Spurgin, Earl2019-09-252019-09-252013-01-012012http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12424/188670Several business ethicists have devoted considerable attention to the moral status of corporate political activity. Their arguments typically concern the agency of corporations, whether corporations have a right to free speech that entitles them to engage in the political arena, and the social consequences of corporations’ political activity. This paper joins that discourse, but approaches corporate political activity from a different direction: through the role-model obligations of business leaders who direct such activity. I argue that those business leaders have role-model obligations to be good political actors because they hold positions of greater fame, authority, or power than do ordinary citizens. I do this by: 1) briefly describing the general account of role-model status and obligations that I adopt; 2) applying that account to the business-leader role; 3) demonstrating that business leaders’ role-model status and obligations capture their political activity; and, 4) responding to three possible objections.engWith permission of the license/copyright holderbusiness leader, corporate political action, role model, role-model obligations, role-model statusPolitical ethicsEthics of political systemsEconomic ethicsBusiness ethicsConference proceedings