Theory Of Moral Responsibility Research Articles

Transparency of sustainability disclosures among luxury and mass-market fashion brands: Longitudinal approach

Longitudinal analysis of transparency among fashion brands is the first scholarly effort to investigate sustainability disclosures among the sample of 90 major brands over the period of seven years (2017–2023) through the prisms of moral responsibility theory of corporate and supply chain sustainability. Results showed that both luxury and mass-market brands consider corporate transparency as a broad area to practice their perfect duties. Consequently, brands selectively disclose information about their policies, commitments, governance responsibilities, and processes on human rights and environmental issues but disclose significantly less about the ultimate outcomes of their sustainability efforts. Thus, results indicate that supply chain reporting areas represent the area of imperfect duties for the majority of mass-market and luxury brands. Due to the non-existence of strict reporting mandates in the fashion sector, it is up to luxury and mass-market brands' discretion which sustainability indicators they measure and report. Accurate, relevant, and externally audited disclosures are key factors influencing sustainable investment, with positive effects on the industry, market, garment workers, and consumers. Hence, to prevent fashion brands' tendency to indulge in window dressing and greenwashing, this research advocates for policy change and expects local governments to mandate and enforce reporting mandates. Additionally, non-compliance with reporting laws should be both inspected and penalized.

Теория ответственности Т.М. Скэн­лона и проблема моральной удачи

Thomas M. Scanlon is one of the most prominent modern moral philosophers, and his theory of moral responsibility is one of the most influential theories of this kind in mod­ern ethics. In the present article we set out the main features of this theory and then deal in detail with one of the problems this theory faces, the moral luck cases. Despite several plausible approaches to this problem being available within the framework of theories of broadly Scanlonian type, Scanlon himself seems to choose none of them. So, in spite of his own claims, his theory (at least in its form that he himself defends) seems to fail to solve this problem. However, this could arguably not be counted as a decisive argu­ment against this theory, given that all the other modern non-revisionary theories of moral responsibility fare no better in dealing with this problem.

Influencer marketing: When and why gen Z consumers avoid influencers and endorsed brands

AbstractConsumer avoidance of brands and influencers is a widespread phenomenon, especially among Generation Z (Gen Z); however, influencer marketing literature lacks clarity about when and why Gen Z engages in such avoidance. Our experimental investigation, across four studies, reveals that Gen Z considers brands' control over influencers to be morally irresponsible and, thus, avoids both. We introduce a novel construct, influencer avoidance, and examine its drivers. Study 1 indicates that perceived brand control engenders avoidance; moderation evidence shows that macro (vs. micro) influencers accentuate (attenuate) the influence of brand control on avoidance. Study 2 shows that Gen Z enjoying a strong versus weak relationship with influencers results in lower (higher) avoidance towards influencers and endorsed brands. Study 3 demonstrates that negative moral emotions mediate the relationship between perceived brand control and avoidance behavior. Study 4 generalizes the findings by analyzing a different influencer and endorsed brand and including a prominent advertisement disclosure. By investigating the drivers and mechanisms of Gen Z's avoidance behavior, our research contributes to research on the theory of moral responsibility, Gen Z's influencer avoidance behavior, and anti‐consumption literature. This offers key insights into how to prevent acts of consumer retribution towards influencers and brands.

Michelle Ciurria, An Intersectional Feminist Theory of Moral Responsibility

Michelle Ciurria, An Intersectional Feminist Theory of Moral Responsibility

Vulnerability, Moral responsibility, and Moral Obligations: the case of Industrial Action in the Medical and Allied Professions.

