In the before time, one Gay Pride Day Kraft posted an image of a rainbow Oreo cookie (sadly not yet a real product). Almost immediately, the group One Million Moms condemned Kraft and urged a boycott of Kraft foods for jamming their views down the throats of America. On an interesting side note, conservative groups seem oddly obsessed with the metaphor of things being jammed down their throats, but that is a matter for a psychologist rather than a philosopher.
One Million Moms was consistent in its condemnation of companies that indicate an acceptance of homosexuality. They condemned both DC and Marvel for having gay characters in their comic books. They also advocated boycotting J.C. Penney because the company hired Ellen DeGeneres as a spokesperson. They even went after the company for including a lesbian couple in its advertisement for Mother’s Day and for including a gay male couple in a Father’s Day advertisement. Naturally, One Million Moms was not alone in this—other anti-gay groups and individuals have protested companies that expressed acceptance of homosexual customers. More recently, transpeople have been the focus of the culture war.
Not surprisingly, there were people who condemned companies for being against homosexuality. For example, Chick-Fil-A donated about $2 million to anti-gay groups in 2009 and this concerned some customers. I know people who eat at Chick-Fil-A because of its anti-gay stance and people who refuse to do so for the same reason.
As might be imagined, corporate involvement in culture war issues raises interesting philosophical issues. One issue is whether companies should be involved in political causes, such as same sex marriage, trans rights or gun rights. Another is whether people should boycott companies that (seem to) support views they oppose.
If I made decisions for a company, I would avoid engaging in performative advocacy. This is based on the approach I take to being a professor: I am not there to preach an ideological agenda or make converts to my causes. I am there to provide an educational opportunity. By analogy, if I was running a company that made computers, my goal would be to make good computers and not engage in performative advocacy. That would not be the function of my company—it is not an ideology company but a computer company.
Naturally, in my personal capacity I do engage in advocacy and I should do so. However, I make it clear that my views are my own. I do not have the moral right to speak for my colleagues. Likewise, if I owned a company, it would be unreasonable and unethical of me to claim to speak for my employees in the context of ideology. But there are at least two obvious counters to the view that companies should avoid (performative) advocacy.
One counter is that a company that remains silent can be seen as tacitly accepting certain views. For example, a company that went along with segregation in the United States would be acting immorally by going along with that evil.
It might be objected that companies should go with whatever the law or practice of the day is, thus not being advocates one way or the other. While this is tempting, there do not seem to be any reasonable grounds for exempting the people running companies from ethics. Hence, the excuse of “I was just following the law and doing business” rings as hollow as “I was just following orders.” As such, companies do need to be concerned about the stances they take on issues that concern the business of the company. This does, of course, give them a reasonable out on issues that do not concern their business.
In the case of homosexuality or transgender issues, it could be argued that most companies do not need to take a stance on the issues, such as the ethics of same-sex marriage or trans athletes competing in sports. As such, they cannot be condemned for not taking a stance or engaging in advocacy one way or the other. However, it can be argued that even if they do not need to take a stance, they can and this leads to the second counter.
A second obvious counter is that companies have the moral right to engage in advocacy based on the right of free expression that the decision makers of the company possess. As far as the concern that company advocacy is questionable because the few decision makers for the company are claiming to speak for the entire company, there are two replies.
One is that while a company need not reflect the views of its employees as the employees are not obligated to endorse the advocacy views adopted by the decision makers of the company. That is, working for a company does not morally obligate the worker to accept the positions advocated by the company. So, someone could work for Kraft without being a supporter of same-sex marriage and their employment at Kraft should not be taken as an endorsement of what the rainbow Oreo stood for. Employees who find this too objectionable can, of course, quit—if they can find another job.
Second is that the company decision makers already make decisions about what the company does and deciding to take an advocacy position is just another decision. For example, Apple does not consult with the people who assemble iPads to see what they think about what the next version of iOS should be or what the EULA should contain. As such, they are not exceeding their authority over the company as an entity.
That said, the people who decide the advocacy roles and positions of the company are morally accountable for those roles and positions. As such, if they adopt an unethical position, they would be acting wrongly. There is also practical concern about the impact of such advocacy on the company’s bottom line. After all, (performative) advocacy is done with the intent of attracting or keeping customers and there is the question of which stance will result in the greatest profits. This is, of course, a practical rather than ethical question. Deciding to take a position based on the profit potential is, however, a matter of ethical concern. The company side is but one side of the cookie, there is also the consumer side. This will be discussed in the next essay.
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