Corporations,minors, and other innocents — A reply to R. E. Ewin

R. E. Ewin has argued that corporations are moral persons, but Ewin describes them as being unable to think or to act in virtuous and vicious ways. Ewin thinks that their impoverished emotional life would not allow them to act in these ways. In this brief essay I want to challenge the idea that corporations cannot act virtuously. I begin by examining deficiencies in Ewin's notion of corporate personhood. I argue that he effectively reduces corporations to the status of incompetent patients. I shall make use of a richer notion of corporate personhood as I explore the logical relationship between corporate action and the quality of the corporate emotional life. After discussing an alternate methodology for making moral assessments of action I consider briefly two corporate disasters: the crash on Mt. Erebus, the Imperial Foods plant fire. These cases are used to show the inadequacy of Ewin's thesis that only corporate managers are capable of displaying vice.P. Eddy Wilson taught philosophy full time for two years after graduation at the University of the South and he was a participant in Peter French's 1990 NEH Summer Seminar. He is currently employed as a member of the Department of Philosophy and Religion of Shaw University to teach philosophy at their High Point CAPE Center in High Point, North Carolina. He is interested in philosophy of religion, process philosophy, and ethics. Two of his articles have been accepted for publication by theJournal of Social Philosophy.     

Fair markets

The paper challenges a minimalist strategy in business ethics that maintains if it's legal, it's moral. In hard cases, judges decide legal issues by appealing to moral ideals. Investigation shows that the bedrock concept is fairness. Often judges define fairness in terms of non-coerciveness or equality of bargaining power. The prudent manager must look beyond the legal department to the ethical notion of fairness. Moreover, if the courts were to consistently appeal to non-coerciveness and equality of bargaining power, some practices now considered morally acceptable would be neither moral nor legal. Norman E. Bowie is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for the Study of Values at the University of Delaware. He is the author of numerous articles on business ethics and social and political philosophy and of Business Ethics, Making Ethical Decisions (ed.), The Tradition of Philosophy (co-ed.), and Ethical Theory and Business (co-ed.).     

Whistleblowing and employee loyalty

Discussions of whistleblowing and employee loyalty usually assume either that the concept of loyalty is irrelevant to the issue or, more commonly, that whistleblowing involves a moral choice in which the loyalty that an employee owes an employer comes to be pitted against the employee's responsibility to serve public interest. I argue that both these views are mistaken and propose a third view which sees whistleblowing as entirely compatible with employee loyalty.Robert A. Larmer, B.A., M.A., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of New Brunswick. His responsibilities include courses in philosophy of religion and ethics. He is the author of various articles in philosophy of religion and ofWater Into Wine: An Investigation of the Concept of Miracle.     

Affirmative action as a form of restitution

Though the common sense defense of affirmative action (or employment equity) appeals to principles of restitution, philosophers have tried to defend it in other ways. In contrast, I defend it by appealing to the notion of restitution, arguing (1) that alternative attempts to justify affirmative action fail; and (2) that ordinary affirmative action programs need to be supplemented and amended in keeping with the principles this suggests. Leo Groarke is associate professor of philosophy at Wilfrid Laurier University. His work has appeared in a number of scholarly journals, including Dialogue, Atlantis, The Public Affairs Quarterly, Teaching Philosophy and The Journal of the History of Philosophy. His books include Nuclear War: Philosophical Perspectives (1985) and Greek Scepticism (forthcoming from McGill-Queen's University Press).     

Are profits deserved?

N. Scott Arnold has argued forcefully that, for the most part, those who win profits (and suffer losses) in a market economy deserve them. According to Arnold, profit opportunities arise when there are malallocations of resources, which entrepreneurs initiate changes in production to correct. If they succeed, they simultaneously further the essential point of the market system — to meet the needs and wants of consumers — and they make profits; if they do not, then they stand to suffer losses. I argue that the structure of modern corporate enterprises tends to channel income into the hands of those whose entrepreneurial contribution is diminishingly small — namely stockholders — and away from those within the firm who genuinely participate in the entrepreneurial role.Grant A. Brown is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Management, University of Lethbridge, and a D.Phil. candidate in philosophy. His Critical Notice ofThe Libertarian Idea, by Jan Narveson, appeared in the September 1990 issue of theCanadian Journal of Philosophy. His Game Theory and the Virtues is forthcoming inReason Papers, and his Satisficing Rationality: In Praise of Folly is forthcoming in theJournal of Value Inquiry.     

