Executives are facing pressure from boards, employees, regulators and consumers to either defend or abandon diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Many are retreating from their DEI commitments. But in the rush to respond to political headwinds, a more fundamental question is going unasked: Is inclusion a moral imperative?

As marketing scholars who study consumer ethics and corporate responsibility, we have spent years examining 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 the case.

Political and financial pressure

A few years ago, many companies were competing to show their commitment to diversity: hiring more broadly across race and gender, tackling discrimination at the office, running diverse ad campaigns and designing products for people who had long been ignored.

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

Beyond political and legal pressures, some have retreated to an economic argument: that their primary obligation is to maximize profits, so inclusion programs that don’t clearly boost the bottom line are a distraction at best and a liability at worst.

But this political and financial framing treats inclusion as purely a strategic bet, one that can be placed or withdrawn depending on the political and economic returns. What it misses is the moral dimension. Businesses are not just economic machines. They are part of society, making choices that........

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