Business Ethics

Institutionally Driven Moral Conflicts and Managerial Action: Dirty Hands or Permissible Complicity?

Rosemarie Monge

Received: 7 February 2013 / Accepted: 5 March 2014 / Published online: 29 March 2014

� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Abstract This paper examines what managers ought to

do when confronted with apparent moral conflicts between

their managerial responsibilities and the general require-

ments of morality, specifically when those conflicts are

driven by the institutional environment. I examine Go-

ogle’s decision to enter the Chinese search engine market

as an example of such a conflict. I consider the view that

Google’s managers engaged in justifiable moral compro-

mise in making the choice to engage in self-censorship and

show how this view depends on the idea of genuine moral

dilemmas or irresolvable moral conflicts. I argue that there

are serious reasons to doubt the existence of genuine moral

dilemmas both in the abstract, as well as in the context of

managerial responsibility. I propose an alternative account

for what Google’s managers ought to do, as well as others

who face relevantly similar situations. The account con-

tains two conditions for permissibly contributing to another

party’s failure to live up to their moral responsibilities. The

first condition is that the manager must intend and act in

such a way as to minimize the firm’s complicity in the

other entity or actor’s failure, which in most cases will

imply a duty for the manager to take actions that aim

towards changing the institutional context. Under the sec-

ond condition, managers ought to communicate to the

firm’s constituents that they take seriously the importance

of the interests at stake.

Keywords Corporate responsibility � Dirty hands � Human rights � Intentionality � Managerial responsibility � Moral conflict � Moral dilemmas

Introduction

Managers are often confronted with apparent moral con-

flicts between their managerial responsibilities and the

requirements of ordinary morality. In this paper, I examine

what managers ought to do in the case of one such kind of

conflict, one that is especially relevant for managers in a

global context. This is the case when the institutional

environment, coupled with a manager’s occupational

responsibilities, exerts pressures on managers to contribute

to another party’s wrongdoing. By ‘institutional environ-

ment’, I mean the political and social framework in which

businesses operate and which is promulgated through the

use of law and custom. This includes formal regulations

and policies, but may also include the mechanisms through

which policies are made and promulgated, as well as

informal governmental and cultural norms.

One common view of this kind of conflict is that it pre-

sents managers with an irresolvable conflict or a moral

dilemma, in which ‘you’re damned if you do, damned if you

don’t’ and that leaves the manager with dirty hands. 1 For

instance, in his analysis of Google’s decision to establish

search engine operations in China and to abide by the

R. Monge (&) Opus College of Business, University of St. Thomas,

Minneapolis, MN, USA

e-mail: [email protected]

1 In the philosophical literature on the subject, the terms ‘irresolvable

moral conflict’, ‘moral conflict’ and ‘moral dilemmas’ are often used

interchangeably. Either term is used to describe a situation in which a

moral actor is said to be under an obligation to carry out two (or more)

incompatible courses of action, such that he cannot do both. In such a

situation, the agent is doomed to moral failure regardless of what he does.

It is helpful to distinguish between irresolvable and apparent moral

conflicts. Opponents of moral dilemmas use the modifier ‘apparent’ so

as not to grant that these choices are irresolvable. In other words, to

opponents of dilemmas, these situations only appear to be dilemmatic,

but in reality there is a right course of action that does not generate a

moral residue. If one wishes to be agnostic about the existence of

genuine dilemmas, one might refer to such choices as potential conflicts.

123

J Bus Ethics (2015) 129:161–175

DOI 10.1007/s10551-014-2141-8

government’s censorship requirements, Brenkert (2009) has

encouraged business ethicists to take seriously what he calls

‘moral compromise’ in non-ideal contexts. In doing so, he

invokes the literature on moral remainders and irresolvable

conflicts. According to Brenkert, Google’s leadership was

complicit in restricting the right to free expression, but by not

entering the Chinese market, they would have violated other

important considerations, including a duty to develop Google

as a business. No matter what Google’s leadership did, they

would have violated an important value or principle.

In this paper, I point out the problems with a view of

morality that allows for genuine moral dilemmas and propose

an alternative account of managerial responsibility that does

not rely on such a view, appealing instead to the importance of

the manager’s intention in creating the possibility of permis-

sible complicity in someone else’s wrongdoing. By discussing

Google’s cooperation in the Chinese government’s censorship

regime, I argue for two conditions for permissible managerial

complicity. The first is that the manager must intend and act in

such a way as to minimize the firm’s complicity in the other

actor’s wrongdoing. In many cases, this will imply a duty for

the manager to take actions that aim at changing the institu-

tional context that supports this wrongdoing. The second

condition, which fulfills an expressive function, is that the

manager must communicate to the firm’s constituents that she

recognizes important interests are at stake and that she is

committed to minimizing the firm’s complicity. I leave open

the possibility that theseconditionsare non-exhaustive, as they

are not meant to justify any kind of complicity in questionable

practices. As such, these conditions are necessary, but perhaps

not sufficient, depending on the circumstances faced by man-

agers in problematic institutional environments.

In ‘‘Google’s China Controversy’’ section, I offer a

summary of Google’s decision to establish search engine

operations in China. ‘‘One Possibility: Moral Compromise

and Irresolvable Moral Conflicts’’ section outlines the

problems with invoking moral dilemmas and moral com-

promise as a way of understanding the decision facing Go-

ogle. These problems point to the need for an alternative

account. In ‘‘Clarifying the Nature of Complicity’’ section, I

argue that intentions may help to establish permissibility in

cases where managers are pressured by the institutional

environment to be complicit in questionable practices. In

‘‘Intentions and Conditions for Permissible Complicity’’

section, I offer my account, with its two conditions. Finally,

in ‘‘Clarifications’’ section, I offer responses to some ques-

tions or concerns my account might raise.

Google’s China Controversy

In early 2006, Google China set off a firestorm of controversy

by launching a new version of its Chinese search engine that

censored search results considered to be potentially objec-

tionable to the Chinese government. From 2000 to 2002,

Google had made available a version of Google.com with

Chinese-language characters, powered exclusively by serv-

ers located outside of China and by 2002, it had built up a

25 % market share of Chinese search engine traffic. Since

Google did not have offices or search engine servers within

China, it was not subject to the Chinese government’s cen-

sorship requirements. As a result, although the ‘Great Fire-

wall of China’ would prevent connecting to the webpages

themselves, a search on Google.com from within China

would provide links to banned webpages (Thompson 2006).

In September 2002, the Chinese government began to

block and slow down residents’ access to Google.com,

causing Google to lose market share to its main Chinese

competitor, Baidu. By 2005, Baidu had gained about 50 %

market share while Google’s had stagnated at less than

30 % (Thompson 2006). Google’s executives were torn

about how to respond given the government’s Internet

censorship policies. Ultimately, they decided that if they

wanted to remain competitive in China, they would have to

launch a locally hosted search engine service, Google.cn,

which meant complying with Chinese censorship guide-

lines. Google’s executives were also driven by the desire to

expand access to information. In their words, ‘[f]iltering

our search results clearly compromises our mission. Failing

to offer Google search at all to a fifth of the world’s pop-

ulation, however, does so far more severely’.

In January 2006, the company established search engine

servers in China. While agreeing to abide by the censorship

requirements, they decided not to offer certain services,

such as Gmail and Blogger so as to protect their users’

privacy and prevent having to share their users’ personal

information with the government. In addition to the locally

hosted Google.cn, they would retain the uncensored Go-

ogle.com with Chinese-language characters. Lastly, when a

search was subject to censorship, they would notify users

that results had been removed in compliance with Chinese

regulations (McLaughlin 2006; Thompson 2006). The

Google Blog called this move ‘a hard compromise’, which

suggests that company executives felt something of

importance was sacrificed in their actions (McLaughlin

2006). 2

2 In January 2010, Google again surprised the world by announcing

that it was considering pulling its search engine operations out of

China after it had been targeted by a highly sophisticated cyber-attack

thought to have originated from within the country. In the same

announcement, David Drummond, the company’s Chief Legal

Officer, also mentioned Google’s growing concerns with the Chinese

government’s increasing restrictions on freedom of speech and

information (Drummond 2010). According to news reports, at least

one of Google’s founders, Sergey Brin, argued for ceasing Google’s

operations in China due to what he described as the ‘earmarks of

totalitarianism’ in the government’s censorship and surveillance of

162 R. Monge

123

One Possibility: Moral Compromise and Irresolvable

Moral Conflicts

One way to understand the decision facing Google’s managers

would be to invoke the idea of a genuine moral dilemma or

irresolvable conflict. 3 A genuine dilemma is a case in which a

moral agent is, in fact, required to do each of two or more

courses of actions, but cannot do them both or all (Gowans

1987; McConnell 2010; Sinnott-Armstrong 1988). 4 Taken

together, the following three propositions express the most

general form of a moral dilemma (Williams 1965, p. 118):

(1) I ought to do A.

(2) I ought to do B.

(3) I cannot do both A and B.