The article addresses issues at the nexus of physician industrial action, moral agency, and responsibility. There are situations in which we find ourselves best placed to offer aid to those who may be in vulnerable positions, a behavior that is consistent with our everyday moral intuitions. In both our interpersonal relationships and social life, we make frequent judgments about whether to praise or blame someone for their actions when we determine that they should have acted to help a vulnerable person. While the average person is unlikely to confront these kinds of situations often, those in the medical professions, physicians especially, may confront these and similar situations regularly. Therefore, when physicians withhold their services for whatever reason in support of industrial action, it raises issues of moral responsibility to patients who may be in a vulnerable position. Using theories of moral responsibility, vulnerability, and ethics, this paper explores the moral implications of physician industrial action. We explore issues of vulnerability of patients, as well as the moral responsibility and moral agency of doctors to patients. Determining when a person is vulnerable, and when an individual becomes a moral agent, worthy of praise or blame for an act or non-action, is at the core of the framework. Notwithstanding the right of physicians to act in their self-interest, we argue that vulnerability leads to moral obligations, that physicians are moral agents, and the imperatives of their obligations to patients clear, even if limited by certain conditions. We suggest that both doctors and governments have a collective responsibility to prevent harm to patients and present the theoretical and practical implications of the paper.

“Attributionism and degrees of Praiseworthiness”

An increasingly popular theory of moral responsibility, Attributionism, identifies attitudes as the locus of direct responsibility. And yet, two agents with qualitatively identical attitudes may differ in their responsibility due to a difference in whether they act on those attitudes. On the most plausible interpretation of Attributionism, attitude duplicates differ in their responsibility only with respect to the scope of what they’re responsible for: one agent is responsible for only their attitudes, while the other is responsible for their attitudes and for acting in a way that reflects those attitudes. Against this, I argue that attitude duplicates may also differ with respect to their degrees of praiseworthiness, and that this is best explained by either the effort or sacrifice instantiated in one’s actions—explanations unavailable to Attributionism. If this is correct, then Attributionism fails to provide an adequate account of praiseworthiness, and therefore fails as a theory of moral responsibility.

Стросон, ответственность и согласованность

In this article I am developing Peter Strawsonʼs theory of moral responsibility. I am trying to show that it can be freed from sentimentalism and at the same time preserve what makes it attractive for metaphysical discussions about free will. The basis of my strategy is to rethink the concept of fittingness and give reasons the status that emotions have in Strawson’s view.

Blame mitigation: A less tidy take and its philosophical implications

ABSTRACT Why do we find agents less blameworthy when they face mitigating circumstances, and what does this show about philosophical theories of moral responsibility? We present novel evidence that the tendency to mitigate the blameworthiness of agents is driven both by the perception that they are less normatively competent – in particular, less able to know that what they are doing is wrong – and by the perception that their behavior is less attributable to their deep selves. Consequently, we argue that philosophers cannot rely on the case strategy to support the Normative Competence theory of moral responsibility over the Deep Self theory. However, we also outline ways in which further empirical and philosophical work would shift the debate, by showing that there is a significant departure between ordinary concepts and corresponding philosophical concepts, or by focusing on a different type of coherence with ordinary judgments.

Effects of CSR Messages on Apparel Consumers’ Word-of-Mouth: Perceived Corporate Hypocrisy as a Mediator

This study focused on understanding how (mis)match between a company's corporate social responsibility claims as indicated in their mission and the activities it actually undertakes to meet its CSR goals leads to consumers’ corporate hypocrisy and how consumers’ CSR-CA beliefs moderate the relationship between the two. Using the Moral Responsibility Theory of Corporate Sustainability as a framework, this research analyzed the difference in corporate hypocrisy between consumers with high versus low CSR-CA tradeoff beliefs. In addition, we examined the impact of consumers’ corporate hypocrisy on their negative word-of-mouth intention and how participants’ injunctive norm impacts the relationship between the two. A sample of 538 adult US consumers were recruited for an online experimental study. The study extends the findings of MCRS and also provides implications for apparel businesses.

