Positive Economics and the Normativistic Fallacy: Bridging the Two Sides of CSR Philipp Schreck Dominik van Aaken University of Munich Thomas Donaldson University of Pennsylvania ABSTRACT: In response to criticism of empirical or "positive" approaches to cor- porate social responsibility (CSR), we defend the importance of these approaches for any CSR theory that seeks to have practical impact. Although we acknowledge liniitations to positive approaches, we unpack the neglected but crucial relation- ships between positive knowledge on the one hand and normative knowledge on the other in the implementation of CSR principles. Using the structure of a practical syllogism, we construct a model that displays the key role of empirical knowledge in fulfilling a firm's responsibility to society, paying special attention to the impli- cations of the "ought implies can" dictum. We also defend the importance of one particular class of empirical claims; namely, claims from the field of economics. Even positive economic theory, which is often criticized for endorsing profits rather than values, can cooperate in intriguing ways with non-economic concepts in the implementation of CSR goals. KEY WORDS: Corporate Social Responsibility, practical syllogism, positive economics, normative ethics, political CSR, philosophy of science I N THEORIZING ABOUT CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (CSR), the role of positive research has been controversial. By "positive" we mean re- searcb tbat uses social science methods akin to tbose of tbe natural sciences in a search for empirical laws, causal relations and otber regularities (Hollis, 1994: cbap. 3; Treviño & Weaver, 1994). Positive researcb approacbes vary, but all share the feature of being non-normative; in other words, tbey are not designed to determine the norms or goals that ought to guide bebavior. Although we acknowledge limitations to positive approaches, we want to reveal their special importance for the practical application of normative CSR theories. In one sense, our claim is uncontroversial, since everyone grants that moral precepts must be applied to tbe real world, not to an empirical vacuum. Here, however, we expand this argument to suggest that any approach tbat ignores tbe indispensable role of positive knowledge commits what can be called the "normativistic fallacy," i.e., tbe fallacy of supposing that norms alone constitute a sufficient basis for ac- ©2013 Business Ethics Quarterly 23:2 (April 2013); ISSN 1052-150X pp. 297-329 DOI: 10.5840/beq201323218