GM and corporate responsibility

Only by distinguishing corporate, moral, social and legal responsibility can GM know how to weigh and respond to its various responsibilities. Corporate responsibility stems from the ends for which the corporation is formed. In addition the corporation is responsible for meeting the moral demands that come from the moral law. The corporation is responsible for meeting legitimate social demands proposed by society. If society uses the law to express its demands, the demands yield legal responsibilities. Those demands that are social but neither moral nor legal may not be legitimate demands that GM must respond to at all.Richard T. De George, University Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kansas, former President of the Metaphysical Society of America, and Vice President of the International Federation of Philosophical Societies, is the author of Business Ethics and contributing co-editor of Ethics, Free Enterprise and Public Policy.