From relational equality to personal responsibility

According to relational egalitarians, equality is not primarily about the distribution of some good but about people relating to one another as equals. However, compared with other theorists in political philosophy – including other egalitarians – relational egalitarians have said relatively little on what role personal responsibility should play in their theories. For example, is equality compatible with responsibility? Should economic distributions be responsibility-sensitive? This article fills this gap. I develop a relational egalitarian framework for personal responsibility and show that relational equality commits us to responsibility. I develop two sets of arguments. First, I draw on relational theories of moral responsibility – particularly Strawsonian views – to show that valuable egalitarian relationships require responsibility. Second, I show why relational equality sometimes requires that economic distributions be sensitive to responsibility and choice. I also defend a seemingly paradoxical result: being committed to responsibility, relational egalitarianism not only justifies some distributive inequalities but some relational inequalities too. Overall, relational egalitarianism gives a nuanced and coherent answer as to why and how responsibility matters from within egalitarianism. That it does should be an important argument in its favour.

It’s (Almost) All About Desert: On the Source of Disagreements in Responsibility Studies

AbstractIn this article I discuss David Shoemaker’s recently published piece “Responsibility: The State of the Question. Fault Lines in the Foundations.” While agreeing with Shoemaker on many points, I argue for a more unified diagnosis of the seemingly intractable debates that plague (what I call) “responsibility studies.” I claim that, of the five fault lines Shoemaker identifies, the most basic one is about the role that the notion of deserved harm should play in the theory of moral responsibility. I argue that the deep divide between those theorists who affirm and those who deny that moral responsibility is essentially about the justification of desert thus understood can be traced to the disagreement about whether the focus on the reactive attitudes by itself entails that moral responsibility has nothing to do with traditional questions about desert and free will. I then show that the seeming intractableness of the other four fault lines Shoemaker identifies is expectable and explicable in light of this more basic disagreement. After this diagnostic work, I conclude by suggesting a solution to the “morass” that has taken over responsibility studies: theorists working in the field should acknowledge that it has effectively bifurcated into two discrete subareas, which I suggest calling “retribution studies” and “interpersonal studies.”

Сложность моральной ответственности и ее степени

A simplified version of philosophical discussion on any problem could be summarised like this: to explain a phenomenon P theory A is developed, then in response to A theory B is developed, then these theories are modified and give rise to new argument, including ar­guments based on or inspired by some scientific findings and theories from other fields of philosophy. However, in moral responsibility discussion, it is complicated to distinguish one central conflict. Different philosophers write about moral responsibility as a problem of ethical evaluation of an action, and metaphysical conditions do moral responsibility, and criteria of moral agent, and possibility of several agents sharing responsibility for the same action, etc. In this paper, I discuss “Ethics and metaphysics of moral responsibility: that is a rigorous analysis of various theories of moral responsibility turned into in the original systematisation of the conceptual chaos in contemporary debates on moral re­sponsibility. The first part of the paper includes tackling the problem of moral responsibil­ity and a short review of the theories of moral responsibility. In the second part, there are conceptual clarifications of the term “appropriateness” that is the key term for interpreting conditions of moral responsibility. In the paper, I have two pursues. First, to highlight strong and less strong points of analysis of the problem of moral responsibility proposed by E. Loginov, M. Gavrilov, A. Mertsalov and A. Iunusov. Second, to draw an attention to theoretical challenges of moral reactions when it is assumed that moral reactions come in degrees.

"КЛЕЩИ УДАЧИ" НИЛА ЛЕВИ ПРОТИВ КОМПАТИБИЛИСТСКИХ ТЕОРИЙ МОРАЛЬНОЙ ОТВЕТСТВЕННОСТИ

The article discusses Neil Levy’s argument against compatibilist theories of moral responsibility based on his concept of luck. The author considers possible ways for criticizing the concept of moral responsibility by undermining the control condition or the epistemic condition. Levi follows the second path. The author analyzes specifics in Levy’s interpretation of the epistemic condition: according to Levy, the epistemic condition is built into the control one; it is considered from an internalist position (from the point of view of availability to an agent of the grounds for his action). Levy analyzes the concept of luck and identifies several types of it: chancy and non-chancy, present and constitutive. Cases of luck are not controlled by an agent, and he or she is not responsible for them. Then the author considers Levy’s argument against compatibilism based on his concept of luck: any compatibilist explanation of an action for which an agent is morally responsible rests either on constitutive luck, or on present luck, or on a combination of them. The substantiation of such a trilemma leads Levy to the concept of intellectual vice. FitzPatrick’s answer to the issue formulated by Levy is analyzed. It is shown that, even though Fitzpatrick’s solution is problematic, his general approach is correct: it is necessary to develop a theory of epistemic responsibility by the means of virtue epistemology and show its connection with moral responsibility.

