Amazon's Social Responsibility

being a “fellow creature” (Manning and Stroud 74). The environment would be an important issue to one of the Care Ethic, because the relationship that one has with the rest of the creatures, human or otherwise, leads them to protect one another.
At its core, Amazon’s social responsibility is centered on care. They care for their communities, and they care for the world. They want their customers and shareholders to believe this. They do this because they have a responsibility to the people that they serve. It is very much in line with the Care Ethics principles, and it is entirely possible that they built their ideals off of this theory of ethics.
This evaluation, however, is contradictory to the allegations of their corporate culture. In

Christine Bader, formerly of BP, was appointed to represent Amazon and ensure their practices are most ethical. Bader is often an advocate that big business can be a force for good in the world, and can exist for a purpose other than profit (Frank). This is in perfect line with Amazon’s statement that they want to have a positive impact on the world (Amazon). Bader described her experience with BP in her book The Evolution of a Corporate Idealist: When Girl Meets Oil. She states that these sorts of corporations are “flawed and complex…advancing human rights in some ways while compromising them in others,” (Banjo). This could easily be applied to Amazon, which is similar in size and scope. If her statement holds true for Amazon, once again the utilitarian theory is at play. Any action will have consequences that are both positive and negative (Manning and Stroud 40). However, the goal should be to maximize the pleasure, or in this case, the advancement of human rights. It is not realistic to expect the actions of any individual or company to create only pleasure without any pain at all (Class notes). The utilitarian and Bader would both maintain that they should instead strive to do as much good and as little harm as

According to Amazon’s own messaging, they are very concerned with the Care Ethics principles, and strive to make the society they live in a better place through helping communities and protecting the environment. The principles of Relationship Awareness, and Accommodation and Harmony are most apparent.
Amazon also puts forth that they have a commitment to their employees and customers. However, The New York Times profile paints a different picture. The Amazon described there, and in Bezoz internal memo response, adhere much more to the utilitarian’s ethics. Amazon may push employees, but it will help them achieve greatness in the long run. This reconciliation of pleasure and pain is a utilitarian concept, and one that their Director of Social Responsibility applies to big corporations. It is more important that the pleasure outweighs the pain than that the pain does not exist in the first place.
This behavior could also be classified as Aristotelian in nature, as they strive for excellence despite the fact it is difficult. If their workplace culture does exist between a “dystopian” workplace and an overly lax one, they will have achieved the mean where virtue exists. Aristotle would defend this process of creating the leaders of the future by pushing them to reach their