Abstract
The argument so far has focused on the short-comings of the view that corporate entities themselves can be regarded as moral agents. Although Werhane and Pettit develop theories that are metaphysically individualistic the moral agency of the corporation is nevertheless said to exists at a social level of description that functionally acts as an autonomously intending entity, while for French the moral agency of the corporation is metaphysically distinct from its members.
As I have tried to maintain, corporate entities themselves do not exhibit the necessary characteristics for moral agency. However, a stronger argument can be made for corporate intentions and actions if we dispense with the notion that the corporation can possess the necessary characteristics for moral agency in a manner that is descriptively discontinuous with the characteristics of its members. Instead, it may be possible to develop a view of the intentions and actions of individuals together with the structure of their interrelations that may constitute a legitimate foundation for collective intention and action attributions. This constitutes a shift away from French’s teleological conception of a corporation’s intention (given as a directive by the corporate structure), to a conception whereby the collective intention originates from the corporate members themselves. I am also aiming to shift away from a conception of moral agency that rests on social level descriptions of the characteristics for moral agency that are in some way distinct from the constituent members.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
An account of corporate moral agency that in some sense is an account of the collective properties of the individuals who are moral agents could potentially satisfy not just our stated necessary conditions for moral agency but also whatever sufficient conditions we deem appropriate.
- 2.
“Corporate” in “Corporate Collective Moral Agency” signifies that the collective is structured and purpose driven. (Also the phrase “Corporate Collective Moral Agency” does not result in the same acronym as “Corporate Moral Agency” which is useful in keeping the notions separate.)
- 3.
All too often these two notions are not kept separate which creates confusion in the debate. For example, Arnold (2006) makes a defence of Corporate Moral Agency in terms of the collective intentions of members.
- 4.
Margaret Gilbert (2000) gives an account of collective intentions that she expands to encompass moral responsibility attributions. However, I shall not consider her account because it starts from a holistic standpoint. She simply assumes the irreducibility of collective intentions, which is a central aspect of the present discussion.
- 5.
Note that Bratman does not believe that all goals are intentions.
- 6.
The difference between operative and non-operative members is that the former are actively engaged in the pursuit of core business objectives, whereas the latter may be regarded as auxiliary personnel whose role it is to facilitate and aid the realization of the goals of operative members. An example would be a managing director (operative) and his personal assistant (non-operative) who takes care of all administrative work surrounding the MD.
- 7.
R-norms, when sanctioned, are coupled with r-sanctions imposed by the authority (e.g.: jail sentence or job dismissal), and s-norms, when sanctioned, are coupled with s-sanctions imposed by the social community (e.g.: social disapproval aimed at inducing feelings of shame).
- 8.
I am working on the assumption that the authority based norms and social norms are reducible to the mutual beliefs of the members.
- 9.
Tuomela (2007: 248–249) does exemplify his account of group responsibility in terms of responsibility in a corporate context. Terminology here is important. Toumela’s (1993) account of corporate intentions regarding the attribution of intentions to corporations is divorced from his (2007: 248–249) note on responsibility in a corporate context. According to him the attribution of intentions to a corporation is not meant to be connected with attributions of moral responsibility (ref. correspondence with the author). It is not clear to me why these notions are disconnected. Because Tuomela’s account of group/corporate intentions is fully developed (while his note on responsibility in a corporate context is not) my discussion here explores the attribution of moral responsibility based on his account of corporate intentions (1993).
- 10.
Tuomela’s notion of “tacit acceptance” as applied to the non-operative members has nothing to do with approval. In its weakest form it simply amounts to the non-operative members not acting against the operative members. However, on this interpretation of “tacit acceptance” I am puzzled by how, if at all, the operative members are representing the intentions of non-operative members. I shall turn to the problem of representing the intentions of non-operative members below.
- 11.
Tuomela’s (2007) account of group responsibility allows for various circumstance of dissent among members while still maintaining that the group as a whole is responsible. Such dissent also allows for degrees of responsibility among members but Tuomela does not explicate how this is to be done.
- 12.
In general it is reasonable to assume that corporate members ought to accept decisions made by the corporate leadership less they wish to seek new employment. But this can only count for decisions that members are aware of. No one can be expected to blindly sign off on the intentions of others, and certainly not be held morally responsible for decisions that they had no idea about.