In such cases, a moral actor faces a conflict between two

moral obligations or values for which there is no easy

resolution because neither obligation (or value) cleanly

overrides the other. Instead, when facing this type of

conflict, even when choosing the best course of action all-

things-considered, one has nevertheless infringed upon or

violated the unmet obligation. Therefore, one is doomed to

commit a wrong despite doing what one ought. In the wake

of such a choice, one likely experiences feelings such as

guilt, violation, loss, remorse or regret, and these feelings

seem appropriate (Williams 1965). These feelings are

referred to as ‘moral residues’ or ‘moral remainders’. 5

Some thinkers have called attention to the experience of

these feelings and argued that their existence and apparent

appropriateness count as evidence for moral dilemmas.

Others have gone even further, arguing that these feelings

indicate that agents have residual obligations to act in ways

that adequately acknowledge the inevitable failure occa-

sioned by the dilemma, such as offering an apology or

explanation to those affected (Marcus 1980).

In developing his account of moral compromise in the

context of the decision facing Google’s leadership, Brenkert

invokes the literature on moral residues and dilemmas. 6 For

instance, he references the arguments of Stuart Hampshire,

Isaiah Berlin, Bernard Williams and Martin Benjamin

against theories of morality that do not admit moral dilem-

mas. Brenkert also endorses the idea of moral residues,

which are the basis of the phenomenological argument in

favour of moral dilemmas (2009, pp. 463–464). 7 Having

rejected non-dilemmatic theories of morality, Brenkert

argues that Google’s managers must engage in moral com-

promise, a result of situations in which ‘one cannot fulfill all

the values or principles upon which one operates (2009,

p. 463)’. As a result, one violates an important value or

principle no matter what one does. 8

To make his case, Brenkert points out that Google’s

managers face several competing responsibilities (2009,

pp. 466–467). He acknowledges the following duties that

make up one horn of the dilemma: the duty to develop

Google as a sustainable business; the duty to fulfill their

fiduciary duties to their shareholders; the duty to uphold the

laws of the countries in which it does business, although he

Grants that this duty may be overridden in instances of

significantly unjust laws; the duty to develop new jobs and

protect existing ones; the duty to protect Chinese

employees from danger if Google were to refuse to ade-

Footnote 2 continued

human rights activists. Brin claimed that increased government cen-

sorship of the Internet and interference with the company’s operations

reportedly made many Google executives increasingly uneasy with

the prospect with Google’s policy of self-censorship (Vascellaro

2010b). However, CEO Eric Schmidt had apparently pushed to

remain in China, in order to try to bring change over the long-term

(Vascellaro 2010a). 3 In the literature on dilemmas, these choices are interchangeably

referred to as ‘moral conflicts’, ‘irresolvable conflicts’, ‘unresolvable

conflicts’, ‘tragic conflicts’, ‘tragic choices’ and ‘(genuine) moral

dilemmas’. See, for instance, Hill’s (1996) discussion defence of

Kantian moral theory against the possibility of moral dilemmas. In it,

he refers to moral dilemmas, tragic conflicts, tragic choices and

unresolvable conflicts interchangeably. In the same collection of

essays, Mason (1996) refers to moral dilemmas and tragic conflicts

interchangeably, as do Dahl (1996), Gowans (1996) and McConnell

(1996). For the sake of clarity, henceforth, I will primarily use the

term ‘moral dilemmas’ or ‘dilemmas’ to refer to such choices. 4 McConnell words his definition in a way that allows for more than

two required courses of action: ‘the agent is required to do each of

two (or more) actions; the agent can do each of the actions; but the

agent cannot do both (or all) of the actions’ (McConnell 2010).

Sinnott-Armstrong points out that this simple definition allows for

dilemmas in which the agent ought not to do something, because we

can say that ‘the agent ought to adopt the alternative of not doing that

thing’ (1988, p. 5). For the purposes of this paper, I will abide by

these thinkers’ definition of moral dilemma.

5 In the literature on moral dilemmas, ‘moral residue’ and ‘moral

remainder’ are terms that are used interchangeably to refer to the

emotions experienced in the face of dilemmas. I will refer primarily to

‘moral residue’ or ‘residues’. 6 Brenkert distinguishes between two ways in which we can use the

word ‘moral compromise’. The first sense of has to do with

compromises that are the result of political negotiations on conten-

tious issues. While he does not rule out that Google and the Chinese

government engaged in this kind of moral compromise, this is not the

sense of compromise that interests him; rather, the sense of moral

compromise that he has in mind is the result of idea of irresolvable

moral conflicts (Brenkert 2009, pp. 462–463). 7 Brenkert argues that utilitarianism, Donaldson’s (1992) ‘Compat-

ibility Proviso’ and what Martin Benjamin calls the ‘Doctrine of

Moral Harmony’ (1990, p. 82) are deficient because it cannot account

for the moral residues that result from moral conflict (2009,

pp. 463–464). 8 We do not even need the terminology of ‘moral compromise’ in

order to understand Brenkert’s diagnosis of the problem. We might

instead say that Google’s managers faced a genuine moral dilemma,

forcing them to make a choice that involves inevitable wrongdoing.

Moral Conflicts and Managerial Action 163

123

quately censor its search results. 9

Lastly, as Brenkert

acknowledges, an important mission for Google is to

expand access to information (Thompson 2006). 10

According to Brenkert, these considerations all weigh

heavily in favour of entering the Chinese market and

abiding by the government’s censorship regime. 11

At the same time, Brenkert acknowledges there are also

important considerations weighing against entering the

Chinese market and the self-censorship 12

that such a move

would seem to necessitate, thereby forming the other horn

of the dilemma. Amongst them is that, in abiding by the

government’s censorship requirements, Google is engaging

in ‘obedient complicity’, which ‘[occurs] when a business

follows laws or regulations of a government to act in ways

that support its activities that intentionally and significantly

violate people’s human rights’ (Brenkert 2009, p. 459). In

this case, the human rights threatened by the censorship

requirements are the freedoms of information, expression

and speech. In addition, Brenkert cites Google’s informal

motto, ‘Don’t be evil!’, as another potential consideration

weighing against self-censorship, since acting according to

one’s values would seem to be important for reasons of

integrity. 13

On Brenkert’s account, Google is all-things-considered

justified in censoring its search results, although ‘in doing so,

they will have indeed morally compromised their values and

infringed on the human right to freedom of expression and

information’ (Brenkert 2009, p. 462). He also suggests that

Google has a responsibility to mitigate the harm caused by the

human rights infringement, for example, by disclosing filtered

search terms and naming those who have requested that it does

so (2009, pp. 470–472). Moreover, while Google’s self-cen-

sorship of search results is not morally required, he describes it

as ‘the best decision they can make, even if it is not the most

desirable situation one might imagine’ (2009, p. 462), because

either choice would lead to an infringement or violation of

important values or obligations. 14

This conclusion is noteworthy for a few reasons. Take, for

instance, Brenkert’s definition of obedient complicity,

which turns out to be a rights violation or infringement. As

Brenkert (2009, p. 459) himself admits, filtering the search

results in the same way, but through the company’s own

initiative and without the mandate of the state, ‘would not

violate human rights!’ Complicity typically refers to actions

that contribute, further or play a part in bringing about

another agent’s wrong. 15

In their decision to enter China,

9 Brenkert cites reports of police harassment, fines and imprisonment

of Chinese portal companies’ employees (2009, p. 467). I would point

out that this last duty is conditional upon the decision to set up

operations within China, so that this responsibility would not be

incumbent upon Google were it to decide not to operate in China in

the first place. 10

Also cited in (Brenkert 2009, p. 467). 11

Brenkert also speculates that Google is likely an important life

project for founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, as well as for other

Google employees. However, a life project might be conceived

differently depending on the person, such that it may weigh in favour

of self-censorship in one person’s mind while weighing against it in

another one. For this reason, I do not include this consideration in this

analysis. 12

Brenkert uses the term self-censorship to refer to what search

engines in China must do with regard to their search results, i.e. filter

results they believe the government would consider too dangerous or

controversial to be made available to the public. Amongst others,

George Brenkert and Thompson (2006) use self-censorship to

describe what Google and other search engine providers do to

comply with the censorship regime. A search for ‘self-censorship in

China’ turns up many stories of how the media in China and other

parties censor themselves so as not to run into trouble with the

government. I also use the term ‘self-censorship’ in this way.

The use of the term ‘self-censorship’ may be controversial,

because we generally tend to think of self-censorship as refraining

ourselves in a purely voluntary manner without reference to an

external authority, e.g. deciding against posting something on Twitter

or Facebook for fear of offending others. Nevertheless, the use of the

term self-censorship seems reasonable in this case, given the way in

which the censorship requirements are enacted by the Chinese

government. As Thompson points out, the government itself does not

do the censoring of the search results, nor do they provide a

comprehensive ‘blacklist’ of terms. Instead, they issue intentionally

vague guidelines and rely on the discretion of the search providers to

determine what ought to be censored. Thompson raises the possibility

that such a strategy likely results in more comprehensive censorship

than relying exclusively on direct censorship by the government.

