Book Reviews
| Author | Orysia Semotiuk |
| Date | 01 December 2003 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0964663903012004011 |
| Published date | 01 December 2003 |
| Subject Matter | Reviews |
to find the threads for themselves. Heather Montgomery’s piece on child prostitution
in Thailand, as the editors suggest, ‘questions whether the right of children to be free
from prostitution should be implemented, considering that the children directly
concerned do not want this right’ (p. 7). One reading of the children’s situation and
experiences, as recounted by Montgomery, is that they would reject prostitution if
well paid and relatively safe economic opportunities were available to their families.
Montgomery is not, though, simply suggesting that this is a matter of poverty and not
culture. She argues that child prostitutes do want the right to be free of sexual exploi-
tation, but that right must be understood within their ‘cultural prioritization of rights’
and must be ‘built upon’ other rights ‘that children claim are important to them’
(p. 97). The references to Montgomery’s contribution in the overall introduction
initially blurred for me some of the important nuances in her argument. However, this
is a petty gripe and anyone who reads the whole collection, or simply dips into
particular contributions, will find throughout the book refreshing discussions about
the conjunctions between rights and culture.
REFERENCE
World Commission on Culture and Development (1995) Our Creative Diversity.
Paris: UNESCO.
HILARY LIM
University of East London, UK
SALLY WHEELER, Corporations and the Third Way. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2002,
178 pp., £22 (hbk).
Sally Wheeler’s Corporations and the Third Way presents a fresh academic approach
to the area of corporate social responsibility (CSR). The book puts forward a foun-
dation for CSR (conceived as ‘corporate social intervention’)1based on Aristotelian
virtue ethics.
As an ethical system of behaviour, Aristotelian virtue ethics focuses on individuals
exercising the virtues that Aristotle enumerated with the purpose of living the good
life. It is an agent-centred approach to practising ethics as opposed to an act-centred
one, typically associated with Kantian ethics. The emphasis is on being a person of
character. Because the virtues are acquired by practising them, anyone can learn and
carry them out. Aristotle used the concept of a ‘mean’ as a guide to exercising the
virtues. The mean is the well balanced choice between two extremes, which are
specific to each individual.
For Wheeler, corporations are the individuals capable of practising the virtues. In
many ways, corporations are unlikely, but appropriate candidates for this ethical
approach. They are unlikely candidates because Aristotle meant for the virtues to be
practised by natural people. However, if the corporation can be conceived of as an
individual, the practice of virtues through ‘realizing the mean’, gives corporations the
room not to have to abandon profit-making goals. It would allow for ‘responsible
profit making’ as the mean between the extremes of profit at all costs and CSR at all
costs.
Corporations and the Third Way is a very interesting book, even though at times
it is not always easy to consistently follow Wheeler’s train of thought. The sheer
562 SOCIAL & LEGAL STUDIES 12(4)
To continue reading
Request your trial