Chinese textile and apparel manufacturers' moral duty positions, goals and structures toward sustainability

PurposeUsing the moral responsibility theory of corporate sustainability (MRCS) framework , the study examined Chinese textile and apparel (T&A) manufacturers' moral duty positions, goals and structures toward sustainability, with a goal of creating a spectrum of corporate sustainability (CS) performance.Design/methodology/approachAn online survey method was employed to investigate participants' views on their companies' perceptions, goals and structures toward each of the listed sustainability-related activities.FindingsThe results showed that all participants expressed their companies have moral responsibilities toward some aspects of sustainability. Particularly, they viewed that their companies emphasize labor relations (LR) and righteous operation (RO) activities over environmental protection (EP) or public welfare involvement (PW) activities when fulfilling their sustainability responsibilities. After analyzing each response by following MRCS, 41 companies were categorized as occasionally sustainability corporations. The remaining 259 responses were categorized as consistently sustainability corporations in selective areas.Originality/valueThe study for the first time revealed the sustainability-related activities that most respondents in Chinese T&A manufacturing industry perceived as perfect or imperfect duties. Findings add knowledge to the area of corporate moral responsibility toward sustainability and show a spectrum of Chinese textile and apparel manufacturers' sustainability performance, empirically supporting MRCS.

Luck Has Nothing to Do with It: Prevailing Uncertainty and Responsibilities of Due Care

ABSTRACT We are surrounded by threats of environmental harm whose actual dangers to public health are scientifically unverified. It is widely presumed that under conditions of uncertainty, when it is not possible to foresee the outcomes of our actions, or to calculate the probability they will actually cause harm, we cannot be held culpable for the risks and harms our actions impose on others. It is commonly presumed, that is, that exposing others to what this paper terms ‘uncertain threats’ is permissible, because conventional theories of moral responsibility understand uncertainty as implying that the effects of our actions are out of our control and, therefore, beyond our fault. In contrast, in rejecting arguments from moral luck, this paper denies that authors of uncertain threats of environmental harm are excusably ignorant, and denies that prevailing uncertainty diminishes their moral obligations or attenuates their culpability. For under conditions of uncertainty, culpability turns on the lack of due regard for others as moral equals – a consideration that neither luck nor ignorance excuses. To expose others to unconsented-to uncertain threats of harm without exercising due care to prevent possible injury is to wrongfully gamble with their welfare and their capacity for self-authorship.

PUNISHMENT AND THE VALUE OF DESERVED SUFFERING

AbstractAn assumption central to some forms of retributivism is that it is noninstrumentally good that a culpable wrongdoer suffers in receiving a deserved punishment. A justification for this can be built from a conversational theory of moral responsibility, and in particular deserved blame. On such a theory, deserved blame is fitting as a response to a wrongdoer insofar as it is conversationally meaningful as a reply to a wrong done. Punishment, it might be argued, has this feature too. The conversational aim in both deserved blame and punishment is for the guilty to grasp the meaning conveyed by those who blame or punish and then respond meaningfully by, for example, apologizing or expressing remorse. Ideally, a culpable agent would experience a form and degree of guilt suitable for a wrong done. So, a conversational theory of punishment can then be justified in terms of providing conditions conducive for a culpable wrongdoer to respond to punishment by manifesting an appropriately pained response of guilt.

