Corporate Activity, Social Responsibility, and Quining Moral Blameworthiness

Whenever an unfortunate situation arises, we typically blame an agent whom is causally responsible if one is available; however, if a blameworthy agent is unavailable, such as in the case of a natural disaster, labeling the event as a blameless situation seems appropriate. The idea of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is that businesses have extra responsibilities to a benefit society beyond mere adherence to legality and maximization of profits for shareholders. We argue for a group realist stance where corporations are understood as group agents that may be causally responsible for their actions, and still have the kind of agency that warrants social responsibility, while at the same time be morally blameless for their actions. In other words, CSR can still be said of corporations, while assigning moral blameworthiness to group agents for corporate activity would be misplaced.