Why issues of societal concern morally oblige business corporations to be political

Abstract

The welfare economic theorem anticipates pure externalities. Jensen and others argue that government and government alone is responsible to internalize pure externalities for which there is no economic market. Yet, others argue that business corporations ought to take responsibility to internalize pure externalities. Why should they? On what moral ground are business corporations required to do so? In this thesis my main interest is to see if I can build the argument for a moral ground for business corporations to tackle externalities violating basic human interests, in cases where there is no economic ground to do so. Describing the role of the corporation, its character traits and to whom it holds accountability, I come to the conclusion that business corporations do hold moral obligations beyond what economic realities subscribes. A moral obligation as a derivative of governmental responsibility to which business corporations owe their privileged character traits. My main argument though relates to the moral norm of reciprocity embedded in historic acts based on which a mechanism of mutual rights and obligations between two parties starts.