rse social responsibility, constructing ethical sense for development

8/8/2019 RSE Social Responsibility, Constructing Ethical Sense for Development

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S O C I A L R E S

C O N S T R U C T I N G

F O R D E V E L O P M

E D

2


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PROhumana founded in 1997 - is a non-prot Chilean DO-TANKthat reexively and critically promotes good practice to foster

sustainable and integral human development.

Its work focuses on the area of corporate (CSR) and citizen socialresponsibility through knowledge-research and creation;awareness-building of CSR and citizen social responsibility; thepromotion of contexts for encounter and dialogue among actorsrepresenting social diversity; the constitution and coordination ofcooperation networks; the development of methodologies toimplement and monitor CSR; and specialized consultancy services.

MISSIONThe PROhumana mission is to create knowledge that promotes aChilean culture of CSR and citizen responsibility based on aninclusive and pro-active citizenship (inclusive of individual persons,institutions and corporations); to create inclusive contexts fordialogue among actors representing social diversity; and to developspecic tri-sector policies.


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S o c i a l R e s p o n s i b i l i t y : C o n s t r u c t i n g e t h i c a l s e n s e o r d e v e l o p m e n t .

Given the success and evident contribution o this book, we have decided to publish a second edwith the Chilean Bicentenary celebrations. A 2010 committed with being responsible.

This publication is part o a reexive-practical project which PROhumana has been developing

in 1997. The objective o this book is to provide an ethical ramework to oster dialogue based

dialogue which acilitates and strengthens the implementation o a culture o citizen and corpor

oriented towards sustainable human development.

S O C I A L R E S P O N S I B I L I T Y :

D E V E L O P I N G E T H I C A L S E N S E F O R D E V E L


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S O C I A L R E S P O N S I B I L I T YI S A M A T R I X C O N C E P T T O P R O M O T E

A N E W C I T I Z E N E T H I C S


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Social Responsibility is a matrix concept to promote a new citizenship ethics, one that contributes

and sustainable development as well as a democracy with true opportunities or participation. A nuactors in Chile - or instance non-prot organizations, oundations, NGOs, corporations, municipal

ties, public agencies, proessional associations, and citizen movements - are using Social Responsib

ethical category that mobilizes and imbues with sense their social, cultural and citizen actions. We a

re where SR is perceived as a new way to practice citizenship and avor Development. What abou

capable to encourage a movement which avors good social practices and active citizen behavior

social cohesion and citizen participation, among other worthy causes? The specic purpose o th

is to make SR a mobilizing orce in our country, one that prompts convergence among dierent

prompts allegiance among parties working towards a airer society, and oers a new sense rom wh

vely engage with key aspects o the public agenda. Strictly-speaking the book is not an academic

but instead a document which oers ideas that we hope can promote conversations, dialogue, a

debate among citizens.


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S R I S T H E E X P R E S S I O N O F A N E T H I C A B O U T H E P U B L I C D O M A I N . I T I M P L I E S D I S C E R N I N G R

B A S E D O N O U R P E R S P E C T I V E S O F J U S T I C E

E Q U I T Y A N D D E M O C R A C Y .


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SR is the expression o an ethic about the public domain. It implies discerning reality on the

perspectives o justice, equity and democracy. To be socially-responsible implies imbuing our prac

ethical reason, that is, with a value judgment about what takes place in reality, which acts within us

orient practice. This rational aspect o SR must go in hand with an attitude that understands SR as

to behave according to specic virtues. We can go as ar as stating that, in our times, SR reers to v

behavior.


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S R I S , T H E R E F O R E , C O M M U N I C AT I O N A L :I T M U S T B E P R A C T I C E D W I T H O T H E R S ,

I N R E F E R E N C E T O O T H E R S , A N D I T I M P L I E

D E V E L O P I N G A N O T I O N O F U S .