13 ‘Don’t be evil!’ appears at the beginning and the end of the

company’s code of conduct (Google 2012a). An alternative version,

‘‘You can make money without doing evil,’’ appears in the ten

principles outlining their corporate philosophy (Google 2012b). 14

In making this point, Brenkert cites the following from Bernard

Williams: ‘[M]any people can recognize the thought that a certain

course of action is, indeed, the best thing to do on the whole in the

circumstances, but that doing it involves something wrong’ (Brenkert

2009, p. 19; Williams 1972, p. 93). 15

For instance, in describing what constitutes complicity, Gardner

(2007, p. 132) argues: ‘There is what I should do simpliciter, and then

there is what I should do by way of contribution to what you do. If I

fail in the first I am a principal. If I fail in the second I am an

accomplice’. Lepora and Goodin (2013, p. 6) make a similar

argument about complicity constituting causal contributions to

another agent’s wrongdoing: ‘Complicity […] necessarily involves committing an act that potentially contributes to the wrongdoing of

others in some causal way’. Wettstein (2012) goes further in writing

about corporate silence in the face of human rights violations

constituting complicity, even though the causal connection is not

immediately obvious.

Note that, under traditional conceptions of complicity, it makes

little difference whether Google is choosing to enter a country

voluntarily and comply with the censorship regime, or is giving the

government backdoor access to user data in the country in which they

are based and hold most of their operations. In both cases, Google is

complicit, because they are contributing to another agent’s wrong.

However, even if you define complicity in this general way, there is

still the distinction to be made regarding the permissibility of the act

and, separately, how one might assess the moral blameworthiness of

the complicit agent. On this general definition of complicity, one

might think that being complicit is pro tanto objectionable, so that the

claim that one is acting permissibly requires some defence.

164 R. Monge

123

they are complicit because they are furthering the wrong of

the Chinese government’s human rights violations.

However, on the definition of ‘obedient complicity’

Brenkert gives, Google is charged with contributing to the

government’s violation, which itself constitutes a human

rights violation. I will return to Brenkert’s characterization

of Google’s actions as obedient complicity in a later sec-

tion, but first I wish to explore the issue of moral com-

promise in more detail, as one of the main aims of

Brenkert’s paper is to persuade business ethicists to take

the idea of moral residues and moral compromise more

seriously. Two important questions arise from a close

examination of any account that attempts to explain

apparent conflicts between a manager’s occupational

responsibilities and her responsibilities qua ordinary moral

agent by invoking moral dilemmas. The first is whether

there are genuine dilemmas in the first place. Second, even

if were to Grant that moral dilemmas do exist, does the

nature of managerial responsibility give rise to an irre-

solvable moral conflict in Google’s case (and in other

relevantly similar business situations)? I turn to these

questions, respectively, in the following sections.

A. Genuine Moral Dilemmas?

The view that moral dilemmas are a feature of morality is

controversial in moral philosophy. For starters, there is

something puzzling about the implication of moral dilem-

mas; namely, that even if you have done something all-

things-considered justified, you may still have committed a

wrong. How can it be that a moral agent is justified in

committing a wrong?

The literature on moral dilemmas and remainders is

voluminous. My purpose is not to provide an exhaustive

review of the arguments for and against the existence of

dilemmas here. Instead, my aim is simply to respond to some

of the arguments from the proponents of dilemmas that

Brenkert invokes as a basis for his account of moral com-

promise and to outline some of the undesirable implications

of any theory of morality that includes dilemmas.

Consider first Bernard Williams’ argument, in which he

points to moral residues as evidence for the existence of

moral dilemmas. Standard ethical theories, namely utili-

tarianism and deontology, deal with the resolution of

apparent conflicts between two or more moral oughts by

‘[eliminating] from the scene the ought that is not acted

upon’ (Williams 1965, p. 113). If we assume standard

ethical theories are correct, it is irrational to agonize over

one’s choice, as long as one chooses the best or right course

of action. 16

Williams argues that standard ethical theories

do not pay due heed to feelings of regret or distress the

agent may have in resolving difficult moral choices. They

cannot accommodate the regrets agents have in the face of

certain difficult moral conflicts stemming from the belief

that the agent ‘has done something that he ought not to

have done, or not done something that he ought to have

done’, even if he did the best thing (1965, p. 111). Williams

concludes that mainstream ethical theories are mistaken.

However, as Foot (1983) points out, instead of arguing

for the existence of dilemmas, this argument assumes the

appropriateness of feelings associated with apparent

dilemma. Foot argues that the mere experience of regret,

guilt and so on cannot by itself tell us that the agent is

correct to feel that way. It cannot even tell us whether the

agent himself actually believes he has done something

wrong. For example, Foot cites feeling guilty over giving

away the belongings of someone who has recently passed

away and maintains it would be mistaken to say that

wrongdoing has taken place simply because one experi-

ences such feelings, even if those feelings seem appropriate

given the circumstances. The argument from regret and

other related feelings, according to Foot, does not dem-

onstrate that the agent has, in fact, done something wrong

despite doing the best thing.

Therefore, according to Foot, in order to argue for the

existence of genuine moral dilemmas, it is not enough for a

moral conflict to leave us with a sense of loss once we have

resolved it as best we can. Rather, we must gain clarity as

to what we feel badly about or regret. 17

Consider the fol-

lowing apparent moral conflict: on the one hand, we ought

to fulfill our promise to meet a friend and, and on the other

hand, we ought to help someone in need, say by driving

them to the hospital because they have been in an accident

(Foot 1983). Foot points out it seems appropriate to claim

that one ought to take the second person to the hospital,

even if it means breaking our promise to our friend. She

asks whether we regret the act of breaking the promise

because we believe we did something wrong or whether we

Footnote 15 continued

Furthermore, the extent to which the complicit agent is blameworthy

may differ, depending on the circumstances.

For these reasons, along with Lepora and Goodin (2013), I would

argue that there are more and less morally acceptable ways of being

complicit. This allows me to argue that the Google case may

constitute a case of permissible complicity.

16 To make this point, Williams uses the example of Agamemnon’s

tragic choice between his duties as commander-in-chief of the Greeks

and his role of father in the face of the goddess Artemis’ wrath against

his army (Williams 1965, p. 111). 17

I use the phrase ‘to regret or feel bad about’, because there is some

disagreement as to whether regret would even be appropriate in this

case. Foot herself argues that regret ought to be reserved for cases in

which we choose or consent to a course of action and subsequently

wish we had not. Thus, in cases of moral dilemma, so long as one is

convinced that one has done the right thing, regret is not the

appropriate term for one’s emotional reaction after the fact. See Foot,

‘Moral Dilemmas Revisited’, 185.

Moral Conflicts and Managerial Action 165

123

merely regret the consequence of not being able to fulfill

the promise, i.e. that our friend was inconvenienced. As she

points out, surely it is the latter. Imagine that your friend

had the same thing happen to him on his way to meet you,

so that the broken promise did not cause him any incon-

venience. In this case, there would be nothing for you to

regret.

Certainly, from the phenomenological point of view,

there is merit to the claim that something of value is sac-

rificed when making trade-offs between important values.

For instance, Brenkert writes about a mother who sacrifices

her career in order to dedicate herself more fully to her

family as an example of moral compromise (2009, p. 465).

However, even if we Grant that some important value has

been lost or sacrificed, it is unclear that this kind of conflict

between the goods of a career and family life underwrite

the kind of unavoidable wrongness Williams has in mind

and that the Google case is meant to represent. For

unavoidable wrongness to be applicable in this case, there

must be two (or more) oughts that cannot be overridden.

For instance, as Brenkert himself points out, we are likely

to think that the mother who gives up her career is going

beyond what morality demands from her, so it certainly is

not the case that she is under an obligation to quit her job in

order to more fully dedicate herself to her family. Fur-

thermore, there is no potential wrongdoing here with

respect to her career obligations, unless one believes that

women commit a wrong by abandoning their careers in

favour of their family, which would constitute an extreme

position. 18

In cases of permissible choice between two

goods, it seems strange to say that the moral actor is

engaging in wrongdoing, although we may concede—and

the agent herself may feel—that something of value has

been sacrificed or lost (Foot 2002).

Thus far, I have considered phenomenological argu-

ments in favour of moral dilemmas. At this point, I turn to

consider a more general problem for the view of morality

that accepts the existence of genuine dilemmas. 19

Recall

the most general form of a moral dilemma (Williams 1965,

p. 118):

(1) I ought to do A.

(2) I ought to do B.

(3) I cannot do both A and B.

Amongst others, Williams (1965, p. 118) and Donagan

(1984, pp. 296–297) have pointed out that the statements

above imply a contradiction, as long as one believes both

of the following two principles to be true:

‘Ought implies can’: If I am under an obligation to do

something, this implies that I can do it.

‘Agglomeration principle’ 20 : If I ought to do A and I

ought to do B, then I ought to do both A and B.