Truly Sustainability or Hypocrisy: The Effects of Corporate Sustainable Orientation on Consumers’ Quality Perception and Trust Based on Evidence from China

Sustainable initiatives have been widely fulfilled by corporations, which can acquire better reputations by performing environmental, social, and economic responsibilities. However, if a corporation’s propaganda about sustainable orientation is contrary to the actual action, or even does not have a clear orientation, then it may also fall into the reputation of hypocrisy. In this study, from the perspective of consumer behavior and based on the moral responsibility theory of corporate sustainability, we identify six types of sustainable corporations by their orientations toward sustainability, including value, goals, and structure. We empirically examine their direct effects on consumers’ sustainable quality perception and trust, as well as the moderating effects of corporate social responsibility associations and consumer–corporation identity. Data are collected in China; 203 adults participated in the survey. The results reveal that the types of sustainable goals and structure have a significant effect on consumers’ sustainable quality perception and trust. Furthermore, consumers’ perception is also positively associated with their trust in a corporation. Moreover, the consumer–corporation identity negatively moderates the relationship between perception and trust. These findings also bring theoretical and practical insights for governments and corporations.

Demanding more of Strawsonian accountability theory

AbstractA neglected and non‐trivial problem exists for a central cluster of Strawsonian accountability theories of moral responsibility, namely those that, following Gary Watson, understand the reactive attitudes to be implicit forms of moral address, particularly moral demand. The problem consists in the joint acceptance of two claims: (a) Accountability is a matter of agents holding one another to moral demands, and (b) accountability is a view of blame and praise. I label joint acceptance of these claims the Strawsonian's demand dogma. Symptomatic of a larger tendency among responsibility theorists to focus on blame to the neglect of its positive counterpart, the demand dogma saddles the Strawsonian with an impoverished and ultimately untenable view of praise. This is because moral demand occupies a dual role on the Strawsonian's view of blame, one that it is incapable of occupying for praise. For, demands figure not only in the contents of blame responses; demand typifies the form of these responses themselves. That is, reactive attitudes of blame, unlike those of praise, implicitly make demands of their targets. The force of this problem is highlighted by considering the inadequacy of various strategies for shoehorning “demand” into our conception of praise. If reactive attitudes generally are incipient forms of moral address, praise‐manifesting attitudes must communicate something other than demand. Though primarily critical, this paper invites Strawsonian responsibility theorists to give renewed attention to the foundations of the proposal that the reactive attitudes are incipiently communicative, focusing this time on the form of address that lies at the heart of praise.

The Place of the Trace: Negligence and Responsibility

One popular theory of moral responsibility locates responsible agency in exercises of control. These control-based theories often appeal to tracing to explain responsibility in cases where some agent is intuitively responsible for bringing about some outcome despite lacking direct control over that outcome’s obtaining. Some question whether control-based theories are committed to utilizing tracing to explain responsibility in certain cases. I argue that reflecting on certain kinds of negligence shows that tracing plays an ineliminable role in any adequate control-based theory of responsibility.

Truly sustainable or not? An exploratory assessment of sustainability capability of textile and apparel corporations in China from the moral responsibility perspective

Within the moral responsibility theory of corporate sustainability (MRCS) framework (Ha-Brookshire in J Bus Ethics, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2847-2), the study examined 86 sustainability reports from top performing textile and apparel companies in China to explore their perceptions and sustainability capability implications. Content analysis of their sustainability reports was conducted to analyze whether each company (a) perceives sustainability as a perfect duty or not, (b) has clear goals toward sustainability or not, and (c) has well-defined structures toward sustainability goals or not. Results show that 66 of the 86 reports described sustainability as a perfect duty to fulfill; 11 described as an imperfect duty, and 9 described no opinions about sustainability. Of the 66 reports, 19 explicitly showed clear goals and the evidence of organizational structures toward such goals, leading us to categorize them as truly sustainable corporations as Ha-Brookshire (2015) described. Of the 66, 43 lacked clear sustainability goals, leading us to categorize them as occasionally sustainable corporations as described by Ha-Brookshire (2015). Other firms were also categorized within the MRCS framework. Findings show a spectrum of Chinese textile and apparel companies’ sustainability capability from the moral responsibility perspective.