This article explores the motives underlying corporate responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis begins with Thomas Dunfee’s Statement of Minimum Moral Obligation (SMMO), which specifies, more precisely than any other contribution to the business ethics canon, the level of corporate beneficence required during a pandemic. The analysis then turns to Milton Friedman’s neoliberal understanding of human nature, critically contrasting it with the notion of stoic virtue that informs the works of Adam Smith. Friedman contends that beneficence should play no role in corporate settings. Smith, by contrast, emphasizes the need for prudence, beneficence and self-command in all human endeavours. The article then uses these competing frameworks to reflect on a published survey of 145 corporate responses to COVID-19. In many of these responses, the benefit to a non-financial stakeholder is clear, while the financial consequence to the firm remains nebulous. This supports the contention that during a pandemic, beneficence provides a more complete explanation of many corporate actions than the profit motive alone. The article contests Friedman’s Chicago School profit imperative and goes beyond Dunfee’s SMMO by endorsing the more full-throated embrace of beneficence and stoic virtue found in the works of Smith.

本文探讨了企业应对COVID-19大流行的潜在动机。分析从托马斯·邓菲的《最低道德义务声明》（SMMO）开始，该声明比对商业道德规范的任何其他贡献都更准确地规定了大流行期间所需的公司受益水平。然后，分析转向米尔顿·弗里德曼（Milton Friedman）对人性的新自由主义理解，并将其与为亚当·斯密（Adam Smith）的作品提供支持的坚忍美德概念进行了严格的对比。弗里德曼（Friedman）认为，慈善组织在公司环境中不应扮演任何角色。相比之下，史密斯强调在人类的一切努力中都必须谨慎，仁慈和自律。然后，本文使用这些竞争性框架来反思对145个公司对COVID-19的回应的已发布调查。在许多这样的回应中，给非财务利益相关者带来的好处是显而易见的，而给公司带来的财务后果仍然是模糊的。这支持了这样的论点，即在大流行期间，仁慈提供了许多公司行为的完整解释，而不仅仅是收益动机。这篇文章与弗里德曼（Friedman）的芝加哥学校的利润当务之急，并且超越了邓菲（Dunfee）的SMMO，认可了史密斯（Smith）作品中对慈善和坚忍美德的更加全面的拥护。