The Importance of Corporate Moral Agency

Abstract

The metaphysical issue of corporate moral agency is highly abstract, however, the conclusion one reaches has important wider ramifications. These ramifications are both legal as well as morally prescriptive. Anyone who is concerned with identifying the correct bearer of moral responsibility for events that take place in the context of satisfying corporate goals will be concerned with the metaphysical issue of whether or not the corporate entity qualifies as such a bearer of responsibility. This is not just of interest to a narrow group of philosophers. Many laws that are enacted are in part dependent on moral reasoning, not least who or what we take to be the subjects of moral responsibility. For example, we don’t extend full legal rights and duties to children because we do not deem them to be fully morally responsible for their actions, but as soon as they mature to an age when they are considered to be fully fledged moral agents then the attending legal rights and duties also follow. If we were to regard the corporation as a moral agent then this could form a moral basis for extending to them similar legal rights and duties as human moral agents.