Going the (Ethical) Distance

Lee Shepski ()

Journal of Business Ethics, 2013, vol. 116, issue 2, 393-402

Abstract: Nearly every day we participate in the vast, interconnected global economy. In doing so, we engage in chains of transactions that ultimately result in our benefiting from, or enabling, wrongdoing by others. In some cases this seems to be in itself wrong, but in many cases it seems unproblematic. I develop a concept of ‘ethical distance’ and argue that our responsibility for the wrongdoing of others is a function of our ethical distance from it. Furthermore, I argue that the concept of moral responsibility is vague, but that when we become clearly responsible for wrongdoing by others, we ought to sever our connection to it. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2013

Keywords: Ethical distance; Moral responsibility; Transaction partners; Vague predicates (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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DOI: 10.1007/s10551-012-1477-1

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