ABSTRACT
By announcing the Global Compact, Secretary-General Kofi Annan has set the world a tall, tall task. Indeed, the remarkable ambitiousness of the Compact project is matched only by the remarkable stakes it holds for all of us. I want here to explore the sorts of value-oriented justifications necessary to make this tall task at least a theoretical success. What justificatory account is required to support the Compact adequately? I propose that any such account must ascend eventually three distinct rungs of a ‘ladder of justification’. The three justificatory rungs are: first, ‘egoism’; second, ‘co-operative egoism’; and, third, ‘citizenship’. To justify the full Global Compact, companies must somehow be capable of reaching the third, and most difficult, rung.