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What contents are implied by SR? We must rst acknowledge that SR is an ethical appraisal; tha

grasping and living certain values. It is a way o acting that is consistent with values; a capacity o

organizations to understand their social condition and become participant in the construction

characterized by airness and solidarity. For this reason SR can be dened as sensitivity -in the

o sensing-with-the-other and o acting-in-accordance-with a-sense. For the same reason, SR

communicational: it must be practiced with others, it exists in reerence to others, and it implies

notion o us. For this very reason SR begins with a sensitive reason about the meaning o the p

and o the community.


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S R I S B O T H R E C I P R O C I T Y A N D A D R I V E T O B UA C O M M U N I T Y W H I C H I M B U E S I T S P E O P L E W I T H A

B E L O N G I N G , I D E N T I T Y , L I N K A G E A N D S O L I D A


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This construction o us comprises a domain that is constitutive o individuals. The basic existential

one o us is an us: it is not possible to live in isolation. SR is both reciprocity and a drive to build

which imbues its people with a sense o belonging, identity, linkage, and solidarity. It is correct to s

that SR must be understood as an ethical attitude oriented toward the construction o a society w

interests and with a common sense. For this reason it calls or transcending individual and corpora

order to recognize the public good and a valid oundation or the development o persons and so

common aims.


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S R I M P L I E S B O T H A L L I A N C E A N D D I S T R I B U T IJ U S T I C E A N D C O O P E R AT I O N . A S S U C H , S R I S A H U

E M E R G I N G F R O M T H E C U R R E N T S TAT E O F A F F

I N T H E W O R L D A N D I N O U R C O U N T R Y.


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SR transcends regulatory rameworks and touches on the deep realities o human existence: it is at t

a goal and a sensitivity - a kind o golden rule that condenses the principles o not harming, o

and o respecting others in the same way as each o us would want to be respected. This moral em

source o the goals o SR, which are solidarity and sharing. SR implies both alliance and redistributio

cooperation. As such, SR is a humanism emerging rom the current state o aairs in the world and i

In eect, SR cannot be just a discourse, a speculative philosophy, or an instrumental concept: i

reason or sense that integrates volition, desire, aective proximity, and commitment with the lie othis reason, SR is a compassionate virtue, one that is radically committed to addressing the suerin


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S R D E M A N D S C O M M I T M E N TI T C A L L S F O R A P A C T. I T C A N N O T B E

C O N C E I V E D A S A W E A K V I R T U E .


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From this perspective, to be socially-responsible implies a change o attitude, a reorienting o p

an adoption o a critical ramework regarding social reality, especially its institutional, economic

dimensions. SR should thus be expressed as a dynamism which transorms human realities,

recognized as an active principle. At this level, SR demands commitment, it calls or a pact. It cannot

as a weak virtue. As an ethical principle SR must encourage citizens to adopt social goals and agree

induce the kinds o changes in the public domain that make society a human project that is oriented

and justice. SR must in this sense be able to steer, to encourage and endow individual and colleco sense within society.


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S R I S N O T O N LY B E N E V O L E N C EB U T A L S O A N E T H I C A L D E M A N D


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It ollows that SR needs to be oriented towards agreements which commit citizens to develop a di

living and o sharing; or this reason it also needs to be expressed in the political and juridical dom

only a orm o benevolence but also an ethical demand that bonds, one that goes deep into what i

human: it queries the ways in which we live as individuals and collectivities.


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S R N E E D S T O B E A D E M A N D A N D N O TA C A L C U L AT I O N ; I T M U S T B E M O R E T H A N

A M E R E L Y B E N E V O L E N T A T T I T U D E .


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SR cannot become a trademark, a logo, or a slogan. This must be avoided at all costs. The observatpeople label their good social practices as SR can be regarded as an opportunity to create in th

environment that osters dialogue and critical controversy, one which provides an opportunity to

big issues o Development. The way in which the notion o SR is used and what it inspires should

way neutral: this would signal a loss o SRs mobilizing orce, making it ineective, turning it into

ake consensus. On the contrary, we need to allow the ood gates to open so that all actors expr

sensitivity and, in this way, let a dierent type o market to emerge: a marketplace o public virtue

not constituted through the law o supply and demand but through a radical eeling o responsibilit

accountable with respect to both our human condition and the meaning o our public acts. All o tcontext where the countrys progress towards human development, social trust and citizen partic

to take place. Hence, SR needs to be a demand not a calculation: it must be more than a merel

attitude.


