Conclusion
We argued in the opening sections of this discussion that modern, market economies presume a degree of moral responsibility on the part of corporations. The discretion and decision making latitude given to corporations implies an expectation that corporations make business decisions in a way that respects an array of moral considerations.
This political conception of corporate moral responsibility helps explain a number of institutional arrangements that rely on corporations acting in a morally responsible fashion.In order for this presumption to withstand philosophical scrutiny, however, it should make sense to think of corporations as being morally responsible agents. This requires careful engagement with a deeper, metaphysical question about agency; at the same time, this is an opportunity to draw some important distinctions between types of agency, in particular the type of autonomy that is exhibited by different actors. At the heart of corporate autonomy is a question of whether there are independent, corporate acts for which grounds for action can be attributed to the corporation—as a whole—as opposed to its individual members.
In one sense of autonomy—what we called administrative autonomy—an explanation can be given for our willingness to think of corporations as morally responsible agents. Corporate decision making structures provide a framework of norms, governing rules and managerial processes that generate corporate reasons to act. Insofar as those structures can integrate a consideration of moral principles, corporations are morally responsible for adhering to business practices that do not run afoul of the demands of morality. In another sense of autonomy—moral autonomy— the independence of an agent’s reasons for action is, by itself, insufficient. Autonomy in this sense requires an additional moment in which the moral principles guiding one’s actions are normative because they are principles authored by the agent.
This captures the deepest sense of self-governance expressed by the term “autonomy.” We argued that corporations do not have the capacity for this type of reflective endorsement but, instead, can only integrate moral principles as given constraints on how to pursue their other economic interests.The distinction between administrative and moral autonomy therefore helps explain the multiple intuitions we have about corporate moral responsibility. It explains standing behind our institutionally-backed intuitions that corporations are the proper objects of our moral scrutiny. We can intelligibly hold them responsible in virtue of the fact that they are agents who can independently judge and restrain their actions in accordance with moral principles. It also helps explain why those institutional intuitions do not license us to make inferences about corporate agents that mirror our inferences about individual agents. Put differently: corporations are moral agents but they do not retain the status of moral persons.
Notes
1 Another example of a position that presumes corporate moral responsibility is David Silver’s (2005) argument that ascriptions of corporate responsibility have credence because our practices (including legal practices) hold corporations blameworthy for wrongdoing. Here, as in our own political conception of corporate moral responsibility, there remains a need to justify those practices (cf. Sepinwall 2017:159-160).
2 We disagree, in part, with Hussain’s (2017) treatment of this issue; whereas he makes the case that a “functionalist” account of responsibility can be given for why we hold corporations responsible for their conduct, his focus remains on how corporations can be held liable or financially responsible when they pursue business practices that are harmful, fraudulent or otherwise negligent. But his account is focused on how corporations should be treated through law, not whether there are any underlying attributions of moral responsibility to corporations.
To address this matter, we cannot simply focus on how corporations are treated legally but how we understand their capabilities for agency, which relies on the “metaphysical” issues that Hussain prefers to avoid.3 We have adapted our descriptions of Pettits criteria based on the interpretation offered by Hasnas (2018).
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