The Fallacy of Corporate Moral Agency

The Fallacy of Corporate Moral Agency PDF Author: David Rönnegard
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9789402401462
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
It is uncontroversial that corporations are legal agents that can be held legally responsible, but can corporations also be moral agents that are morally responsible? Part one of this book explicates the most prominent theories of corporate moral agency and provides a detailed debunking of why corporate moral agency is a fallacy. This implies that talk of corporate moral responsibilities, beyond the mere metaphorical, is essentially meaningless. Part two takes the fallacy of corporate moral agency as its premise and spells out its implications. It shows how prominent normative theories within Corporate Social Responsibility, such as Stakeholder Theory and Social Contract Theory, rest on an implicit assumption of corporate moral agency. In this metaphysical respect such theories are untenable. In order to provide a more robust metaphysical foundation for corporations the book explicates the development of the corporate legal form in the US and UK, which displays how the corporation has come to have its current legal attributes. This historical evolution shows that the corporation is a legal fiction created by the state in order to serve both public and private goals. The normative implication for corporate accountability is that citizens of democratic states ought to primarily make calls for legal enactments in order to hold the corporate legal instruments accountable to their preferences.

Corporate Moral Agency and the Role of the Corporation in Society

Corporate Moral Agency and the Role of the Corporation in Society PDF Author: David Ronnegard
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781847535801
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
PhD thesis, London School of Economics: The thesis is an analysis of the corporation in society which spans the disciplines of Ethics, Law, Economics and Political Philosophy. Part One challenges the position, generally accepted in Business Ethics, that a corporation qualifies as a moral agent. The thesis analyses the most prominent theories of corporate moral agency and concludes that the corporation itself is not a moral agent. The thesis argues that attributions of moral responsibility to corporations are an elliptical way of referring to the responsibility of individuals. Part Two traces the historical development of the corporate legal form in English and American law and argues that the corporate form is a legal agent. The thesis takes issue with the Corporate Social Responsibility movement and argues that many of its prescriptions rest on a mistaken premise of corporate moral agency. Further, the thesis suggests that many CSR issues are better addressed through legal enactments by government.

The Fallacy of Corporate Moral Agency

The Fallacy of Corporate Moral Agency PDF Author: David Rönnegard
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9401797560
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
It is uncontroversial that corporations are legal agents that can be held legally responsible, but can corporations also be moral agents that are morally responsible? Part one of this book explicates the most prominent theories of corporate moral agency and provides a detailed debunking of why corporate moral agency is a fallacy. This implies that talk of corporate moral responsibilities, beyond the mere metaphorical, is essentially meaningless. Part two takes the fallacy of corporate moral agency as its premise and spells out its implications. It shows how prominent normative theories within Corporate Social Responsibility, such as Stakeholder Theory and Social Contract Theory, rest on an implicit assumption of corporate moral agency. In this metaphysical respect such theories are untenable. In order to provide a more robust metaphysical foundation for corporations the book explicates the development of the corporate legal form in the US and UK, which displays how the corporation has come to have its current legal attributes. This historical evolution shows that the corporation is a legal fiction created by the state in order to serve both public and private goals. The normative implication for corporate accountability is that citizens of democratic states ought to primarily make calls for legal enactments in order to hold the corporate legal instruments accountable to their preferences.

Corporation, be Good!

Corporation, be Good! PDF Author: William C. Frederick
Publisher: Dog Ear Publishing
ISBN: 1598581031
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
Here is the story of Corporate Social Responsibility---what it means, where it came from, where it is going, what it requires of business. Told in an eyewitness, I-was-there style by a pioneer of the study of CSR in the nation's business schools, it takes the reader through a half century of corporate scandals and fierce struggles over corporate ethics---from Ralph Nader's 1960s Campaign GM to today's white collar crimes at Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, and other Wall Street giants. It lays bare the values that drive corporate culture, explores the motivational depths of corporate strategy and policy, demonstrates how biological impulses can lead business decision makers astray, questions the relevance and ethical commitment of business school education, reveals the spiritual side of management life, and holds out hope that the New Millennium will see improvement in the ethical performance of business. William C. Frederick is one of the founders of the study of Corporate Social Responsibility in the United States and initiated some of the key concepts and analytic categories. His books include Business and Society, Social Auditing, and Values, Nature, and Culture in the American Corporation. He was president of The Society for Business Ethics and The Society for Advancement of Socio-Economics, and chaired the Social Issues in Management division of The Academy of Management. He conducted studies of management education in Spain, Italy, Egypt, Yugoslavia, Ecuador, Nigeria, and Australia, and designed and taught programs for executives in U. S. corporations. He was dean of the business schools at the University of Kansas City and the University of Pittsburgh. He received a PhD in economics and anthropology from the University of Texas. Corporation, Be Good! draws on the author's half-century of thinking about the social and ethical responsibilities of the modern corporation.

Persons, Rights, and Corporations

Persons, Rights, and Corporations PDF Author: Patricia Hogue Werhane
Publisher: Prentice Hall
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description


The Moral Responsibility of Firms

The Moral Responsibility of Firms PDF Author: Eric W. Orts
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198738536
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
This book examines whether firms as organizations can be considered morally responsible for their actions. This question has profound practical implications as well as theoretical significance, not least when we are today so frequently confronted with misconduct in business.

Corporations and Morality

Corporations and Morality PDF Author: Thomas Donaldson
Publisher: Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice-Hall
ISBN: 0131770144
Category : Industries
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description


Corporate Personhood

Corporate Personhood PDF Author: Susanna Kim Ripken
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108416527
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
Explores the nature of corporate personhood and how it affects the rights, powers, and influence of corporations in society.

Moral Agency and the Politics of Responsibility

Moral Agency and the Politics of Responsibility PDF Author: Cornelia Ulbert
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351781863
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
At a time when globalization has side-lined many of the traditional, state-based addressees of legal accountability, it is not clear yet how blame is allocated and contested in the new, highly differentiated, multi-actor governance arrangements of the global economy and world society. Moral Agency and the Politics of Responsibility investigates how actors in complex governance arrangements assign responsibilities to order the world and negotiate who is responsible for what and how. The book asks how moral duties can be defined beyond the territorial and legal confines of the nation-state; and how obligations and accountability mechanisms for a post-national world, in which responsibility remains vague, ambiguous and contested, can be established. Using an empirical as well as a theoretical perspective, the book explores ontological framings of complexity emphasizing emergence and non-linearity, which challenge classic liberal notions of responsibility and moral agency based on the autonomous subject. Moral Agency and the Politics of Responsibility is perfect for scholars from International Relations, Politics, Philosophy and Political Economy with an interest in the topical and increasingly popular topics of moral agency and complexity.

Business Ethics

Business Ethics PDF Author: Milton Snoeyenbos
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 508

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Book Description


Corporate Ethics, Governance, and Social Responsibility: Precepts and Practices: Precepts and Practices

Corporate Ethics, Governance, and Social Responsibility: Precepts and Practices: Precepts and Practices PDF Author: A. C. Fernando
Publisher: Pearson Education India
ISBN: 8131786692
Category : Business ethics
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Is profit-making the only goal of a business? Should an unbridled market mechanism drive corporate enterprise? To what extent should corporations compensate for the manifest and hidden costs that are incurred by the society at large? These are some of the questions that have engaged specialist economists, business barons, corporate heads and management experts for decades. Corporate Ethics, Governance, and Social Responsibility: Precepts and Practices addresses these issues and deals with three key concepts impacting contemporary businesses: business or corporate ethics, corporate governance, and corporate social responsibility.