If one wants to argue in favour of the existence of moral

dilemmas, one needs to jettison either ‘ought implies can’

or agglomeration. For his part, Williams (1965) argues that

we should abandon agglomeration, while Walter Sinnott-

Armstrong (1988) has advanced arguments in favour of

abandoning both principles. However, as Donagan (1984)

points out, abandoning either principle would imply

sacrificing something foundational to our understanding

of morality. 21

B. Managerial Responsibility and Moral Dilemmas

In the light of the above discussion, there is good reason to

doubt the plausibility of moral theories that acknowledge

genuine moral dilemmas. However, let us assume for the

moment that I am mistaken and dilemmas exist. On

Brenkert’s account, fulfilling the managerial responsibili-

ties in the Google case involves the violation of others’

human rights. If managerial duties are to override the duty

not to violate human rights, we would need a highly

demanding account of managerial responsibility. There-

fore, for an argument based on moral dilemmas to work,

one needs a view of managerial responsibility that elevates

the manager’s duties so that they are at least as forceful as

the obligation not to infringe or violate others’ human

rights. Such a stringent view of managerial duties, how-

ever, is questionable. Why should we think that managerial

18 Of course, it is possible to take such a position. For instance, see

(Hirshman 2006). My objection to such a view is that it does not pay

due respect to women’s freedom to pursue what they deem to be a

meaningful life and denies that such a life can be found inside the

home. However, this is a separate debate that cannot be suitably

addressed in this context. For the time being, I can only appeal to the

intuition that the moral requirement that all women ought to work

outside the home is overly demanding and does not permit women

enough freedom to be masters (mistresses) of their own destinies. 19

For instance, in support of this view, Brenkert (2009, p. 464) cites

Isaiah Berlin. In ‘Political Ideas in the Twentieth Century’, Berlin

(1950) speaks specifically of the necessary trade-off between

individual freedom and the guarantee of a basic minimum in the

political realm, and, as is clear from ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’, he

believes that the sacrifice of one value to another can also happen in

the personal sphere: ‘If, as I believe, the ends of men are many, and

not all of them are in principle compatible with each other, then the

Footnote 19 continued

possibility of conflict—and of tragedy—can never wholly be elimi-

nated from human life, either personal or social. The necessity of

choosing between absolute claims is then an inescapable character-

istic of the human condition’ (1969, p. 169). 20

The term ‘agglomeration principle’ first appears Williams (1965,

p. 118). 21

Vranas (2007) has offered a thorough defence of ‘ought implies

can’, and Donagan (1984) has offered a way of understanding

rationalist systems of morality in a way that makes it possible for

opponents of moral dilemmas retain the agglomeration principle.

166 R. Monge

123

duties actually compel the manager to do wrong in order to

ensure their fulfillment?

In response, one might object that I am not adequately

recognizing the importance of the property rights implicit

in the demanding kind of account of managerial responsi-

bility that I have so far dismissed. If one endorses Milton

Friedman’s (1970) account of managerial responsibility,

then managers have an occupational responsibility to

respect their employers’ (i.e. shareholders’) wishes, which

will generally be to maximize corporate profits. Refusing to

establish search engine operations in China puts share-

holder value at risk in the long run. Therefore, if one takes

seriously the occupational duty of managers to maximize

the profits of the firm, then perhaps the decision yields a

genuine dilemma, assuming dilemmas exist. 22

There are a two ways to reply to this line of argument.

One would be to challenge the notion that the shareholders

have property rights of ownership giving them rightful

control over what managers ought to do. To do so, one

might invoke Stout’s (2002, 2012) attack on the notion that

shareholders are the owners of the corporation. For

instance, she attacks this notion by distinguishing between

ownership of the corporation and ownership of shares of

stock. Whereas shareholders hold shares of stock, the

corporation owns itself (Stout 2012, p. 37). Owning shares

of stock merely means that shareholders have a contractual

relationship with the corporation, not unlike other stake-

holders such as debtholders and employees. This contrac-

tual relationship does not amount to ownership of the

corporation. 23

Stout also presents evidence that corporate

law does not recognize shareholder rights to control man-

agers’ behaviour. For instance, shareholders’ rights to sue

for breaches of fiduciary duty are significantly limited by

the business judgment rule. Their voting rights are also

quite restrictive (Stout 2012, pp. 42–43). Her arguments

call into doubt the idea that shareholders’ property rights

imply the kind of exceedingly demanding duty to advance

shareholder’s interests—even at the cost of human rights

violations—necessary to generate a moral dilemma.

A second reply would be to Grant that shareholders own

the corporation and there is a duty on the part of managers

to pursue profits, but to push back on the idea that such a

duty entails that managers must pursue all means practi-

cally possible to fulfill them, as opposed as all means

practically and morally possible. To understand this argu-

ment, consider the case of promises. The making of a

promise to someone is widely thought to generate a binding

and overriding reason to do something. However, this fact

alone does not mean that there is no such thing as justified

promise-breaking. Recall Foot’s example about breaking

the promise to one’s friend in order to drive an accident

victim to the hospital. This shows we can be justified in

breaking a promise when there are more urgent matters to

which we must attend.

To frame the Google case in terms of a dilemma

between human rights and managerial responsibilities is to

hold that the duty ‘do not fail in one’s managerial duties’ is

without exception, in that failing to live according to the

precept constitutes a wrongdoing, no matter the circum-

stances. However, if it is wrong to say that promises ought

to be kept no matter what one has to do to keep them (e.g.

drive an accident victim to the hospital), then it is equally

wrong to say that managerial duties ought to be fulfilled no

matter what other moral precepts one has to ignore (e.g.

respect others’ human rights). In our common sense

understanding of promises, if we reasonably acknowledge

there are moral limits a promise-keeper ought to respect to

make good on his word, then likewise we can acknowledge

there are moral limits managers ought to respect in ful-

filling their occupational duties. Therefore, occupational

responsibilities do not compel managers to engage in

wrongdoing. Managers cannot be said to have failed in

their duties if they do not pursue wrongful means in order

to fulfil them. Otherwise, it would seem there are no real

limits to managerial responsibilities.

22 Although he does not invoke Friedman, Brenkert does cite the

fiduciary duties of managers to shareholders (2009, p. 467) when

noting the competitive pressures facing Google (2009, p. 466). He

also points out that, given these competitive pressures, the failure to

make the investment in mainland China could be quite detrimental to

shareholders in the long run, and that Google has duties stemming

from the law, morality and economic theory to continue further its

business interests (2009, p. 466). However, for a competitive context

to generate the conditions necessary for moral compromise, mana-

gerial responsibilities would have to be highly demanding, binding

managers to commit wrongs in order to fulfill them. Other than citing

competitive pressures, Brenkert does not propose an argument for

thinking that managerial responsibility is as demanding his account of

moral compromise requires it to be. However, one possible way to

buttress his argument would be to invoke a highly demanding account

of property rights, such as Milton Friedman’s. I am grateful to an

anonymous reviewer for pointing out this possibility. 23

Specifically, Stout invokes Fischer Black and Myron Scholes work

on pricing options, which indicates that it does not make anymore

sense to ‘say the debtholder has purchased the right to the

corporation’s future profits from the corporation while also selling a

call option […] to the shareholders, as say the shareholders purchased the right to the corporation’s profits from the company but have also

bought a put option […] from the debtholders’ (Stout 2012, p. 38). She also argues against the idea that shareholders are residual

claimants, pointing out that there are fundamental differences

between what she calls living and dead corporations, the latter being

Footnote 23 continued

corporations going through the bankruptcy proceedings in which

shareholders are treated as residual claimants. Under normal cir-

cumstances, i.e. in living companies, shareholders are not residual

claimants and are, therefore, not entitled to getting funds out of a

company unless the board of directors decides to pay out a dividend

(Stout 2012, pp. 39–40).

Moral Conflicts and Managerial Action 167

123

In the Google case, if what is really at stake is the choice

between the duty to secure the long-term survival of the

company (and all the duties that depend on the firm’s long-

term survival) and a human rights violation, the claim that

Google is all-things-considered permitted to violate human

rights is wrongheaded. As long as one believes that the duty

not to infringe human rights is grave and difficult to compete

with, making such a recommendation entails an implausibly

demanding account of managerial responsibility.

C. The Corporation as a Political Actor: One Source

of Managerial Dilemmas

Even if one endorses moral dilemmas in the abstract, there is

another reason to doubt that the nature of managerial

responsibility gives rise to moral dilemmas. In order to

understand this argument, first it is important to note that the

possibility of dilemmas is frequently raised in the context of

the political realm. For instance, Berlin (1969) writes about the

tension between negative and positive liberty in the public

sphere. Consider also how widespread talk of ticking time

bomb scenarios has been, both in popular culture and in

political philosophy. This should not be a surprise, since we

believe politicians bear a direct responsibility for the public

good, and that responsibility may conflict with the require-

ments of private morality, the latter being roughly equivalent

to what is also called ordinary or common morality. Theorists

point to two key differences between public and private

morality. One is that we expect public officials to act with a

greater degreeofimpartiality than we would an ordinary moral

agent or private individual (Nagel 1978, p. 84). Another is that,

as the conflict between consequentialist considerations and

deontic constraints in the ticking time bomb scenario reflects,

public morality seems to be characterized by a greater

emphasis on consequences (Nagel 1978; Scanlon 1978).

