Social responsibility
ethical theory that an entity, be it an organization or individual, has an obligation to act to benefit society at large
Social responsibility is an ethical concept in which a person works and cooperates with other people and organizations for the benefit of the community.
An organization can demonstrate social responsibility in several ways, for instance, by donating, encouraging volunteerism, using ethical hiring procedures, and making changes that benefit the environment.
Social responsibility is an individual responsibility that involves a balance between the economy and the ecosystem one lives within, and possible trade-offs between economic development, and the welfare of society and the environment. Social responsibility pertains not only to business organizations but also to everyone whose actions impact the environment.
History
Writers in the classical Western philosophical tradition acknowledged the importance of social responsibility for human thriving.
Aristotle
Aristotle determined that "Man is by nature a political animal."
He saw ethics and politics as mutually-reinforcing: a citizen develops the virtues in large part so that they can contribute to making the polis an excellent and stable one. And the purpose of that was so that the polis would be fertile soil in which a thriving, virtuous citizenry could grow (and in order that there could be an appropriate political context in which one could successfully practice virtues like justice which require a political context).
He believed that the polis is meant to be "a community of equals for the sake of a life which is potentially the best." Some of the virtues in his scheme of virtue ethics, like magnificence and justice were inseparable from a sense of social responsibility.
Ancient Rome
Cicero believed that "In no other realm does human excellence approach so closely the paths of the gods as it does in the founding of new and in the preservation of already founded communities."
In the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, he wrote that "That which isn't good for the hive isn't good for the bee."
Modern times
In 1953, the book Social responsibility of the businessman, published by the American economist Howard Bowen was one of the first to address the issue of social responsibility as it relates to business activity.
Other cultures
The Japanese have the concept of giri (義理) which includes and transcends the western conception of social responsibility.
“Social responsibility” enters the record as ethical theory that an entity, be it an organization or individual, has an obligation to act to benefit society at large. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Social, responsibility and ethical can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3427818. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1953.
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This entry incorporates text from “Social responsibility” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.