do the same. Southern youth bear the brunt of limited economic opportunities, precarious employment, inequality, racism, and violence, compounding their marginalized place in society. What value can social contracting play beyond a short-term band-aid, unless it incorporates a fundamental rupture with the past?

"The aesthetics of relinquishment": Natural and Social Contracts in Beckett's "The End"

2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-188
Author(s):  
Jana María Giles
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
Social Contracts ◽  
The Social

This article explores the notion of Beckett as an ecocritical writer by considering Lawrence Buell's criteria for an environmentally-centered work in terms of Beckett's short prose piece "The End." As the nameless narrator moves from a monastic to a hermetic to a mendicant existence and then to death by suicide, he cycles between city and country, growing increasingly anonymous. Beckett casts doubt on the ethics of the "social contract," formed in human culture, and suggests that the "natural contract" between humans and their environment may be the viable one, although it may lead to relinquishment and death.

scholarly journals Development of institute of social contracts for investment of intellectual and innovative projects in modern economy

2021 ◽  
Vol 128 ◽  
pp. 04007
Author(s):  
O.A. Karpenko ◽  
A.L. Zolkin ◽  
O.L. Girshevich ◽  
S.A. Buryakov
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Private Companies ◽  
Social Contracts ◽  
Foreign Countries ◽  
The Social ◽  
Economic Indexes ◽  
Low Income Families ◽  
Local Budget ◽  
Commercial Organizations

The problem of providing the low-income families with social contracts is review in this article. Analytics of economic indexes and the comparison with foreign countries’ experience are provided and directions of such contract providing are reviewed. The possibility of social contract providing for development of modern intellectual and innovative business is also mentioned. Social support on the base of social contract was firstly applied in Russia in 2012. The low-income citizen can receive the allowance if he meets successfully the conditions of agreement with social agency: find a work, start the business, pass the advanced courses or other actions on improvement of his conditions. Until 2020, the regions will provide this service voluntary and out of local budget resources. Usual the social workers receive the direct payments for each employed, and he can be resigned from the work if does not meet the requirements. The service is outsourced by non-state providers - non-commercial organizations and private companies - for additional competitiveness.

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