Corporations, Compelled Speech, and the Common Good

Abstract

Most of the current literature on the subject of corporations and compelled speech focuses almost entirely on the extent to which corporations are or should be regulated by laws that compel them to conduct themselves in a certain way. In this paper, I explore the mostly uncharted territory of situations in which corporations compel the speech of their own employees through policies which require employees to speak or act in a way that may be contrary to the form of life prescribed by their faith. I argue that philosophical defences against corporate compelled speech for religious employees on the basis that religious belief sits within a generally inviolate private sphere of autonomy are misguided because they do not take sufficient account of the nature of corporations as moral agents which can legitimately pursue moral and political ends in the public sphere. I argue that corporations necessarily rely on a conception of the common good when they do this. The permissibility of corporate compelled speech therefore comes down to whether or not it is conducive to the common good.