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S R I S A S T R O N G W O R D W H I C H I N C L UD E S D E MA N D I M P L I E S M A K I N G C H O I C E S T H AT O V E R C O M E A S

W H I C H L I M I T T H E C O N D I T I O N O F E Q U A L I T Y I N H E R E

H U M A N B E I N G S I N T H E I R S O C I A L L I F E .


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SR is driven not only by an ethical rationale but also a eeling o cooperation and esteem or thoexclusion. Once again we must remember the radical character o SR: it calls or developing inhe

dimensions such as cooperation and participation within a collectivity. It heralds a call to partake in

we are part o and without which our personhood would be annulled. For this very reason SR is a stro

which includes demands and implies making choices that overcome asymmetries which limit the

social equality inherent to all human beings. We can discuss this perspective in terms o developing

which ormalize this attitude towards building a air and non-discriminating society. This position

acile: it involves abandoning possessive individualism, skepticism, and the anxiety o status-seekingoals o individual lie.


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I T S E E M S L I K E W E N E E DA N E W B R E A T H O F D E S I R E

A N D N E W L O Y A L T I E S .


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This understanding o SR is in no way isolated rom a global vision o our time. This could never be

has been pointed out already, SR is a receptive sensitivity that is capable o projecting new signs o

hope to society. Notwithstanding, the world has lost some kind o vitality to conront the proound

aect culture and relations between human beings. This is paradoxical since the very magnitude o

mic and environmental problems we ace ought to prompt exactly the opposite trend. However o

o people are thinking about the uture; their proposals, in addition, generally get tangled in the

myriad happenings which characterizes our hectic liestyles. For some thinkers, we have lost the a

or something in common. Other will say that a crisis o desires, o dreams aects our society. L

the years o existentialism and its almost-mystical project o being-in-lie, which encouraged peop

to great causes. We have put distance between ourselves and programs that sought to encourag

mitment to justice. It seems like we need a new breath o desire and new loyalties. We cannot beabout being social, about seeking to reconstruct a communitarian sense o lie, and about vindicat

ty as a social value or encounters among human beings at every level. Politics have become techn

sense o authority has become bureaucratic, such that we do not have social energies to conront th

post-industrial societies and their great contrasts and scandals.


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S R A P P E A L S T O T H E N O T I O N O F U S ;I T I S A C A L L T O CO L L A B O R AT E B E T W E E N H U M A N

A N D T O R E - E N C H A N T P U B L I C V I R T U E S .


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Economic development has produced many undesired and unexpected consequences. Thereore,

that we expand our capacity o reection in order to understand new signs and also explore social

dimensions. Aspirations to a harmonious, ecological, air, and respectul lie appear to conront v

and powerul currents that show their might above and beyond the aspirations o people. There is

o what is human. In this context, SR appeals to the notion o us, it is a call to collaborate between h

and to re-enchant public virtues. It implies a rejection o absurdity and loneliness. Instead, it calls o

oster a more communitarian sense within society: one in which the great projects which we adopbecome true partnerships.


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I T I S N E C E S S A R Y T O AT T E M P T A K I N D O F R E B

O F T H E S E N S E S , O N E T H A T W I L L O N C E A G A I N A L L O

S E N S E T H E V A LU E O F L I B E R T Y TO G E T H E R W

S O L I D A R I T Y A N D R E C I P R O C I T Y.


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It is difcult to put the matter in such terms when the capacity to marvel at simple things, to live w

and to use public goods is exhausted. How can we become socially-responsible i we are unable

who are uncomplicated, those who have allen, and those who are so dierent rom ourselves?

necessary to attempt a kind o rebellion o the senses, one that will once again allow us to sense

liberty together with those o solidarity and reciprocity.


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S R I S A N I N V I TAT I O N T O VA L U E S O C I E T Y' S

A B I L I T Y T O C O N S T R U C T F O R M S O F C O E X I S T E

W H I C H A R E E T H I C A L LY R E A S O N A B L E .


