Corporations and non-agential moral responsibility

Journal of Applied Philosophy

Volumn 30, Issue 4, 2013, Pages 334-350

  Dempsey, James ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84886311090     PISSN: 02643758     EISSN: 14685930     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/japp.12029     Document Type: Article

References (57)

1. For (non-exhaustive) examples, see: D. Arnold, 'Corporate moral agency' in P. A. French & H. Wettstein (eds) Midwest Studies in Philosophy Volume XXX: Shared Intentions and Collective Responsibility (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 279-291
2. T. Donaldson, Corporations and Morality (Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice-Hall, 1982)
3. W. Dubbink & J. Smith, 'A political account of corporate moral responsibility', Ethical Theory & Moral Practice 14 (2011): 223-246
4. P. A. French, Collective and Corporate Responsibility (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984)
5. P. A. French, 'Integrity, intentions, and corporations', American Business Law Journal 34,2 (1996): 141-155
6. C. List & P. Pettit, Group Agency: The Possibility, Design, and Status of Corporate Agents (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)
7. P. Pettit, 'Responsibility incorporated', Ethics 117,2 (2011): 171-201
8. M. Velasquez, 'Debunking corporate moral agency', Business Ethics Quarterly 13,4 (2003): 531-562; P. Werhane, Persons, Rights and Corporations (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1985).
9. P. Werhane, Persons, Rights and Corporations (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1985).
10. Exactly what constitutes an 'appropriate kind' of agent is itself a matter of some debate, and I will survey some of the alternatives shortly. My argument, however, denies the need for agency of any kind.
11. I am not alone in arguing for the possibility on non-agential moral responsibility. Kenneth Shockley also makes such an argument in K. Shockley, 'Programming collective control', Journal of Social Philosophy 38,3 (2007): 442-455.
12. His argument differs in important respects from mine, however. He provides a largely linguistic analysis of such responsibility, which differs from the substantive support provided by my discussion of morally significant systems. He also comes to quite different conclusions regarding the appropriateness of punishment resulting from ascriptions of such responsibility.
13. Some accounts of being morally responsibility deny that it need be connected to the direction of reactive attitudes towards the subject of responsibility. I argue shortly that it is, both in common practice and in the most plausible theoretical treatment of moral responsibility.
14. Examples of such accounts are French op. cit.; Arnold op. cit.; Pettit op. cit.; List & Pettit op. cit.
15. See, for example, Velasquez op. cit.;Werhane op. cit.; Donaldson op. cit.
16. BBC, 'Trust admits drug death blunder at Telford hospital' (14 September 2010). Retrieved 18 January 2012, from BBC News Shropshire: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-shropshire-11303066
17. All of these examples relate to a particular use of the idea of 'responsibility' and I come on to clarifying what this is shortly.
18. Elucidations of these complexities can be found in H. L. Hart, Punishment and Responsibility: Essays in the Philosophy of Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968); A. Duff, 'Responsibility', Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1998). Retrieved 24 February 2011 from: http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/L085SECT4
19. N. A. Vincent, 'A structured taxonomy of responsibility concepts' in N. A. Vincent, I. van de Poel & J. Hoven (eds) Moral Responsibility (Dordrecht: Springer, 2011), pp. 15-35.
20. I say 'potential' recipient since the subject of the responsibility ascription may have a valid excuse or be under other mitigating circumstances which make praise or blame inappropriate.
21. Dubbink & Smith op. cit.
22. On this see A. Eshleman, 'Moral responsibility' in E. N. Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2009 Edition): http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2009/entries/moral-responsibility/
23. G. Watson, 'Two faces of responsibility', Philosophical Topics 24,2 (1996): 227-248; J. Fischer & N. Tognazzini, 'The physiognomy of responsibility', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research LXXXII,2 (2011): 381-417
24. J. Fischer & N. Tognazzini, 'The physiognomy of responsibility', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research LXXXII,2 (2011): 381-417
25. Watson, and Fischer and Tognazzini, provide additional subtlety by distinguishing between moral responsibility as 'attributability'and as 'accountability'. In my concluding remarks I note how this distinction is relevant to the argument in this article.
26. I would like to thank one of the reviewers of this article for making this point and providing the example.This kind of responsibility has also been referred to elsewhere as 'liability responsibility', e.g. Vincent op. cit.
27. These developments are set out in, for example, J. Fischer, 'Recent work on moral responsibility', Ethics 110 (1999): 93-139.
28. The term 'pragmatic strategy' is coined by Dubbink & Smith op. cit. and under this heading they list the work ofWerhane op. cit., Donaldson op. cit., and S. Wolf, 'The legal and moral responsibility of organisations', Nomos 27 (1985): 267-286
29. Given that the distinction between desert-based and consequence-based approaches is not clearly made in the business ethics literature, there is some ambiguity in these discussions. However, there is a clear role allowed for outcomes in the justification of holding morally responsible, and this distinguishes these accounts from mine.
