IGWEBUIKE: African Journal of Arts and Humanities

The paper examines the application of corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices in the oil industry of Nigeria on the basis of the deontological ethics established by Immanuel Kant by applying the categorical imperative to consider the moral obligations of Shell, Chevron, and the Nigerian oil companies to the host communities. Judging by the data of 2023-2024 provided, this discussion shows the essential gaps between the CSR of companies and the moral requirements of Kantian ethics. Host communities have been treated by businesses as a means to business ends as opposed to being an end in themselves despite the fact that businesses have spent billions in community development programs, which has violated the essence of human dignity that forms the main premise of Kantian philosophy. It is proposed in the paper that actual Kantian CSR would require the companies to place moral responsibility, rather than profit maximization, at the centre of their activities and make sure that their conduct can be universalized without contradiction.

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