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SR is an invitation to value society's ability to construct orms o coexistence which are ethically

We know that in our country the conditions and disposition towards eective citizenship are subo

longer have a well-developed culture o civic trust, one that ully recognizes the reedom to associa

encourages people to develop thoughts, arguments and critical judgments in the public sphere. T

contributed to a staging o politics as a set o happenings; one that masquerades what ought to b

meaning o politics: the construction o a shared sense.


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I N O R D E R T O AV O I D A F R A G I L E

A N D A N E M I C D E M O C R A C Y , I T I S N E C E S S A R

T H A T D E M O C R A T I C I N S T I T U T I O N S

B E N O U R I S H E D B Y C I T I Z E N P A R T I C I PAT I O N


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How can we, as a country, nd comort? What should we ocus our gaze on? What practical mea

have? We can reject absurdities, skepticisms or educated individualisms yet what is it that we pos

What are we capable o doing? How responsible to we really want to be? How much o a commi

capable o taking on board? Or is it the case that we only aspire to benevolence? It is understandab

in the late 20th century do not spring us into action like athletes in top orm. Trust is lacking beca

which entrenches divisions more than it promotes encounters. We are a society that recently has c

short-cuts instead o ocusing on the core aspect o problems. We have reduced our ability to think, t

properly democratic habits such as discussion and/or the reaching o agreements. It is undament

a country, to build inclusive pacts that - at the same time - do not inhibit debate or moral dialogu

avoid a ragile and anemic democracy, democratic institutions need to be nourished with citizen

In other words, it is necessary that they acquire the energies that are needed to understand strongdemocracies are generally characterized by weak ethics. We need a society that is poetic, that is

creates. Power cannot be monopolized by the technicians and bureaucrats o political systems. It is

citizenise both politics and institutions as a means to re-enchant perceptions o that which is com

is the only reasonable thing. This, what needs to be done, is precisely socially responsible.


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W E M U S T A C K N O W L E D G E T H AT O U R V I T A

T I M E I S F I N I T E . W E W I L L H A V E N O O T H E R

O P P O R T U N I T I E S TO A C T A S I D E F R O M N O W

T H A T I S , D U R I N G T H E S I N G L E O P P O R T U N I T

O F O U R O W N T I M E S .


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S R I S A C A L L F O R A P O L I T I C S O F G I V I N G

T H I S R E S P O N S I B I L I T Y T O G I V E B I N D S

U S W I T H T H E M Y S T E R Y O F B E I N G H U M A N A

W I T H T H E M Y S T E R Y O F T H E V E R Y U N I V E R S

l b l h l d l


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It is not possible to answer the call o SR cynically. It touches core aspects o the human condition:

i we are able to be human and thus construct a common sense or the country. It is not altogeth

to see people begin to leave when we start talking along these lines. Resistance and the almost u

urge to continue living without giving lurk at every step. In this sense, SR is a call or a politics o giv

to establish a culture based on the most reely-available resources that humans possess: the abilit

come closer, to approximate, to recognize, to listen, to orgive, and to cooperate. As a thinker in the

said, this responsibility to give binds us with the mystery o being human and with the mysteuniverse.


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S R I M P L I E S T H I N K I N G T H E F U T U R E .

W E A R E C O M M I T T E D TO M A K E T H E F U T U R

S U S T A I N A B L E AT A L L L E V E L S .

S i l R i b i l i t C t t i t h i l d l t


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It is necessary to recover the vigor o hope. Nobody can doubt that we are unsatised about w

as a civilization. Some call this ill-development. We must start working toward well-developme

go beyond criticism and whistle-blowing in politics and start tackling corruption and the lack o

many democratic institutions. We must reject eeling special or completely good because, as are dierent rom others. The main thing is to overcome dis-enchantment and, rom this attitude

analyze both the present contingency and uture opportunities: we cannot continue to be caught

presentism. It is true that the economic crisis has signicantly conditioned how we perceive: the o

the short term, the hal-year term, specic indicators. But this emergency should not void critical

thinking. SR implies thinking the uture. We have a commitment to make the uture sustainable at

does not mean, however, that our perspective should become so global that we lose touch with p

drug abuser in the neighborhood, local ecological problems, gender bias in our work places, the lolack o social protection o our senior citizens, the situation o those that suer disabilities or have s

the plight o those who are sick and lack coverage rom catastrophic diseases, the reality o our pris

violence, the abuse o children, the lack o public spaces, among many as-relevant others, need

oreront.


