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RE: Corporations as persons
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I disagree that corporations have moral duties. They have no rational
capacity, no mind and so, as you agree, are not moral agents. They do
however have legal duties. These legal duties are imposed on them by the
moral agents in the world - ourselves.
How can we motivate these non-agents to act in the moral ways that you
suggest? The mechanisms are commercial and legal pressure. The populace can
impose its morality via the statute or the marketplace by boycotting.
It does not appear to be coherent to use the language of psychology for
something that is mind-less. The tendency to anthropomorphise is strong but
I think unhelpful. There are minds involved in the corporations' actions and
it is these that you should seek to persuade. By creating this 'corporate'
person, you are providing those moral agents, who are taking the decisions
with which you disagree, with a cover behind which they will shelter from
their own responsibility.
Alex
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-bups-dis@purplepancake.com
[mailto:owner-bups-dis@purplepancake.com]On Behalf Of N Tasker
Sent: 13 February 2006 13:05
To: BUPS-DIS@bups.org
Subject: Re: Corporations as persons
To reply to this message or start a new topic please email:
BUPS-DIS@bups.org
I think using the word 'person' as a metaphor for corporations has
interesting
consequences. It enables us to discuss corporations in a new vocabulary, a
vocabulary which is untainted by years of criticism and rhetoric. Using the
vocabulary of personhood allows us to analyse the personality of a
corporation,
which would perhaps enable us to remove the 'bad apples'/psychpaths, while
at
the same time allowing us to develop a model of a 'corporate benefactor' as
a
role model. A corporate benefactor might be a corporation whose traits
include:
sustainability; generation and distribution of wealth; scientific advance
(e.g.
medical, environmental protection); and a commitment to providing education
rather than propaganda.
In addition, I have suggested that there are very real ways - which are
unconnected with the suggested vocubulary revision - in which the rise of
corporations leads to the limitation, distortion or removal of the status of
human beings as persons.
I agree with you that no corporation qualifies for moral agency, but the
problem
is that corporations do have "moral rights and duties." The legal ability to
own property, borrow money etc are examples of the moral rights and duties
of a
company. However, a corporation cannot be put in prison, so we have a
situation
where law breaking companies simply get slapped with a fine. As a
consequence,
where law breaking is judged to be more profitable than avoiding fines,
corporations have a tendency towards breaking the law.
Thanks,
Nick
Quoting Matthew Hodgetts <matthew.hodgetts@gmail.com>:
> Well, we can certainly use intentional vocabulary to describe corporations
> but I'm not sure if this proves anything. I use intentional words to talk
> about genes all the time (e.g. your genes want to increase their chances
of
> appearing in the next generation), but all this is metaphor and is
> understood to be so. 'Person' is a tricky word, and we should probably
give
> a stipulative definition if we want it to do any philosophical work, since
> whatever results we get from analysis of how the word is used in natural
> language will probably come up with a whole tangled web of diverse
concepts.
> We are of course free to define 'person' however we want (although it will
> probably be useful if it approaches how we ordinarily use it). If you want
> to mean 'person' to be described of anything that can have intentional
vocab
> applied to it, but we just need to be aware what 'a corporation is a
person'
> means. Given the meaning of 'person' here, it would obviously wrong to
> conclude that a corporation was conscious or had any moral rights or
duties:
> these things not seeming to follow from being able to be spoken about
> intentionally (where such intentional talk can be (and often is only
> supposed to be) metaphorical).
>
> Matthew
>
>
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