Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T20:04:32.609Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Corporate Moral Personhood and Three Conceptions Of The Corporation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Michael J. Phillips
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Despite some exceptions, the business ethics literature on the moral responsibility of corporations does not emphasize a subject critical to that inquiry: the general nature of corporations. This article attempts to lessen the imbalance by describing three conceptions of the corporation that have been prominent in twentieth century legal theorizing, and by sketching their implications for the moral responsibility of corporations. These three conceptions, at least two of which have counterparts in the philosophical and organizational theory literature, are the concession, aggregate, and real entity theories. The article concludes that the real entity theory is the most plausible of the lot. At least under prevailing tests of moral responsibility, it then contends, corporations-as-real-entities are morally responsible for most of their members’ actions.

Type
Articles
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 2 , Issue 4 , October 1992 , pp. 435 - 459
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bratton, William W.: 1989, “The ‘Nexus of Contracts’ Corporation: A Critical Appraisal,” Cornell Law Review 74, 407–465.Google Scholar
Brown, W. Jethro: 1905, “The Personality of the Corporation and the State,” Law Quarterly Review 21, 365–379.Google Scholar
Butler, Henry N.: 1989, “The Contractual Theory of the Corporation,” George Mason University Law Review 11(4), 99–123.Google Scholar
Cooper, D.E.: 1968, “Collective Responsibility,” Philosophy 43, 258–268.Google Scholar
Curtler, Hugh (ed.): 1986, Shame, Responsibility, and the Corporation (Haven Publications, New York, NY).Google Scholar
De George, Richard T.: 1983, “Social Reality and Social Relations,” Review of Metaphysics 37, 3–20.Google Scholar
Fischel, Daniel R.: 1982, “The Corporate Governance Movement,” Vanderbilt Law Review 35, 1259–1292.Google Scholar
French, Peter A.: 1979, “The Corporation as a Moral Person,” American Philosophical Quarterly 16(3), 207–215.Google Scholar
Friedman, Lawrence M.: 1985, A History of American Law (2d ed.) (Simon & Schuster, New York, N.Y.).Google Scholar
Gierke, Otto: 1958, Political Theories of the Middle Age (Frederic William Maitland tr. Beacon Press, Beacon Hill, MA).Google Scholar
Hessen, Robert: 1979, In Defense of the Corporation (Hoover Institution Press, Stanford, CA).Google Scholar
Hobhouse, L.T.: 1918, The Metaphysical Theory of the State: A Criticism (George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., London).Google Scholar
Jackall, Robert: 1988, Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers (Oxford University Press, New York, NY).Google Scholar
Keeley, Michael: 1988, A Social-Contract Theory of Organizations (University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, IN).Google Scholar
Ladd, John: 1970, “Morality and the Ideal of Rationality in Formal Organizations,” Monist 54, 488–516.Google Scholar
Laski, Harold: 1916, “The Personality of Associations,” Harvard Law Review, 29, 404–426.Google Scholar
Machen, Arthur W.: 1911, “Corporate Personality,” Harvard Law Review 24(4), 253–267.Google Scholar
May, Larry: 1987, The Morality of Groups (University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, IN).Google Scholar
Millon, David: 1990, “Theories of the Corporation,” Duke Law Journal 1990, 201–262.Google Scholar
Nesteruk, Jeffrey: 1988, “Bellotti and the Question of Corporate Moral Agency,” Columbia Business Law Review 3, 683–703.Google Scholar
Nesteruk, Jeffrey: 1991, “Legal Persons and Moral Worlds: Ethical Choices Within the Corporate Environment,” American Business Law Journal 29, 75–97.Google Scholar
Quinton, Anthony: 1975–76, “Social Objects,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1–27.Google Scholar
Samuels, Warren & Miller, Arthur Selwyn (eds.): 1987, Corporations and Society: Power and Responsibility (Greenwood Press, Westport, CT).Google Scholar
Velasquez, Manuel G.: 1983, “Why Corporations Are Not Morally Responsible for Anything They Do,” Business & Professional Ethics Journal 2, 1–18.Google Scholar
Walsh, W.H.: 1970, “Pride, Shame, and Responsibility,” Philosophical Quarterly 20, 1–13.Google Scholar
Werhane, Patricia H.: 1985, Persons, Rights, and Corporations (Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J.).Google Scholar