Why corporate inclusion policies are moral decisions, not just business ones

Executives face pressure from boards, employees, regulators and consumers to defend or halt diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Many are backing away from their DEI commitments. But in the rush to respond to political headwinds, a more fundamental question remains unasked: Is inclusion a moral imperative?

As marketing scholars who study consumer ethics and corporate responsibility, we have spent years studying how companies treat the people they serve and what that treatment says about their values.

Our recent research, published in the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, argues that inclusion is about ethics, not just strategy – and that three of the oldest traditions in moral philosophy make this claim.

Political and financial pressure

A few years ago, many companies were scrambling to demonstrate their commitment to diversity: broadening hiring based on race and gender, addressing discrimination in the office, running diverse advertising campaigns and designing products for people who had long been ignored.

That trend has sharply reversed. Faced with the threat of federal investigations, the loss of government contracts, and lawsuits challenging diversity-conscious hiring, many companies have cut DEI programs, renamed initiatives to avoid political scrutiny, or remained stagnant.

Beyond the political and legal pressure, some have retreated to an economic argument: that their primary duty is to maximize profits, so inclusion programs that do not clearly improve profits are at best a distraction and at worst a problem.

But this political and financial framework views inclusion as purely a strategic bet, one that can be placed or withdrawn depending on the political and economic returns. What it lacks is the moral dimension. Companies are not just economic machines. They are part of society and make choices that affect the lives of real people – which, we argue, also makes them moral agents.

Duty: rules that apply to everyone

The first philosophical tradition we examine is deontological ethics, associated with the 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant. The core idea of ​​deontology is simple but demanding: some actions are right or wrong in themselves, regardless of their consequences. People have inherent dignity and should be treated as ends in themselves, and never merely as a means to someone else’s ends.

Applied to the marketplace, this means that companies have a duty to respect the rights of every person they interact with. A bank that denies loans based on race, a technology platform that designs its interface only for hearing users, or a retailer that only stocks clothing in small sizes—these aren’t just bad business decisions; they are moral failures.

Kant proposed what he called the “categorical imperative”: act only according to rules that you could easily convert into universal laws. In other words, rules worth following would still make sense if everyone followed them. What if every company ignored the needs of disabled consumers? What if every employer only hired people from the same limited target group? A world in which these ideas were universally applied would be one that many Americans would find downright unjust.

Inclusion is not always easy. For example, a mobile app built to be affordable to rural users with low bandwidth would have to sacrifice features that blind users need. Kant’s point is not that inclusion is free from conflict. Rather, the promise to consider all people can be applied universally. Some things are just right or wrong to do, no matter what they cost.

Character: Who do you want to be?

The second philosophical tradition is virtue ethics, rooted in Aristotle. While deontology focuses on duties, this school focuses on character virtues, such as honesty, courage and wisdom. It does not ask, “What rules should I follow?” but “What kind of person – or organization – should I be?”

Consider Target, which for years ran inclusive campaigns, stocked gender-neutral children’s clothing, expanded its Pride collection and featured diverse families in its ads. In recent years, faced with backlash, it has withdrawn Pride merchandise and scaled back diversity commitments.

The criticism came quickly. For people boycotting Target, the rollbacks reflected the company’s character: If inclusion disappears as soon as it becomes costly, it was never a value; it was a marketing strategy.

Inclusion practiced only when it is convenient is not inclusion but performance. And performance, unlike character, is fragile. A company that practices inclusivity consistently embeds it as part of the organization’s character, leading to more satisfied employees, lasting customer loyalty, and the ability to weather political controversy.

Wellbeing: most helpful

The third philosophical tradition is utilitarianism, developed by John Stuart Mill in the 19th century. It implies that the right action is the one that produces the greatest overall well-being for all involved.

At first glance this seems to work against inclusion. If the majority is already well served, why shift resources to a smaller group? But this reading misses something important about how wellness actually works.

Benefits follow the law of diminishing returns. Adding a tenth feature to a product that already meets a consumer’s needs provides far less new value than giving an excluded group access to the product for the first time. The greatest profit is achieved by attracting new people.

Moreover, inclusive services for a minority provide spillover benefits to other consumers. When Netflix added closed captioning, it was primarily an accessibility measure for deaf and hard of hearing viewers. Research has shown that a significant portion of hearing viewers also regularly use subtitles, for example in noisy environments or while learning a new language. When cities introduced cutbacks – small ramps at intersections, originally designed for wheelchair users – cyclists, delivery drivers and parents with strollers also benefited. And audiobooks, invented for blind people, are now a $9 billion global industry, driven overwhelmingly by sighted listeners.

In the corporate boardroom, the utilitarian argument is often the most familiar language: showing the total benefit, identifying spillovers, and demonstrating that addressing under-met needs is not charity, but proper distribution of effort.

3 frameworks, 1 conclusion

Deontology, virtue ethics and utilitarianism approach morality from different starting points. One focuses on duties, one on character, one on results. Yet, we argue, they come to the same conclusion: inclusion is an ethical obligation.

This convergence is important because different target groups respond to different arguments. A legal team can be most persuaded by the language of duties and rights. Employees and consumers who care about a company’s character may be more responsive to the virtue ethics framework. Policy discussions and investor presentations are often based on utilitarian logic. Managers who understand all three frameworks can meet each audience on its own terms.

The deeper point is this: companies that view inclusivity as something to adopt when convenient and abandon when threatened are misinterpreting their actions. They don’t just administer a policy; they are actually making a moral choice. And moral choices, these three traditions remind us, do not bow to whoever has power at any given time.