“If You Tickle Us….”: How Corporations Can Be Moral Agents Without Being Persons

Hess, Kendy M.

doi:10.1007/s10790-013-9391-z

Cited by 54 publications

(35 citation statements)

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“…French 1979;Velasquez 2003;Copp 2007;List and Pettit 2011;Hess 2013;Hindriks 2014; and the other works cited below). I focus here on groups that have both a structure and a decision-making process, as opposed to merely aggregate groups such as 'the people currently in Heathrow Terminal 5'.…”

Section: Why Should We Think About Possible Futures?mentioning

confidence: 96%

“…The following features of human adults have been identified as either necessary or sufficient for either moral agency or personhood: having a soul (cf. Pettit 2014, p. 1642, attributing the view to Pope Innocent IV); being embodied (Hess 2013); being a biological organism (Velasquez 2003;Miller and Makela 2005); being sentient, aware, self-aware, conscious, or self-conscious (Ashman and Winstanley 2007;Bevan and Corvellec 2007;Hussain and Moriarty 2016); being free, autonomous, or self-directed (Copp 2007;List and Pettit 2011;Hess 2014); possessing intentionality (Ashman and Winstanley 2007;Hindriks 2014, p. 574;Velasquez 2003;French 1979;List and Pettit 2011); being rational or responsive to reasons (French 1979;Bratman 2000;Pettit 2007, List andPettit 2011;Hess 2014); being moral, responsive to moral reasons, empathetic, or other-regarding (Bevan and Corvellec 2007;Velasquez 2003;List and Pettit 2011).…”

Section: Defending Moderate Collectivismmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Corporate Agency and Possible Futures

Mulgan

2018

J Bus Ethics

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We need an account of corporate agency that is temporally robust-one that will help future people to cope with challenges posed by corporate groups in a range of credible futures. In particular, we need to bequeath moral resources that enable future people to avoid futures dominated by corporate groups that have no regard for human beings. This paper asks how future philosophers living in broken or digital futures might re-imagine contemporary debates about corporate agency. It argues that the only temporally robust account is moralised extreme collectivism, where full moral personhood is accorded (only) to those corporate groups that are reliably disposed to respond appropriately to moral reasons.

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Section: Why Should We Think About Possible Futures?mentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Defending Moderate Collectivismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Corporate Agency and Possible Futures

Mulgan

2018

J Bus Ethics

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“…non-violation of private property or free speech, rather than other forms of interest. A defence on the grounds that only individual persons can "feel" in the appropriate way (Hess 2013) is open to the question, "why is this the sense of feeling that matters for certain rights at all?" It is not immediately obvious that having an interest in, e.g.…”

Section: Phenomenal Consciousnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Curious Case of Ronald McDonald’s Claim to Rights: An Ontological Account of Differences in Group and Individual Person Rights

Smith

2018

Journal of Social Ontology

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Performative accounts of personhood argue that group agents are persons, fit to be held responsible within the social sphere. Nonetheless, these accounts want to retain a moral distinction between group and individual persons. That: (1) Grouppersons can be responsible for their actions qua persons, but that (2) group-persons might nonetheless not have rights equivalent to those of human persons. I present an argument which makes sense of this disanalogy, without recourse to normative claims or additional ontological commitments. I instead ground rights in the different relations in which performative persons stand in relation to one another.

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“…The logic is that a corporation acts as a person in the legal system (a.k.a. corporate personhood) [6] and, therefore, each corporation bears moral responsibilities toward society and the natural world as all people do [6,16,17].…”

Section: Moral Responsibility Theory Of Corporate Sustainabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the moral responsibility of corporate sustainability (MRCS) theory, Ha-Brookshire [5] argued that sustainability must be the key goal for all supply chain members and considered a moral responsibility to fulfill. The argument was grounded in the corporate personhood concept, in that all corporations are legal persons and, therefore, they bear a moral responsibility to the environments and society as all humans do [6]. Consequently, the author argued that all involved business members must be morally responsible to achieve truly sustainable supply chains in the global marketplace.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moral Education for Sustainable Development: Exploring Morally Challenging Business Situations within the Global Supply Chain Context

et al. 2017

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This study presents the need for moral development education of current and future professionals so they can help build sustainable companies and global supply chains. Grounded in Ha-Brookshire's moral responsibility theory of corporate sustainability, the authors explored a set of real-life business situations where business professionals experienced morally challenging dilemmas. The study was conducted within the context of the textile and apparel (TA) industry because of the global and fragmented supply chain nature of the industry. The real-life business situations were interpreted using Kohlberg's moral development stage theory. The results of in-depth individual interviews followed by three focus groups of industry professionals in spring 2017 showed that participants have experienced a variety of morally challenging business situations throughout their careers. This includes simple problems at the individual and firm levels, as well as wicked and complex problems at the industry and global levels. The study concludes that for TA businesses to be truly sustainable, professionals' moral ability is critical and, therefore, appropriate moral development education is necessary.

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“If You Tickle Us….”: How Corporations Can Be Moral Agents Without Being Persons

Cited by 54 publications

References 0 publications

Corporate Agency and Possible Futures

Corporate Agency and Possible Futures

The Curious Case of Ronald McDonald’s Claim to Rights: An Ontological Account of Differences in Group and Individual Person Rights

Moral Education for Sustainable Development: Exploring Morally Challenging Business Situations within the Global Supply Chain Context

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