The free will of corporations (and other collectives)

Hess, Kendy M.

doi:10.1007/s11098-013-0128-4

Cited by 65 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…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: Defending Moderate Collectivismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(Hess 2014;Pettit 2014Pettit , p. 1645Rovane 2014Rovane , p. 1670Velasquez 2003) In a real world populated by digital beings, the latter option is likely to be untenable.…”

Section: Corporate Groups In Digital Futuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Corporate Agency and Possible Futures

Mulgan

2018

J Bus Ethics

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“…This in itself does not demonstrate arbitrary power over others. And more equivalently, as Hess argues, the fact that individuals ground corporations is not disanalogous with the way that individuals are themselves grounded by their "physical" base of atoms (Hess 2014). Unless we intend to claim that the fact that individuals are grounded in a physical base entails that they are under the arbitrary control of 34 And not all individuals are involved equally in creation or sustenance: CEO as opposed to factory worker.…”

Section: Creation and Controlmentioning

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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“…Such accounts also accommodate the developmental nature of responsibilityas children develop these capacities, we are more inclined to treat them as responsible for their actions-and the aberrations of agency that impair the responsibility of otherwise normal adults-forms of compulsion and addiction, for example. Most important for the present paper, they suggest a promising approach to corporate responsibility (Hess 2013). Some collectives are structured so as to respond to reasons-courts, for example, carefully weigh reasons to judge whether the accused has transgressed a legal requirement; equally, it makes more sense to hold a court accountable than a crowd, say, which lacks such a structure.…”

Section: A Philosophical Perplexity About Responsibilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Regulation Enables: Corporate Agency and Practices of Responsibility

Williams

2018

J Bus Ethics

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Both advocates of corporate regulation and its opponents tend to depict regulation as restrictive-a policy option that limits freedom in the name of welfare or other social goods. Against this framing, I suggest we can understand regulation in enabling terms. If well designed and properly enforced, regulation enables companies to operate in ways that are acceptable to society as a whole. This paper argues for this enabling character by considering some wider questions about responsibility and the sharing of responsibility. Agents who are less able or willing to act well are obviously more likely to face criticism, mistrust, and adverse responses. It will be more difficult to hold those agents responsible, especially so when there are many who fail in their responsibilities or where there are wide-reaching disagreements about those responsibilities. Regulatory standards, like other norms and ways of defining responsibilities, address these problems: by restricting, they also enable social cooperation. Like other forms of holding responsible, ways of enforcing those standards against recalcitrant agents, or encouraging conformity to them, may also seem restrictive. Again, however, these practices play an important role in enabling responsible agency. This is partly because they can bolster readiness to act well in agents who experience or witness such responses. It is also because they free other agents to exercise initiative and commitment in defining their individual responsibilities in line with higher standards.

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The free will of corporations (and other collectives)

Cited by 65 publications

References 22 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

Regulation Enables: Corporate Agency and Practices of Responsibility

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