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THE CAPABILITY APPROACH AS GUIDANCE FOR CORPORATE ETHICS

Enderle, Georges
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Enderle, Georges
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Keywords
Business ethics, capabilities, corporate ethics, ethics-related approach, functionings, human development, human rights, primary goods, inequality,
GE Subjects
Economic ethics
Business ethics
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Business Ethics
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the_capability_approach_107.pdf
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http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12424/188739
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Abstract
The article attempts to make the capability approach fruitful for corporate ethics (i.e., the ethics of business organizations) in two parts. The first part presents the capability approach. After a short historic overview of its development advanced by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, the question about an adequate informational basis for interpersonal comparisons is raised, and traditional answers of the utility-based and resources-based approaches are criticized. Against this backdrop, the essential elements of the capability approach, common to Sen and Nussbaum, are highlighted and some foundational implications of Sen’s capability approach in particular are explained, followed by a few considerations on the limitations of the capability approach. The second part discusses the application of the capability approach to corporate ethics. Beginning with three basic assumptions on corporate ethics, the application includes a critique of “value-free” economics and other business disciplines and an enrichment of the notion of rationality. It stipulates a sensitivity to issues of poverty and distribution and elaborates on the focus on functionings and capabilities. The article ends with a few concluding remarks.
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Conference proceedings
Date
2012
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With permission of the license/copyright holder
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