Re: Corporations as persons

Well I think the real reason why he can say that companies do not have minds, intelligence or anything else of the ilk is not so much that they do not behave as we should expect things with minds or intelligence to act, is that it is simply a category mistake to think that such things as companies could have minds. I don't think any of us were suggesting that they actually had minds, but that as a linguistic convenience we could apply intentional vocabulary to them. Sorry to get all ontological, but I also wonder whether there really are such things/entities as companies? (Obviously if there weren't then they necessarily would not have minds since they did not exist). 'Company' itself seems more akin to a linguistic shorthand, which perhaps refers to many people and pieces of property, or perhaps talk of 'companies' is just an easier way to talk about the shared goals of certain people. (Even if they don't all have exactly the same goals I expect that they overlap somewhat. And even if the primary goal of someone in a company is to make money, they also have the goal of making this burger, teaching these children and so on).

On 17/02/06, Bernie Doeser <bernie@doeser.org> wrote:

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I agree totally with Alex. Having worked for a multinational for 25 years I
can confirm that they have no mind or intelligence and certainly do not
behave rationally. In my experience they behave more like bacteria,
flourishing where conditions are appropriate and dying out where they are
not. If businesses were people the arms and legs would be trying to go in
different directions, the brain would try to improve efficiency by shedding
one of the eyes and one of the kidneys, and the nervous system would believe
it could thrive better on it's own without the muscle tissue which it saw as
superfluous.

Anthropomorphism is rife in the press and probably a consequence of
businesses obsession with branding, which makes them appear as single
coherent beings with a common mission and personality. It is a mistake to
accept this commercial device as evidence of identity.

Bernie Doeser
Sandiway, Cheshire, UK.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-bups-dis@purplepancake.com
[mailto:owner-bups-dis@purplepancake.com ]On Behalf Of Alex Watt
Sent: 14 February 2006 09:44
To: BUPS-DIS@bups.org
Subject: RE: Corporations as persons

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BUPS-DIS@bups.org

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

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