Recently, there have been calls in business ethics to

view corporations as political actors (e.g. Néron 2010;

Scherer and Palazzo 2011; Wettstein 2009). Accordingly,

if corporations can be said to have political responsibilities,

then perhaps managers could be faced with dilemmas, just

as politicians are. One might argue that managerial

responsibility is more like the kind of public morality

associated with our governmental institutions, which would

make managers political or quasi-political actors. If one

wants to argue for the possibility of moral dilemmas due to

the nature of business and managerial responsibility, this

might seem like a promising starting point.

In response to this argument, even if corporations are

governed by a public or quasi-public morality, this by itself

does not guarantee that managerial responsibility will give

rise to moral dilemmas. In the first place, many of the calls

for the politicization of corporations have been character-

ized by the demand that corporations play a greater role in

securing individual rights, not to override them in the hope

of securing the economic viability of the firm. 24

Therefore,

the motivations for promoting corporate political respon-

sibility cut against the argument that managers ought to

commit wrongs in the name of their managerial responsi-

bility and long-term interests of the firm. As such, there is

reason to doubt that the strategy of politicizing the corpo-

ration would underwrite the existence of moral dilemmas

in a way that would make it permissible for managers to

commit rights violations. 25

Clarifying the Nature of Complicity

Thus far, I have argued that we should not understand

Google’s decision as a moral dilemma, given the various

problems associated with the view that genuine dilemmas

exist. I have also argued that even if dilemmas were gen-

uine, it would be mistaken to invoke them in order to

understand cases such as this one. Nonetheless, it may be

that Google is, in fact, permitted to engage in self-cen-

sorship. I argue this is not because Google faces a moral

dilemma, but because we should reject Brenkert’s charac-

terization of Google’s complicity. In contrast to Brenkert, I

argue that Google’s is not engaging in human rights vio-

lations or infringements, even though Google’s actions

may further those violations or infringements.

24 A good example of this would be (Wettstein 2009). Additionally,

see Scherer and Palazzo (2011) for a review of the literature regarding

political conceptions of corporate responsibility. 25

Leaving aside the motivations of those who would politicize the

corporation, it is possible that politicization of the corporation opens

the door to managerial dilemmas simply by making managers

answerable to the demands of public morality. However, this is true

only if the corporation is the right kind of political institution. Recall

the two key differences between public and private morality. The first

is that public officials are expected to act with more impartiality than

private actors. Even if we do not go as far as Milton Friedman in

eschewing social responsibilities for managers, we certainly do not

see managers responsible first and foremost for the public good.

When we do ascribe responsibility for the public good to managers, it

is not clear that we do so in the same way as for politicians. For

example, generally we do not see managers as responsible for

promoting our collective interests with the same emphasis on

impartiality. The fact that we talk about the importance of respecting,

advancing and balancing stakeholders’ interests is itself an implicit

rejection of the impartiality we expect from politicians or public

officials more generally. After all, political impartiality in pursuit of

the public good would manifestly disallow the stakeholder approach

to management—to say nothing of shareholder primacy—because it

is a species of favouritism, giving greater weight to certain parties’

interests over others. The second key difference between public and

private morality is that public morality emphasizes the importance of

consequences more than private morality. In contrast, the same is not

typically said about the corporation or business managers. Managers

are to make decisions with the interests of those who are designated as

stakeholders in mind, and not in terms of some kind of far-reaching

utilitarian or consequentialist calculus.

168 R. Monge

123

According to the United Nations Global Compact, ‘direct

complicity’ occurs ‘… when a company knowingly assists a state in violating human rights’ (qtd. in Brenkert 2009,

p. 459). 26

Brenkert argues this does not apply to Google,

because the Global Compact implies that direct complicity is

a human rights violation in itself by highlighting forced

relocation as an example. Filtering search results is different,

according to Brenkert, because all search results must be

filtered in some way or another. Consequently, he proposes

we understand Google as engaging in ‘obedient complicity’,

which ‘requires only that a business engage in actions

mandated by a state that significantly and knowingly violate

human rights—even though similar actions (in this case,

filtering) undertaken simply by the business itself would not

violate human rights!’ (2009, p. 459) Obedient complicity

involves obeying governmental laws or regulations that

infringe or violate human rights.

Brenkert is correct to point out the difference between

what Google is doing and forms of direct complicity such

as forced relocation. Nevertheless, there are three reasons

to reject the characterization of Google’s actions as obe-

dient complicity. First, it is a very serious wrongdoing to

violate or infringe upon someone else’s human rights. The

fact that the wrong is defined as a human rights infringe-

ment is what necessitates an implausibly demanding

account of managerial responsibilities giving rise to moral

compromise in this case, since only a very serious moral

consideration could be said to compete with a duty not to

infringe on others’ human rights. Second, if it is a very

serious wrong, there is reason to doubt that mitigating the

harm of the infringement after the fact creates the per-

missibility to engage in the wrongdoing in the first place as

Brenkert argues it does. Third, Brenkert concedes that the

relevant rights do not directly apply to private entities

responsible for disseminating important information, such

as newspapers or search engines. This is why, on Brenk-

ert’s view, Google has not been directly complicit in vio-

lating anyone’s freedoms of speech, information or

expression (Brenkert 2009, pp. 458–459). And yet, on his

view, the company is guilty of violating the human rights

to these freedoms, despite the fact that, if Google were to

do the same kind of filtering absent governmental regula-

tions, it would not be guilty of a rights violation (Brenkert

2009, pp. 459, 462).

Brenkert states that human rights are primarily the

responsibility of the government because: (1) it is gov-

ernments who are parties to the United Nations Universal

Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR) and to the Inter-

national Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCP);

and furthermore, (2) governments are the entities with the

power and authority to prevent the realization of the right

(Brenkert 2009, p. 455). Since it is the responsibility of the

Chinese government to ensure an environment where

human rights are respected, their efforts to restrict freedom

of speech, information and expression constitute human

rights violations. However, if the assurance of freedoms of

speech, information and expression is the primary respon-

sibility of the government, for Google to be guilty of

violating the human rights of the Chinese, it must in the

first place have the duty to promote the relevant rights.

Therefore, the mistake in Brenkert’s ‘obedient complicity’

is that it equates contributing to another party’s human

rights violation with being guilty of a human rights viola-

tion. For Google to be guilty in this way, the Chinese

search engine users must have claim-rights directly against

Google, which Brenkert denies in assigning human rights

primarily to the Chinese government.

There are those who would attach human rights obliga-

tions directly to corporations. Wesley Cragg, for example,

has argued that corporations have both indirect and direct

human rights obligations. Their direct obligations stem from

their power to institutionalize respect for human rights

(Cragg 2012, p. 22). This argument is echoed in Wettstein’s

(2009) argument that corporate power makes multinational

corporations quasi-governmental institutions with direct

human rights obligations including the duty to protect and

promote human rights. In proposing his Fair Share theory of

corporate responsibility for human rights, Santoro (2009)

also argues for the indirect and direct human rights obliga-

tions of corporations. Santoro contends that search engine

providers operating in China have the duty to promote the

realization of the relevant freedoms of the Chinese, although

he agrees with Brenkert that by entering China, ‘all of the

Internet companies to a greater or lesser extend have dirtied

their hands by directly and actively participating in some

form of censorship’ (2009, p. 95).

However, if one attaches human rights directly to cor-

porations because of their power to promote those rights, it

would imply that Chinese search users have a claim-right

directly against Google to provide uncensored or less

censored search results. More fundamentally, in order to

make the general argument that human rights attach

directly to corporations, we would have to give corpora-

tions even more power than they currently enjoy. As

26 This is one of the two ways of defining ‘direct complicity’. The

other is that direct complicity occurs ‘when a company provides

goods or services that it knows will be used to carry out the abuse’

(UN Global Compact 2011). However, even under this definition, the

distinction with Brenkert’s obedient complicity is valid, because

filtering search results in itself would not be a human rights violation

in itself as forced relocation would be. The UN Global Compact

proposes two features that define ‘corporate complicity’. The first is

that the company or an individual acting on its behalf acts or omits to

act in such a way ‘that ‘‘helps’’ (facilities, legitimizes, assists,

encourages, etc.) another […] to carry out a human rights abuse’. The second is that complicit agent does so with the knowledge that the

contributory ‘act or omission could provide such help’.

Moral Conflicts and Managerial Action 169

123

Patricia Werhane (2012) points out in her review of

Wettstein’s (2009) work, if one is already concerned about

the alarming amount of corporate influence over political

matters, one ought to try to curb their political power,

instead of expanding it.

At this point, it will help to turn to the Guiding Prin-

ciples on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the

United Nations ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’ Framework

(the Principles), proposed by John Ruggie and endorsed in

2011 by the UN Human Rights Council (United Nations

Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights 2011).

