Because They Can: The Basis for the Moral Obligations of (Certain) Collectives

Hess, Kendy M.

doi:10.1111/misp.12024

Cited by 45 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…The commitments of the RPV provide the corporate agent with a specific, unique orientation to the world, qualifying as beliefs and desires on the standard accounts that were developed to explore human intentionality. Tollefsen (2002, 2015) draws on interpretationism to support this claim while List and Pettit (2011) draw on what is essentially dispositionalism; I have acknowledged both interpretationist and dispositionalist approaches, but argued (Hess 2014a) that corporate commitments also qualify as beliefs on representationalism—a much more demanding and more widely accepted theory. Briefly, corporate commitments qualify as beliefs and desires on interpretationist accounts because attributing such commitments to corporate agents is the most effective way to ‘‘interpret’’ their behavior—to account for past actions and reliably predict future actions.…”

Section: Corporate Agentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does the Machine Need a Ghost? Corporate Agents as Nonconscious Kantian Moral Agents

Hess¹

2018

J. of the Am. Philos. Assoc.

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Does Kantian moral agency require phenomenal consciousness? More to the point, can firms (and other highly organized collectives) be Kantian moral agents—bound by Kantian obligations—in the absence of consciousness? After sketching the mechanics of my account of corporate agents, I consider three increasingly demanding accounts of Kantian moral agency, concluding that corporate agents can meet each successively higher threshold. They can (1) act on universalizable principles and treat humanity as an end in itself; (2) give such principlesto themselves,treattheir own‘humanity’ as an end itself, and act out of respect for the law; and (3) to the extent necessary, draw on empathically generated information and insights to inflect their performance, all in the absence of phenomenal consciousness. I close by rejecting two further arguments that phenomenal consciousness is nonetheless conceptually or practically necessary for Kantian moral agency.

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Section: Corporate Agentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does the Machine Need a Ghost? Corporate Agents as Nonconscious Kantian Moral Agents

Hess¹

2018

J. of the Am. Philos. Assoc.

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“…14 In a similar vein, some rationalists argue that collective agents can be moral agents but not moral persons, because they lack phenomenal consciousness (List and Pettit 2011;Hess 2014). French (1984) argues that collective agents are both.…”

Section: Functionalism About Moral Emotionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…And it is not at all obvious that they can be. Existing accounts equate moral collective agency with rational collective agency, which they explicate in terms of a collective decision procedure that tends to issue in rational decisions (French ; Copp ; Pettit ; List and Pettit ; Hess ). But these rationalist accounts face a problem that has thus far remained unaddressed: an agent can be prudentially rational without being a moral agent.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Collective Agency: Moral and Amoral

Hindriks

2018

Dialectica

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Proponents of corporate moral responsibility have provided a number of accounts of moral collective agency. But these accounts do not shed light on how a collective agent might fail to be a moral agent. I explain the difference between moral and amoral collective agents in terms of the notion of a normative perspective. I argue that, in order for a collective agent to be a moral agent, it has to have a normative perspective that is suitably supported by its members. I develop this idea both from a rationalist and from a sentimentalist point of view. According to the rationalist proposal, the members have to collective accept the normative perspective. The sentimentalist proposal also requires that it be suitably supported by collective member emotions. These simulate the epistemic and volitional roles that genuine corporate emotions would play. The upshot is that an amoral collective agent either lacks a normative perspective altogether, or that its normative perspective is not suitably supported by its members.

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“…It can also deliberate and reflect on the wisdom of those goals and make changes to them on the basis of such critical reflection. Other theorists have argued that groups can have intentions, beliefs, and desires, can form commitments, and can be the proper objects of moral sentiments such as resentment, praise, and blame (Copp 2006;Tollefsen 2006;Bratman 2014;Gilbert 2014;Hess 2014).…”

Section: Holism In Social Philosophymentioning

confidence: 99%

Holism

McShane¹

2016

The International Encyclopedia of Ethics

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In ethics, holism is most commonly taken to be the view that moral consideration is owed not only to individuals (e.g., individual people or individual animals) but also and independently to at least some of the larger wholes that they form (e.g., nations or ecosystems). However, holism encompasses an even broader range of theoretical claims than this very general position, even within ethics. And these multiple forms of holism within ethics are related to a further array of holisms outside ethics. In this essay, I first canvas the range of holisms in philosophy generally and use this to distinguish a number of different ways in which a theory might be said to be holist. I then use those distinctions to assess the three main kinds of holism within ethics: holism about reasons, holism about value, and holism about moral standing.

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Because They Can: The Basis for the Moral Obligations of (Certain) Collectives

Cited by 45 publications

References 31 publications

Does the Machine Need a Ghost? Corporate Agents as Nonconscious Kantian Moral Agents

Does the Machine Need a Ghost? Corporate Agents as Nonconscious Kantian Moral Agents

Collective Agency: Moral and Amoral

Holism

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