Based on the notion that weapons manufacturers, in addition to other ‘sin industries’ such as gambling, tobacco and alcohol, have unreasonably been excluded from corporate social responsibility (CSR) research, Halpern and Snider (2011) conduct a study on US defence firms’ CSR. In accordance with the overall academic view that industry’s CSR is a result of managers’ CSR orientation (Carroll and Shabana, 2010), they evaluate US managers’ views and find their orientations to be predominantly similar to nondefense counterparties. Therefore, Halpern et al. (2011) suggest that weapons manufacturers ought to be included in the pool of CSR research and practice.

Primarily, the article presents the underlying controversy and ideological bias against defence firms and points to the anecdotal arguments presented by researchers and mainly by Byrne (2007) in his publishing ‘Assessing Arms Makers’. Following this discussion, the four-domain model and its background is introduced, together with Aupperle’s (2008) CSR orientation research on chief executives of Forbes Directory. When discussing CSR and defence firms, Halpern et al. present their main argument that CSR should be empirically assessed and consistently with nondefense industries, i.e. using people’s orientations rather than subjective moral assessments. They pose the rhetoric question as to beyond what extent or purpose a product becomes harmful and thus socially irresponsible. What is more, they touch on the idea that rationale for a particular military gear might have an effect on the perceived CSR, pointing to the fact that US weapons firms are there to serve the public for the purposes of national security and are subject to excessive government legislation and scrutiny. Halpern et al. advocate this is the main reason behind defence firms’ strongest legal and then economic orientation compared to Forbes