Ranking Agents of Justice: When Should the Corporation Act?

Theorists have argued that under certain background conditions the commercial, for-profit corporation might bear responsibility to act to advance justice. However, other agents, too, may be responsible for taking remedial action, especially when the state defaults. This raises the question of the sequence in which the agents should act. I develop a framework that offers guidance in determining when the corporation ought to intervene to advance justice. The existing literature typically identifies responsibility-bearers solely by their capacity to remedy an unjust situation, which I believe to be too simplistic. I introduce two additional grounds for identifying responsibility-bearers—a role-based account and participation-based account—and show that this pluralist approach delivers a better account of who bears responsibility to act and when to discharge this responsibility.