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A H O P E T H AT C A N D E F E A T A B S U R D I T Y

A N D FATA L I S M ; O N E T H A T P L A C E S I T S T R U

I N W H AT I S R E A S O N A B L E W I T H I N E A C H

H U M A N B E I N G A N D I N T H E I R G I F T I N G C A P AC

S o c i a l R e s p o n s i b i l i t y : C o n s t r u c t i n g e t h i c a l s e n s e o r d e v e l o p m e n t


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We are talking about a hope that is based on the potential that we have as a society and in

opportunities or becoming better; a hope that can deeat absurdity and atalism, one that places it

is reasonable in each human being and in their giting capacity. Both dimensions (reason and eeli

a great transormative orce.


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S R U N I T E S

F E E L I N G

A N D R E A S O N .

S o c i a l R e s p o n s i b i l i t y : C o n s t r u c t i n g e t h i c a l s e n s e o r d e v e l o p m e n t


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SR unites eeling and reason. Not in the manner o a system but in the manner o an appraisal, o

o a practical reason; o an ethics. How do we bring together the voices o all such that we can spea

issues? How can we manage to establish a dialogue with the world o culture, o politics, with the co

with citizen movements, such that - each rom their own vantage point - shape an arc o new

which give back its soul to the body o our country?


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A C T I N G W I T H A C O M M U N I T Y P E R S P E C T I V

G O I N G B E Y O N D T H E E M P T I N E S S T H AT

L I V I N G - W I T H O U T- O T H E R S P R O D U C E S W I T H I N

S U C H T H AT W E B E C O M E P R O T A G O N I S T S O F T H E



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SR - as reason and as git - nds it conditions o possibility in this transormative eeling-thinking

emotional disposition, as a drive towards transcendence that prompts human beings to sel-assum

as responsible-beings-within-and-with-others. These are not illusions - instead they are projects wh

us to novelty and which can activate our consciousness o solidarity. Activating this reasoning shou

to make SR a space or encounter and dialogue, a place or a human alliance and contract which

spirits, encourage us to stand side by side, and prompt us to work together or a true country. W

this as acting with a community perspective, going beyond the emptiness that living-without-ot

within us, such that we become protagonists o the uture.


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S R I S A N E T H I C O F C A R E .

T O B E R E S P O N S I B L E I S T O TA K E C A R E ;

A N D T O TA K E C A R E I S A W AY O F B E I N G

A N D O F B E I N G - I N T H E W O R L D.



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p y g p

What can we do to move orward? Perhaps the best is to learn rom our own human experience

the mystic principle o understanding reality not only in the way it is but also in the way we wa

agree about the need to respect and care about lie in its many orms. To value, live and care or as a heritage o humanity. To come closer to exemplary ethical persons which are present in al

religious traditions; to nd in each o them the practice o caring. SR is an ethics o care. To be res

take care, and to take care is a way o being and o being-in the world. It is prior to each and eve

to every word, to every argument. We demand that care be placed over and above explanation. T

a discourse but a orm o care. The very aim o SR is to care. It is what structures our knowledge

our own social learning. Without care we stop being humans. We are beings which have needs,

require care. Nobody can withhold care, help and hospitality without rst renouncing their humanis only through these virtues that we human beings discover ourselves as such, and how we appro

questions about the meaning o lie and existence. Tenderness and cordiality are undamental d

provide a new oundation or politics and a new way to coexist between us.