This framework seeks to clarify the nature of corporate

human rights responsibilities without making businesses

directly responsible. The Principles define non-legal com-

plicity as occurring ‘when a business enterprise contributes

to, or is seen as contributing to, adverse human rights

impacts caused by other parties’ (Ruggie 2011, p. 17). The

document speaks to the obligation of businesses to respect

human rights, which entails: (1) publicly committing to

respect for human rights; (2) engaging in human rights due

diligence 27 ; and, (3) engaging in remediation when nega-

tive impacts have occurred. In situations where local laws

and human rights requirements conflict, businesses should

strive to respect the human rights requirements and to ‘treat

the risk of causing or contributing to gross human rights

abuses as a legal compliance issue’ (Ruggie 2011, p. 21).

In the case at hand, it is not clear what the principles

imply beyond needing to conduct human rights due dili-

gence and to have a corporate policy statement. Google is

faced with a conflict between human rights requirements

and local laws, but I would not consider the nature of

Google’s decision to engage in self-censorship as contrib-

uting to or causing a gross abuse, even though their actions

do have negative human rights impacts.

I do not mean to imply that managers can do whatever

they wish in cases such as this. Rather, I wish to recast the

nature of the problem in terms of furthering another party’s

wrongs in institutional contexts that make it difficult for us

to avoid doing so. I propose we ask the question whether

there are cases in which managers can permissibly further

another’s wrongdoing. In doing so, I hope to avoid the

problems outlined above with defining complicity in terms

of responsibility for human rights violations.

Intentions and Conditions for Permissible Complicity

In order to explore whether there is any such thing as per-

missible complicity, it is helpful to re-examine the nature of

the managerial decision in the Google case. Consider the

differences between the intentions and plans of the two

parties in this case whose actions make censorship possible.

The government’s intention, as stated previously, is to

restrict its citizens’ freedom of information, expression and

speech. The government carries this out by preventing

information providers, like Google, from disseminating

sensitive political information to its citizens. 28

In contrast, given what we know from Google’s blog

entries and news reports, the intentions of its managers

could be understood in starkly different terms. One could

make the argument that Google’s aim is to provide more

and better quality information to Chinese citizens and to

change the political environment in China over the long

run. For instance, co-founder Sergey Brin has spoken

publicly about how difficult it was for him to come to terms

with Google’s compliance with censorship, given his

experience living in the Soviet Union as a young boy

(Enlightenment man 2008). 29

At the time that the decision

to enter China was announced, the company blog evi-

denced a good deal of hand-wringing amongst the execu-

tives. Their blog entries made it very clear that a big

motivation for their entry into the Chinese market was to

try to improve the flow of information over the long run.

The company also declined to offer certain services that

might compromise the safety of their users, such as Blog-

ger or Gmail (McLaughlin 2006).

If I am correct about Google’s intentions and goals being

starkly different from, or even opposed to, those of the

Chinese government, then perhaps their intentions offer a

possibility for permissible complicity in difficult institu-

tional environments. Whereas Brenkert’s account casts

27 Due diligence entails: ‘assessing actual and potential human rights

impacts, integrating and acting upon the findings, tracking responses,

and communicating how impacts are addressed’ (Ruggie 2011, p. 16).

28 One might point out that the Chinese government could claim that

they do not harbour the intention to directly infringe or violate their

citizens’ human rights, but that such infringements are necessary so as

to achieve other laudable goals, such as economic growth and

political stability. However, such an objection cannot be taken

seriously if one holds the view of human rights as something

inviolable. The claim of human rights entails a claim on behalf of the

rights-bearer to be treated in certain ways by the bearer of the

correlated duty, regardless of what other goal the duty bearer is trying

to achieve. Therefore, there are certain means that the duty bearer

cannot pursue, even for the purpose of realizing something praise-

worthy. In this case, it is the state that bears the responsibility to

respect and secure certain fundamental rights and freedoms. There-

fore, in enforcing a censorship regime, the state is failing to live up to

its responsibilities to act appropriately towards its citizens. In other

words, even if we take the claim that rights are being violated in the

pursuit of other laudable goals, such as political stability or economic

wealth, the claim of human rights entails that there are certain means

of pursuing those goals that are impermissible; namely, human rights

violations. 29

On a related note, when it became obvious to Google’s executives

that the censorship regime was becoming more restrictive, it was Brin

who pushed for the company to exit China’s search engine business

(Vascellaro 2010a, b).

170 R. Monge

123

obedient complicity as a human rights violation, I propose

that we think of institutionally driven complicity in terms of

an actor being pressured to play a part in another agent’s

failure to live up to their responsibilities. Examining an

agents’ contributory acts in light of intentions creates the

possibility of conditionally permissible complicity in a way

that a human rights violation cannot, since the latter seems to

entail an intention to do evil, in contrast to a contribution to

someone else’s moral failure, which need not entail such an

aim. It also escapes the problems accompanying any view of

morality that presupposes genuine moral dilemmas.

Recasting the case in this way Grants that corporations

such as Google are not the primary party responsible for

promoting human rights. Instead, I would argue it is suf-

ficient to recognize the notion in common sense morality

that it is pro tanto objectionable to aide someone in car-

rying out a wrong, which is what happens when managers

implement Internet search filters that further the govern-

ment’s aim to stifle citizens’ freedoms of expression,

speech and information. In order to argue that managers’

part in this is permissible, one must provide additional

information about the nature of the action. For example,

one might argue managers intend to minimize their com-

plicity and to work to ameliorate the kinds of conditions

leading to the complicity in the first place. Depending on

the facts at hand, such an argument might open the pos-

sibility of permissibility.

This kind of thinking is not altogether dissimilar to the

pattern of thinking behind the doctrine of double effect

(DDE), which states that acts pursued for the sake of some

good end may be permissible even if they cause harm as a

side effect, as long as one merely foresees the harm without

intending it. In Thomas Aquinas’ classic formulation, DDE

also contains a proportionality condition: ‘And yet, though

proceeding from a good intention, an act may be rendered

unlawful, if it be out of proportion to the end. Wherefore if

a man, in self-defense, uses more than necessary violence,

it will be unlawful: whereas if he repel force with moder-

ation his defense will be lawful’ (Summa Theologiae, II–II,

64, 7). If DDE is correct in highlighting the importance of

an agent’s intentions, there may be other ways in intentions

create the possibility of permissibility of a course of action.

If an actor’s intentions offer the possibility of permis-

sibility when managers find themselves under institutional

pressures to further a government’s questionable aims,

what conditions might we impose on those managers? I

propose two necessary conditions: one stipulates conditions

on the intention itself, and the other fulfills an expressive

function towards the company’s constituents. I do not

claim that these two conditions are sufficient in all cases in

which companies further to another party’s failure.

The first condition is that the actor must hold and act on

a certain intention, namely, to work to minimize his or her

complicity in another’s moral failure, which in many cases

will imply a commitment to improve the conditions that

necessitate complicity in the first place. It is not enough for

managers of search engine companies to enter China with

the intention of maximizing profits, creating jobs or

securing the long-term survival of the firm. The managers

must have the aim to minimize their complicity and take

steps to do so. Since in many contexts, this will include

taking steps over time to improve the conditions that

necessitate complicity, Google’s managers must both

intentionally take steps to minimize the extent to which

they further the aims of the Chinese government and work

towards a fuller eventual realization of freedom of

expression, speech and information for Chinese citizens.

The second condition is that managers must find a way

to express their intention to bring about a more just envi-

ronment over the long run. The second condition fulfills an

expressive function, sending the message to the company’s

constituents that it recognizes the importance of the inter-

ests at stake in the complicity in another agent’s failure. 30

Expressing the intention to minimize complicity shows that

the company is not only aware of those important interests,

but also that it respects its constituents by being open and

transparent with them. For instance, they may seek to

reassure their constituents by communicating their inten-

tions. In the Google case, this generates a duty for man-

agers to communicate to the company’s constituents that

they recognize the importance of the interests that are

being harmed by the government’s censorship regime.

Such a condition might imply a duty to communicate and

work with NGOs and other organizations that monitor

human rights issues in China.

Against such a view, one might argue that intentions

should not matter at all when considering the permissibility

of an action. Consider two companies doing business in

China. The managers of one company have the intention to

minimize its complicity in the government’s failure to live

up to its human rights responsibilities, whereas the other’s

managers do not. Despite this difference in their intentions,

both sets of managers may take steps that minimize their

complicity. The managers without the intentions required

by my account do it for other reasons, e.g. to avoid bad

publicity and guard the long-term reputation of their firm.

If they are both engaging in the same actions, why should

we care whether one set of managers has the required

intentions, whereas the other does not?

There are two responses to this objection. The first is to

challenge whether managers without the stipulated

30 This condition shares some similarities with Wettstein’s (2012)

argument corporations have a positive duty to speak out against

human rights violations. However, Wettstein’s framework relies on

the politicization of the firm, whereas mine does not.

Moral Conflicts and Managerial Action 171

123

intentions are actually likely to engage in the actions that

minimize complicity. There may be some overlap between

the actions of the two groups of managers, but it is unlikely

that managers without the requisite intentions would

undertake the same scope of initiatives as those managers

that do intend to minimize complicity. Furthermore, if they

do not have the intention to minimize complicity, it seems

unlikely they would fulfill the second condition, which is to

express said intention to appropriate constituents.

