Ethics and accountability: from the for-itself to the for-the-other

Abstract

Expanding global markets have resulted in renewed concern with accountability by transnational corporations and other economic agents. Reflections on economic accountability, however, often inadequately theorize necessary ethical presuppositions regarding the moral status of economic collectivities, including the scope of the moral community and the good that this community seeks. This essay addresses these ethical considerations. Taking as my starting point Schweiker's [Schweiker, W. (1993). Accounting for ourselves: accounting practice and the disclosure of ethics. Accounting Organizations and Society, 18(2/3), 231–252] claim that economic entities are properly accountable to a wider scope of good than their own by virtue of the accounts that accountants render of such entities, I argue that the discourse in terms of which the accounts are rendered serves to negate the very relation of obligation from which this accountability derives. Specifically, I argue that the discourse of neoclassical economics that informs accounting practice constructs the identity of the accountable entity such that it is obligated to pursue only its own good. Consequently, extant accounting practices are inadequate to meet the demands for accountability that are legitimately entailed by the act of rendering an account. I explore the implications of this conclusion for understanding economic accountability and related social accounting practices, and I propose the ethics of Emmanuel Levinas to establish a broader accountability on the part of economic entities.