Business, Innovation and Responsibility

4Responsibility as Virtue in Innovation

In the previous chapters, we aimed to illustrate the nature of responsibility, first in a corporate context, then in the specific case of innovation. We notably highlighted the way in which understanding individual practices in terms of responsibilities requires ethical reflection, in a domain – innovation – where this type of approach is rarely, if ever, encountered.

We considered several approaches to corporate responsibility: consequentialist understandings, focused on the relationship between responsibility and economic efficiency, and deontologically inspired interpretations, based on the rights and responsibilities of the parties involved. The analysis presented in Chapter 2 showed that the connection between responsibility and the financial performance of a company does not currently have an empirical basis: CSR in innovation cannot be defended on the sole basis of potential comparative advantages or guaranteed prospects for economic success. Profitability does not offer sufficient motivation. Deontological approaches also fail to provide a fully satisfactory response to this question, since formulating moral principles for businesses on the basis of rights and responsibilities is ineffectual in the absence of an international authority to guarantee their respect. These perspectives therefore lack the capacity to have a real effect on practices.

In this context, the ethics of virtue, and more specifically the ethics of care, offers ...