30. French 1984, 1996 op. cit.
31. French 1984 op. cit., p. 40.
32. M. Bratman, Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason (Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 1987), quoted in French 1996 op. cit.
33. For a very different way of conceiving of intentional states, one less susceptible to organisational analogue, see R. Moran, Authority and Estrangement:An Essay on Self-Knowledge (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001).
34. French 1984 op. cit.
35. Pettit op. cit., p. 185.
36. It is a requirement such as this which is also central to accounts of human personhood, for example H. G. Frankfurt, 'Freedom of the will and the concept of a person', The Journal of Philosophy 68,1 (1971): 5-20.
37. See, for example, MiguelVelasquez's arguments for how corporations can never possess intentionality in the sense required for moral agency inVelasquez op. cit.Velasquez's views tie in with a view of intentionality that has its roots in a Sartrean conception, and is similar to that expressed by Moran op. cit.
38. Here it is worth noting the similarities between this analysis of systems and the notion of a 'formal organisation' as used to describe the functioning of certain types of collectives, particularly bureaucracies. On this see J. Ladd, 'Morality and the ideal of rationality in formal organisations', The Monist 54,4 (October 1970).
39. This process should not be confused with the normal operation of rules that require an ineliminable element of judgment to implement. As already set out, insofar as such uncertainty exists and judgment is applied, it is not to be considered as part of the system as understood here.
40. This analysis of the tax system is supported by Will Hutton, writing in the Observer newspaper: W. Hutton, 'Enough quick fixes, Mr Osborne. Overhaul the tax system now' in The Observer (11 March 2012). Retrieved 14 March 2012 from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/11/will-hutton-budget-osborne -tax?fb=native
41. It is a process of creation such as this that Werhane (op. cit.) points to in the context of corporate organisations to establish a distinct corporate moral responsibility. I will also draw on this analogy, although my analysis differs from that ofWerhane who classes such corporations as 'secondary moral agents'.
42. On this see R. Anderson, 'Quant trading: How mathematicians rule the market' (26 September 2011). Retrieved 16 March 2012 from www.bbc.co.uk:%20http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14631547
43. It could be objected that the remainder of responsibility should not accrue to the system itself, but rather to other individuals who are in a position to influence the system or its consequences; in a democracy, this might stretch as widely as the voting population. However, the point is that it is the uncertainty with which the actions of any individuals are translated into the working of the system that generates the remainder and requires its reassignment. Identifying more individuals that might be held responsible does not answer this challenge.
44. I would like to thank one of the reviewers of this article for making this objection clear.
45. For example, this is a criticism that Donaldson makes well of the Structural Restraint view of organisations (Donaldson op. cit., pp. 28-29).
46. Of course, it is only 'at least' a morally significant system if it meets the conditions for being one which, as I have pointed out, will not necessarily be the case for all corporations.
47. Of the basic structure, Rawls says: 'The intuitive notion here is that the structure contains various social positions and that men born into different positions have different expectations of life determined, in part, by the political system as well as by economic and social circumstances': J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 7.
48. As noted above, it is such systems that Peter French (op. cit.) has called 'Corporate Internal Decision structures'.
49. Werhane op. cit., pp. 54-55.
50. M. Seabright & L. Kurke, 'Organizational ontology and the moral status of the corporation', Business Ethics Quarterly 7,4 (1997): 91-108.
51. French 1984 op. cit.
52. It could be argued that while we might be committed to different ontological pictures through the different contexts in which we refer to things, this should not be confused with the existence of different underlying ontologies. However, it is still not clear that in the case of social ontology any of these questions is prior to any of the others and so can fulfil the role of establishing the underlying picture. For more on the difference between these ontological questions, see T. Hofweber, 'Logic and ontology' in E. N. Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2011 edition): http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2011/entries/logic -ontology/.
53. I believe it is reliance on an operation such as this that undermines the attempt in Pettit op. cit. to establish that collectives can possess critical or evaluative beliefs.
54. Fischer and Tognazzini op. cit.
55. Watson op. cit.
56. A similar argument to this is made by H. McGary, 'Morality and collective liability', Journal ofValue Inquiry 20 (1986): 157-165.
57. He argues that individuals can be held liable for the outcomes of practices that are common in collectives of which they are a part, even when their only relation to such practices is to fail to denounce them or take other actions to prevent them.