Shareholder Theory and Kants Duty of Beneficence - Essay Example

Shareholder Theory and Kant’s ‘Duty of Beneficence’ In the article Shareholder Theory and Kant’s ‘Duty of Beneficence’, Kant distinguishes between a perfect duty to respect the freedom of other human beings to seek their ends and an imperfect duty to choose the happiness of others as one’s end, which he calls the ‘duty of beneficence’. In effect, it includes effectively all forms of action intended for the betterment of other persons (Mansell, 2012). The article seeks to show that a corporation has direct responsibilities to stakeholders such as employees, suppliers, customers and consumers, and not merely to shareholders.

While Friedman argues that an organization must have only one purpose; to utilize all of its resources to increase profits and nothing else, Bowie bases this claim on Kant’s argument, that an attitude of pure self-interest contradicts our call to be helped by others. Bowie argues that ‘society’ has assisted organizations, in the form of infrastructure e.g. roads, sanitation facilities, police security, fire protection, etc., and therefore corporations owe a duty of ‘beneficence’ back to society (Mansell, 2012).

A way forward has been suggested in the article to harmonize the divergent views of various theories and to reduce the difficulties that may been to face the duties of corporations. The bodies should establish formal policies or codes of conduct that include the ethics of the non-shareholders in the society. This has been demonstrated in the principles of the UN Global Compact. Kant in overall recommends that acts of benevolence should be made a matter of right rather than obligation. Instead of rejecting the shareholder theory, it can be extended to involve the well-being of non-shareholders (Mansell, 2012).

ReferenceMansell, S. (2012). Shareholder Theory and Kant’s ‘Duty of Beneficence. Dordrecht: Springer