A second possible response is to invoke considerations

of integrity and moral character. A manager who harbours

the intention to minimize complicity can be said to have

the requisite moral insight to recognize the important

interests that are at stake in the situation, e.g. she recog-

nizes the importance of the rights and freedoms at stake in

the Google case. As a result, it seems that the manager who

intentionally acts to minimize complicity has cultivated a

certain character that is aware of the relevant important

moral interests and aims to respect them, whereas the

manager whose actions are not guided by such an intention

has failed to cultivate a good moral character.

Clarifications

In this section, I wish to address three questions that my

account might raise. The first is whether there is any sig-

nificant difference between Brenkert’s condition that

companies in situations like Google’s have a duty to mit-

igate harm and the condition that companies have a duty to

minimize their complicity in another’s failure to fulfill their

responsibilities. The second question has to do with whe-

ther my account is simply an application of the doctrine of

double effect. The third is the objection that my account is

too permissive with respect to companies’ contributions to

others’ failures to live up to their responsibilities.

With respect to the first issue, it may be true that, in the

context of the Google case, the requirements of my account

overlap with the requirements of Brenkert’s conditional

duty to mitigate the harm stemming from the human rights

infringement. Under his account, Google ought to under-

take some or all of the following initiatives, some of which

they, in fact, undertook: notify users of the censorship of

search results; provide the public with a list of censored

terms; name those who have demanded that the censorship

take place; work with other companies to draft a common

code of conduct governing best practices; provide cir-

cumventing information; continue to monitor the local

situation; leave Google.com with Chinese characters, run

by external servers, so that users can compare its search

results to those available on Google.cn.

Despite the similarity between Brenkert’s duty to miti-

gate the harm and the two conditions I lay out above, there

are essential differences. The first is that actions a com-

pany’s managers undertake to minimize complicity are not

necessarily the same as those they undertake with the

purpose of mitigating the harm from a human rights

infringement. One might imagine that actions undertaken

to mitigate harm would also minimize complicity, but

actions undertaken to minimize complicity may not be

sufficient to mitigate the harm from a true human rights

violation, because it is such a serious wrong. Furthermore,

as a way of minimizing complicity, company managers

may be expected to work to address the conditions that

make the complicity necessary in the first place, which is

not the same as mitigating harm. Mitigating a moral harm

requires managers to somehow lessen their wrongdoing,

whereas addressing the conditions that give rise to com-

plicity aim at solving the root causes of the problem.

In addition, since the second condition in my account

requires managers to pursue activities that express their

intention to minimize their complicity, it also means they

ought to communicate and work with constituents who

may not be directly impacted by the company’s operations

in the problematic environment. It is unclear that com-

municating effectively and working with NGOs would

satisfactorily mitigate the harm from a human rights

infringement. Therefore, doing so might not be a necessary

feature of the requirement to mitigate harms in environ-

ments such as China on Brenkert’s account.

A second question that may arise is whether my account

of permissible complicity is actually different from DDE.

Recall the aforementioned definition of DDE: acts that are

pursued for the sake of some good end may be permissible

even if they cause harm as a side effect, as long as one does

not intend that harm, but merely foresees it. In the tradi-

tional version of DDE, the agent must not have the inten-

tion to harm (i.e. to produce the bad side effect) in order for

the action to be considered permissible. 31 In other words, in

order for killing in self-defence to be rendered permissible,

one must intend to save one’s own life and not intend to

murder the assailant.

There are two reasons why the account proposed here

does not constitute a straightforward or simple application

of DDE. The first reason is that my account requires the

manager to act according to a more narrowly defined

intention; in other words, the manager must do more than

31 More recently, in discussions of just war theory, Walzer (2006)

and Luban (2011) have argued for a revised, stricter version of the

DDE that requires soldiers act with the intention not to harm civilians,

as opposed to merely not having the intention to harm them. This

more recent version of DDE goes beyond requiring an absence of the

intention to harm. Instead, it requires an intention not to harm, even if

this means that the agent must take on additional risk to himself. This

account of DDE would seem to yield the conclusion that Internet

search providers are not permitted to establish operations in China at

all.

172 R. Monge

123

not intend harm. She must have the right kind of intention;

namely, to minimize the company’s complicity in

another’s failure to live up to their responsibilities. This

required intention is more complex than what is stipulated

by DDE. Furthermore, in applying DDE, the analysis of

intention focuses on one actor and how their action causes

harm. In contrast, my account consciously incorporates the

backdrop of institutional forces that encourage or push the

agent to act in a way that contributes to another entity’s

moral failures.

This brings me to the second difference between my

account and DDE. If DDE only requires that agents not

have the intention to harm, then companies like Microsoft

and Yahoo!, who simply want to protect their market

position or fulfill other desirable business objectives, might

also be justified in engaging in self-censorship in China. By

requiring that managers intend to minimize complicity over

time, my account avoids the conclusion that any good aim

underwrites a justification for contributing to any moral

wrongdoing or failure as long as one does not intend the

wrongdoing itself. Thus, the first condition captures the

intuition that there is a moral difference between an actor

who contributes to another’s failure while intentionally

minimizing their complicity and another who contributes to

another’s wrongdoing without taking such steps. 32

Lastly, one might raise an objection to the two condi-

tions in the account. Specifically, one might object that the

conditions allow for too much or yield permissibility too

easily. Consider, for instance, a country that sets out to

torture its enemies and seeks to purchase instruments of

torture from a company. Imagine that the company’s

managers spoke out against the country’s torture policies,

expressing their concern over the treatment of those being

detained and tortured. They also minimized their com-

plicity by working to develop instruments that made the

torture more efficient or less painful than their competitors.

Wouldn’t my account lead one to the conclusion that the

company’s managers were engaging in permissible com-

plicity? This conclusion is horrific, so it may be objected

that my account must be setting the bar too low. 33

This is perhaps the most significant challenge for my

account, but there are three possible responses to it. The

first is that the account presents two necessary conditions

for determining permissible complicity. As such, it does

not by itself imply permissibility in the case of the com-

pany selling instruments of torture. However, to challenge

this response, one might point out that it is therefore

impossible to know if Google’s managers are off the hook

for their complicity in the Chinese government censorship

regime.

A second response would be to argue that it is possible

that, when confronted with one’s contributions to others’

failures to live up to their responsibilities, there are bad and

worse failures, so that the possibility for permissibility

might in part be a function of the failure in which one is

complicit. When considering the rights to freedom of

information, expression and speech and comparing it to the

right not to be tortured, it may be that violating the former

set of rights is bad, but that violating the latter right is much

worse. Therefore, one may be permissibly complicit in the

government’s violations of its citizens’ rights to freedom of

information, expression and speech, whereas it would be

impermissible to be complicit in violating the right not to

be tortured. Developing a fuller justification of these dis-

tinctions for the purpose of extending the account I have

proposed here represents an important area of future

research.

A third response to the challenge of the company selling

instruments of torture would be to challenge the idea that a

company can ever permissibly sell instruments of torture at

all, while pointing out that a company like Google can

make a myriad of legitimate decisions as to how to filter its

search results. In other words, one can plausibly argue that

selling instruments of torture could never be permissible,

32 In response to this application of the traditional formulation of

DDE to the Google case, one might object that I am ignoring the

proportionality condition that Aquinas outlines in his formulation of

DDE: ‘And yet, though proceeding from a good intention, an act may

be rendered unlawful, if it be out of proportion to the end. Wherefore

if a man, in self-defense, uses more than necessary violence, it will be

unlawful: whereas if he repel force with moderation his defense will

be lawful’ (Summa Theologiae, II–II, 64, 7). In other words, it might

be argued that an application that takes seriously the proportionality

condition proposed by Aquinas would, in fact, not enable just any

profit-making or business-enhancing activity at the expense of

contributing to the government’s human rights failures. As such,

my account might, in fact, come to the same conclusion as a faithful

application of DDE with the proper understanding of the proportion-

ality condition.

With respect to this point, I would argue that, even if my account

tracks DDE in this way for this case or any other similarly relevant

cases, the two differ as to the explanations that they each offer for

why a given case of complicity is or is not permissible. My account

would look to see if the manager was acting out of an intention to

minimize complicity and was expressing this intention to relevant

constituents. Someone applying DDE would look to verify that the

manager was not intending to harm and would balance the manager’s

good end with the harm brought about from the foreseen, but not

intended, side effect. In one sense, this point of difference between

the account proposed here and DDE responds to one of the criticisms

that has been levied against DDE by its critics; namely, that it may

pick out cases of permissible exceptions to certain moral rules, but it

does not capture or adequately explain what makes them exceptions

(Scanlon 2008). If one finds this criticism of DDE compelling, then

the advantage of my account over DDE is that it seeks to explain what

makes certain acts of complicity permissible in a way that is more

specific than DDE.

33 I would like to thank Alan Strudler for raising this objection using

this particular example. I would also like to thank an anonymous

reviewer for raising this objection more generally.