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S R I S L I K E T H E E X P E R I E N C E O F A L L E X P E R I E

T O TA K E C A R E , T O H E L P, T O O F F E R S O L I D A R I T Y, T O

T O C O M M I T A R E N O T O N LY A C T I O N S B U T A L S O E N C O U

T H E M O R E P R O F O U N D A S P E C T S O F H U M A N E X I S



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SR is the ability o all human beings to explain their actions invoking a value-laden sense. It constitute

o human beings and allows them to write their own narrative. That is, it makes human beings

conscious, vital and active. For this reason SR is like the experience o all experiences. To take car

oer solidarity, to donate, to commit are not only actions but also encounters with the more proou

human existence. They connect us to Being. To what we are and what we are waiting to be in the ut

not something abstract - it is a very concrete dimension: we are always responsible in relation to som

means we need to take responsibility or someone, which means to act.


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S R , W H I C H B E G I N S W I T H T H E V E R Y C A PA C

T O B E R E S P O N S I B L E F O R O N E S E L F,

O R I E N T S U S T O WA R D S A P O L I C Y O F A U T H E N T

T H A T H A S P U B L I C I M P L I C AT I O N S .



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It is evident that only those who manage to be responsible or themselves manage to be socially

They become autonomous moral subjects, capable o decision-making and responsible or themthe acts o others. This denition o SR, which begins with the very capacity to be responsible or on

us toward a policy o authenticity that has public implications. Institutions can limit or constrai

action. We think that the existence o deliberative democracies, those which include procedures to

controversies or dilemmas, is a condition o possibility or ethically-enduring actions or decision

subjects. It is desirable that democratic institutions recognize and internalize as a value the nee

co-responsibility (a culture o social responsibility), establishing participatory mechanisms or dec

as well as public spaces in which it is possible to decide moral conicts through dialogue. In this se

that it is very important to promote citizen education which can generate capacities and civic dis

augment social capital, communitarianism, and overall trust in society.


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I T I S F R O M T H E P R I N C I P L E O F O T H E R N E S

( T H E P R I N C I P L E O F R E C O G N I Z I N G T H E A LT E

T H E O T H E R ) T H AT T H E B A S I S F O R A L L F O R M

O F C I V I C A LT R U I S M S T E M S .



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There is in these denitions a principle o communitarian collaboration that authenticates sociaconstitution o autonomous subjects. Regarded rom this perspective, social lie is constituted as

requesting and constructing reasons that are based on respect or persons and their undamental r

pacts that recognize common goods. But this culture is only possible rom the standpoint o acce

listening to and recognizing the value o what is diverse and unique in others. It is rom the principle

(the principle o recognizing the Alter, the Other) that the basis or all orms o civic altruism ste

strong valuations that demand the creation o cultural capacities to expand civic dispositions wi

through education that makes citizens competent to express themselves, to solve their conicts, t

sense which belies their actions, to show their senses, to sustain as a community their moral opti

ways o understanding the good lie.


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O P E N S U P F O R U S A S P AC E F O R C O N V E R G E N C E A N

I N T H E C O U N T R Y, O N E T H AT I N A U G U R A T E S A S I G N

I M P O R TA N T PAT H - A S E A R C H F O R A D I F F E R E N T S O C I A

T H AT I S R E S P E C T F U L O F T H E P L U R A L V O I C E S A N D

W H I C H C O N S T I T U T E S O C I E T Y.



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Our opinion is that recognition o the magnitude o the call o SR - one that involves the suppor

dierent types o actors - opens up or us a space or convergence and dialogue in the coun

inaugurates a signicantly important path - a search or a dierent social grammar - that is resp

plural voices and lie ways which constitute society. We could say that it is possible to behold a h

modulates our expectations and ambitions in a direction dierent rom the accelerated search o

status-seeking that orients individual action. The point here is to restore within us the capacity soli

still possess. To once again raise the issue o constructing something that is shared. An ethic o mini

that can be expected rom all, such that a country comes to be constituted as a responsible, acting

competent and reasonable citizenry. For these reasons, we believe that SR is more than a buzzworconstitutes an event and a circumstance which is culturally transcendent.


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Special thanks to Jorg

Copyright: Soledad Teixid,

Soledad Teixid (PROhumana ExBurgos (PROhumana Commun

contributed to mak


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rse social responsibility, constructing ethical sense for development

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