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The Nature of Social Responsibility: Exploring Emancipatory Ends

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Mussell, Helen 

Abstract

jats:titleAbstract</jats:title>jats:pSocial responsibility (SR) initiatives within a corporate environment (CSR) continue to be met with deep scepticism. My concern is with exploring this scepticism, which I argue is due to there being more to the underlying objectives of SR than has previously been investigated. I begin by outlining and substantiating my project as a social ontological enquiry, one in which I unpack key concepts to reveal the nature of SR. These ontological findings then underpin my argument that SR is problematically grounded in liberalist thinking, and CSR is in fact just one manifestation of SR. I advance the thesis that SR has emancipatory ends, of meeting human needs and flourishing, and that it is best explicated using feminist care ethics. The argument is then focussed on both shoring up and advancing the emancipatory project of SR. The scepticism of interest is revealed to be the incongruity between care and business; that businesses are deemed as being incompatible with SR, at least in their present capacity. Any claims to the contrary by the business community are branded inauthentic and the aforementioned scepticism ensues. The paper concludes with a brief discussion concerning implications for CSR initiatives and future changes and developments are considered.</jats:p>

Description

Keywords

50 Philosophy and Religious Studies, 5001 Applied Ethics

Journal Title

Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0021-8308
1468-5914

Volume Title

Publisher

Wiley