IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/buetqu/v6y1996i01p27-42_01.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Perfecting Imperfect Duties: Collective Action to Create Moral Obligations

Author

Listed:
  • Buchanan, Allen

Abstract

Ethical problems in business include not only genuine moral dilemmas and compliance problems but also problems arising from the distinctive characteristics of imperfect duties. Collective action by business to perfect imperfect duties can yield significant benefits. Such arrrangements can (1) reduce temptations to moral laxity, (2) achieve greater efficiency by eliminating redundancies and gaps that plague uncoordinated individual efforts, (3) reap economies of scale and achieve success where benefits can be provided only if a certain threshold of resources can be brought to bear on a social problem, (4) solve assurance problems where voluntary compliance by some parties depends upon their perception that competitors are doing their fair share, and (5) produce higher levels of contribution than would occur through independent action in response to imperfect duties, stimulated by the perception that there is a fair distribution of burdens of contribution among all parties involved.

Suggested Citation

  • Buchanan, Allen, 1996. "Perfecting Imperfect Duties: Collective Action to Create Moral Obligations," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(1), pages 27-42, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:buetqu:v:6:y:1996:i:01:p:27-42_01
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1052150X00012306/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Björn Fasterling & Geert Demuijnck, 2013. "Human Rights in the Void? Due Diligence in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 116(4), pages 799-814, September.
    2. Richard Robinson, 2019. "The Management Nexus of Imperfect Duty: Kantian Views of Virtuous Relations, Reasoned Discourse, and Due Diligence," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 157(1), pages 119-136, June.
    3. Eric Brown, 2013. "Vulnerability and the Basis of Business Ethics: From Fiduciary Duties to Professionalism," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 113(3), pages 489-504, March.
    4. Tobey Scharding, 2019. "Individual Actions and Corporate Moral Responsibility: A (Reconstituted) Kantian Approach," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 154(4), pages 929-942, February.
    5. Brink, Alexander, 2011. "Spezifische Investitionen als Legitimationsgrundlage für Stakeholderansprüche," Die Unternehmung - Swiss Journal of Business Research and Practice, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 65(1), pages 50-68.
    6. Aviva Geva, 2006. "A Typology of Moral Problems in Business: A Framework for Ethical Management," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 69(2), pages 133-147, December.
    7. David Ohreen & Roger Petry, 2012. "Imperfect Duties and Corporate Philanthropy: A Kantian Approach," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 106(3), pages 367-381, March.
    8. Gastón Reyes, 2023. "The All-Stakeholders-Considered Case for Corporate Beneficence," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 188(1), pages 37-55, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:buetqu:v:6:y:1996:i:01:p:27-42_01. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/beq .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.