- 13.
In The Philosophy of Sociality Tuomela (2007: 248–249) provides an example of responsibility in a corporate context that is consistent with this view. This brief note maintains that hierarchical authority relations in a corporation hinder distribution of moral responsibility to organizational subordinates because they lack autonomy in relation to their superiors. “[T]hose higher up in the hierarchy are responsible for those lower in the hierarchy” (2007: 248), with shareholders conceived as the highest hierarchical level. Although I concur that seniority in authority relations is significant for decision-making, and thus responsibility attribution, shareholders have no operative authority in corporations. I have chosen to consider moral responsibility in relation to his more developed account of corporate intentions (1993). Please see footnote 9.
- 14.
I am assuming that corporate members are free from coercion. If a corporate decision method is dictatorial then members are still free to decide whether or not to accept the dictated directives. Non-acceptance of a directive may imply that a person ceases to be a member of the collective, but the person is still free to choose. I concede that due to incentive schemes and group pressures such decisions may not be easy, but acting ethically is not always easy.
- 15.
See Sect. 4.2 “Free vs. Non-Free Agents” for an explanation of these concepts.
- 16.
Public office may involve obligations to an entire group, but that does not imply that the public official represents the entire group as their agent. E.g. Hitler’s actions did not represent the intentions of all Germans, and all Germans should not be blamed for those actions.
- 17.
If I vote for a representative who is candidating on a platform of several intentions I need not desire all those intentions if I vote for him. Nonetheless, if he gets elected I have given my explicit consent to having him represent me through his intentions and actions as stated by his election platform. Furthermore, should I not find any of the candidates to my satisfaction I could hand in a “blank” vote, which under a voting system of unanimity would imply my handing in a veto to the intentions on offer.
- 18.
A similar point was made earlier (Chap. 5) with regard to Pettit’s premise based decision procedure that could lead to a doctrinal paradox. I said that the decision procedure is not per se of moral importance because whether or not a collective decision agrees with an individual member it is the individual that must decide whether or not to enact the decision.
- 19.
In order for all corporate members (the electorate) to be held morally responsible for the actions of the representatives (operative members), the representatives must be given a very narrow scope of discretion for their actions. This is because they must qualify as the non-free agents of the electorate in order to for the moral responsibility of their actions is to be transferable to the electorate.
- 20.
If the corporation has a unanimous voting procedure then non-operative members will necessarily be informed of any collective intention as they will have voted for it. In such a case non-operative members will be morally responsible for the collective type event Y.
- 21.
It has been argued that employees engaged in the tobacco industry earn more than their equivalent counterparts in other industries because this is meant to help soothe the moral discomfort of being engaged in an industry that manufactures and aggressively markets a product that kills its customers.
- 22.
I am assuming that there is no morally relevant difference for any given individual to possess a “we-intention” rather than an “I-intention” as both involve the intentional mental state of an individual to purse and take part in a course of action with certain consequences.
References
Arnold, D. 2006. Corporate moral agency. In Shared intentions and collective responsibility, ed. P.A. French and H.K. Wettstein. Boston: Blackwell Publishers.
Bratman, M.E. 1987. Intention, plans, and practical reason. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bratman, M.E. 1993. Shared intention. Ethics 104: 97–113.
French, P.A. 1991a. The corporation as a moral person. In The spectrum of responsibility, ed. P.A. French. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
French, P.A. 1991b. Corporate ethics. Brace: Harcourt.
Gilbert, M. 2000. Sociality and responsibility. London: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Tuomela, R. 1993. Corporate intention and corporate action. Analyse und Kritik 15: 11–21.
Tuomela, R. 2000. Collective and joint intention. Mind and Society 1: 39–69.
Tuomela, R. 2002. The philosophy of social practices. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tuomela, R. 2003. The We-mode and the I-mode, from his webpage. http://www.valt.helsinki.fi/staff/tuomela/papers/Midwest_Studies_paper_Tuomela.htm.
Tuomela, R. 2007. The philosophy of sociality: The shared point of view. New York: Oxford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Rönnegard, D. (2015). Corporate Collective Moral Agency. In: The Fallacy of Corporate Moral Agency. Issues in Business Ethics, vol 44. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9756-6_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9756-6_8
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-017-9755-9
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-9756-6
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)