Moral Conflicts and Managerial Action 173

123

whereas search engine operations constitute a permissible

business venture.

Conclusion

The aim of this manuscript is to offer a way for managers

to successfully navigate situations in which their manage-

rial duties seem to conflict with ordinary moral precepts,

where such conflicts are driven by the institutional envi-

ronment. I have advanced an account for understanding

managerial responsibility in contexts where the company’s

activities may contribute to the host government’s failure

to live up to their responsibilities by working through the

Google case. In offering this account, I have sought to

counter the view that being successful in business requires

getting one’s hands dirty from time to time. The aim has

been to offer advice to managers on how to maintain their

integrity when operating in difficult institutional environ-

ments, while preserving the view that the correct theory of

morality is non-dilemmatic. In doing so, I have argued it is

not necessary to abandon the idea that there are morally

permissible plans of action available to managers operating

in non-ideal contexts, but preserving this idea requires

examining how managerial intentions and the expression

thereof can determine the permissibility of our actions. 34

Acknowledgment I would like to thank the following individuals for their feedback and support in the development of this article:

Nien-hê Hsieh, Vince West, Alan Strudler, Thomas Donaldson, Diana

Robertson, Philip Nichols, Waheed Hussain, Kenneth Goodpaster,

Pati Provinske, Daryl Koehn, Dawn Elm, and Katherina Glac.

References

Aquinas, T. (1920). Summa Theologiae. (Fathers of the Dominican

Province, Trans.) (2nd, Revised Ed.). Retrieved from http://

www.newadvent.org/summa/index.html.

Benjamin, M. (1990). Splitting the difference: Compromise and

integrity in ethics and politics. Lawrence, KS: University of

Kansas Press.

Berlin, I. (1950). Political ideas in the twentieth century. Foreign

Affairs, 28(3), 351–385. doi:10.2307/20030256.

Berlin, I. (1969). Two concepts of liberty. In Four essays on liberty

(pp. 118–172). New York: Oxford University Press.

Brenkert, G. (2009). Google, human rights, and moral compromise.

Journal of Business Ethics, 85(4), 453–478.

Cragg, W. (2012). Ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the corporate

responsibility to respect human rights: A critical look at the

justificatory foundations of the UN framework. Business Ethics

Quarterly, 22(1), 9–36. doi:10.5840/beq20122213.

Dahl, N. O. (1996). Morality, moral dilemmas, and moral requirements.

In H. E. Mason (Ed.), Morality, moral dilemmas, and moral

requirements (pp. 86–101). New York: Oxford University Press.

Donagan, A. (1984). Consistency in rationalist moral systems. The

Journal of Philosophy, 81(6), 291–309.

Donaldson, T. (1992). The ethics of international business. New

York; Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Drummond, D. (2010, January 12). A new approach to China. Official

Google Blog. Retrieved from http://googleblog.blogspot.com/

2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html.

Enlightenment man. (2008, December 4). The economist. Retrieved

from http://www.economist.com/node/12673407?story_id=

12673407.

Foot, P. (1983). Moral realism and moral dilemma. The Journal of

Philosophy, 80(7), 379–398.

Foot, P. (2002). Moral dilemmas revisited. Moral dilemmas: And

other topics in moral philosophy (pp. 175–188). New York:

Oxford University Press.

Friedman, M. (1970, September 13). The social responsibility of

business is to increase its profits. New York Times Magazine, p.

SM17.

Gardner, J. (2007). Complicity and causality. Criminal Law and

Philosophy, 1(2), 127–141.

Google. (2012a, June 5). Google Code of Conduct. Google, Inc.

Retrieved from http://investor.google.com/corporate/code-of-

conduct.html.

Google. (2012b, June 5). Ten things we know to be true. Google, Inc.

Retrieved from http://www.google.com/about/company/philoso

phy/.

Gowans, C. W. (1987). Introduction: The debate on moral dilemmas.

In C. W. Gowans (Ed.), Moral dilemmas (pp. 3–33). USA:

Oxford University Press.

Gowans, C. (1996). Moral theory, moral dilemmas, and moral

responsibility. In H. E. Mason (Ed.), Moral dilemmas and moral

theory (pp. 199–215). New York: Oxford University Press.

Hill, T. E. (1996). Moral dilemmas, gaps, and residues: A Kantian

perspective. In H. E. Mason (Ed.), Moral dilemmas and moral

theory (pp. 167–198). New York: Oxford University Press.

Hirshman, L. R. (2006). Get to work: A manifesto for women of the

world. New York: Penguin Group.

Lepora, C., & Goodin, R. E. (2013). On complicity and compromise.

Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Luban, D. J. (2011). Risk taking and force protection. SSRN eLibrary.

Retrieved from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_

id=1855263.

Marcus, R. B. (1980). Moral dilemmas and consistency. The Journal

of Philosophy, 77(3), 121–136.

Mason, H. E. (1996). Introduction. In H. E. Mason (Ed.), Moral

dilemmas and moral theory (pp. 3–9). New York: Oxford

University Press.

McConnell, T. (1996). Moral residue and dilemmas. In H. E. Mason

(Ed.), Moral dilemmas and moral theory (pp. 36–47). New York:

Oxford University Press.

McConnell, T. (2010). Moral dilemmas. In (E. N. Zalta, Ed.) The

Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Retrieved from http://plato.

stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/moral-dilemmas/.

McLaughlin, A. (2006, January 27). Google in China. Official Google

Blog. Retrieved from http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/01/

google-in-china.html.

Nagel, T. (1978). Ruthlessness in political life. Public and private

morality (pp. 75–91). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Néron, P.-Y. (2010). Business and the polis: What does it mean to see

corporations as political actors? Journal of Business Ethics,

94(3), 333–352. doi:10.1007/s10551-009-0266-y.

Ruggie, J. (2011). Guiding principles on business and human rights:

implementing the United Nations ‘‘protect, respect and remedy’’

34 This article has been adapted from the dissertation, ‘‘Managerial

Action in the Face of Moral Conflict: Role Responsibilities and Moral

Dilemmas’’ (2013). Available from ProQuest. Paper AAI3568064.

http://repository.upenn.edu/dissertations/AAI3568064.

174 R. Monge

123

framework (No. A/HRC/17/31). United Nations. Retrieved from

http://www.business-humanrights.org/media/documents/ruggie/

ruggie-guiding-principles-21-mar-2011.pdf.

Santoro, M. A. (2009). China 2020: How western business can-and

should-influence social and political change in the coming

decade. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Scanlon, T. M. (1978). Rights, goals, and fairness. Public and private

morality (pp. 93–111). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Scanlon, T. M. (2008). Moral dimensions: Permissibility, meaning,

blame. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University

Press.

Scherer, A. G., & Palazzo, G. (2011). The new political role of

business in a globalized world: A review of a new perspective on

CSR and its implications for the firm, governance, and democ-

racy. Journal of Management Studies, 48(4), 899–931. doi:10.

1111/j.1467-6486.2010.00950.x.

Sinnott-Armstrong, W. (1988). Moral dilemmas. New York: Basil

Blackwell.

Stout, L. (2002). Bad and not-so-bad arguments for shareholder

primacy. Southern California Law Review, 75, 1189–1210.

Stout, L. (2012). The shareholder value myth: How putting share-

holders first harms investors, corporations, and the public. San

Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Thompson, C. (2006, April 23). Google’s China problem (and

China’s Google Problem). The New York Times. Retrieved from

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/magazine/23google.html.

UN Global Compact. (2011). The ten principles. Retrieved from

http://www.unglobalcompact.org/index.html.

United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

(2011, June 16). New guiding principles on business and human

rights endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council. Press Release.

Retrieved from http://www.business-humanrights.org/media/

documents/ruggie/ruggie-guiding-principles-endorsed-16-jun-

2011.pdf.

Vascellaro, J. E. (2010a, January 14). A heated debate at the top. The

Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/

article/SB10001424052748704675104575001281662251848.

html.

Vascellaro, J. E. (2010b, March 24). Brin drove google to pull back in

China. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.

com/article/

SB10001424052748704266504575141064259998090.html.

Vranas, P. B. M. (2007). I ought, therefore I can. Philosophical

Studies, 136(2), 167–216. doi:10.1007/s11098-007-9071-6.

Walzer, M. (2006). Just and unjust wars: A moral argument with

historical illustrations (4th ed.). New York: Basic Books.

Werhane, P. H. (2012). Human rights and business. Business Ethics

Quarterly, 22(1), 193–198. doi:10.5840/beq201222111.

Wettstein, F. (2009). Multinational corporations and global justice:

Human rights obligations of a quasi-governmental institution.

Stanford, CA: Stanford Business Books.

Wettstein, F. (2012). Silence as complicity: Elements of a corporate

duty to speak out against the violation of human rights. Business

Ethics Quarterly, 22(1), 37–61.

Williams, B. (1965). Ethical consistency. Proceedings of the Aristo-

telian Society, (Supplement), 39, 103–124.

Williams, B. (1972). Morality: An introduction to ethics. New York:

Harper and Row.

Moral Conflicts and Managerial Action 175

123

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.