The business ethics case for sustainability资料.doc

The business ethics case for sustainability
In the final reading for this unit, business ethicist Deborah Poff offers "The Business Ethics Case for Sustainability." In making the ethics case for sustainability, Poff argues against Friedman’s stockholder picture of corporate responsibility. She argues that business people as individuals (and not just in their corporate roles) have a responsibility to act as moral agents. As well, corporations have a duty to act in socially responsible ways.
An important part of the argument advanced by Poff is that, with globalization of the economy, individual countries, particularly those worst off, have fewer and fewer powers to protect their own environments. At the same time, globalized businesses have increased their power. For Poff increased power means increased responsibilities both for avoiding harm and for doing good.
Poff draws on the famous story of the tragedy of mons. The story is a version of the prisoner’s dilemma. Cattle herders graze their animals on land that mon property. Since no one owns mon property, there is no one in a position to control what happens to it. Any improvements to mons or any detractions from mons fall on everybody. Accordingly, each herder decides to add more cattle so as to increase output. In time, the carrying capacity of mons is reached, yet the logic of mons prevails with still more cattle bein