Contexts of Corporate Social Responsibility

Although the term “responsibility” is common currency in nearly all contributions to the vast literature on corporate social responsibility, its specific meaning, conceptual core and normative foundation still remain vague. Drawing on recent advances in philosophical thinking, in this research project we aim at developing a discursive conception of corporate responsibility based on a basic human right to justification. According to this right, any individual or corporate action affecting other subjects must be justifiable to those affected. Responding to such demands for justification and refraining from action that cannot be justified by good reason is what we propose as the essence of responsibility. As the contexts where corporations are prompted to justify their actions vary greatly, we furthermore intend to elaborate the concept of corporate responsibility by differentiating five irreducible contexts of justification, i.e. the pragmatic, strategic, legal, political and moral context. These contexts arguably differ according to the addressees, evaluation criteria and procedures of justification. In addition to discriminating and comparing these contexts of corporate responsibility, we also analyze their interdependencies and intend to develop meta-criteria for handling cases of conflicting demands and colliding norms between contexts.