Bribery,consent and prima facie duty: A rejoinder to Carson

Responding to my paper Bribery Tom Carson argues that bribe takers violate promisory obligations in a wider range of cases than I acknowledge and insists that bribe taking is prima facie wrong in all contexts. I argue that he is wrong on both counts. Michael Philips is a Professor of Philosophy at Portland State University. Recent papers by him have appeared in the Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Ethics, Philosophical Studies, Nous, Law and Philosophy, The Journal of Business Ethics, and several other journals. He is currently at work an a book in moral theory.     

Unredistributable corporate moral responsibility

Certain cases of corporate action seem especially resistant to a shared moral evaluation. Conservatives may argue that if bad intentions cannot be demonstrated, corporations and their managers are not blame-worthy, while liberals may insist that the results of corporate actions were predictable and so somebody must be to blame. Against this background, the theory that sometimes a corporation's moral responsibility cannot be redistributed, even in principle, to the individuals involved, seems quite attractive.This doctrine of unredistributable corporate moral responsibility (UCMR) is, however, ultimately indefensible. I show this in several steps. After first locating UCMR in the context of the evolving debate about corporate moral agency, the paper reexamines cases cited in defense of UCMR and takes up the attempt to defend it by identifying corporate moral agency with corporate practices. A further section explores the claim that UCMR is a convention distinct from, yet compatible with, traditional natural notions of responsibility. The final section develops a notion of combined akratic agency to provide an alternate explanation, compatible with rejection of UCMR, of the phenomena which make the doctrine attractive. Jan Edward Garrett is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Western Kentucky University, with major interests in business ethics, the metaphysics of social organizations, and ancient philosophy. He has published on Aristotle's conception of techne (craft) in The Modern Schoolman (1987) and his article Persons, Kinds and Corporations: An Aristotelian View has appeared in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. He attended Peter French's NEH Summer Seminar on Corporate Responsibility in 1983.     

Two concepts of communication as criteria for collective responsibility

In part one I review the literature, exposing some of the ambiguities, contradictions, and antinomies involved in the notion of communication. The literature presents us with two rather contradictory notions of communication: one rhetorical, the other responsible. Disparity between the two may be seen to jeopardize a new moral mandate to corporate business. In part two I develop more explicitly the models of rhetorical and responsible communication, locating the issue at the center of a solution to the problem of collective responsibility. A proper exercise of corporate moral responsibility, I argue, is compatible only with a model of responsible communication. I conclude by challenging top management to strive toward a goal of responsible communication at all levels in their respective corporate institutions. Dennis Weiser received his B.A. in Philosophy from Westminster College in 1978. Since then he has worked at a variety of occupations, including a brief stint as deckhand on the Mississippi River System. In 1986 he embarked on graduate study in philosophy at The University of Kansas in Lawrence, where his chief interests are in aesthetics and applied ethics. He is currently engaged in working out the implications of Hannah Arendt's theory of judging for institutional design and public policy. Mr. Weiser is the author of several collections of poetry and fiction. He was formerly regular editorial columnist for The Kansas City Business Journal.     

A quick justification for business ethics

The article examines the question of whether business ethics courses ought to have an impact. Despite the still common attitude among students and some business professionals that ethical considerations are less pressing in business, I argue that moral obligations are just as important there as elsewhere. The emphasis on profits in business is related to other realms (e.g., hobbies and seeking and education) in which, though private goals are dominant, moral limits remain in force. Business ethics courses can play a crucial role in emphasizing the necessity of ethical analysis in business. Louis G. Lombardi is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Lake Forest College and the author of Inherent Worth, Respect, and Rights in Environmental Ethics.     

Ethics and the organizational person: Revisiting DeGeorge

In this paper I review the dispute over DeGeorge's analysis of the issue of the ethical responsibilities of engineers in large organizations. I argue that this issue is no different than the question of the ethical responsibilities of any other relevantly situated employee because engineers have no special duty to hold paramount the safety of the public distinct from that of others. I demonstrate how critics like Mankin, James, and Curd and May have misread and misinterpreted DeGeorge's position and his argument. I then identify a serious logical problem in DeGeorge, unnoticed by critics, but conclude by defending the spirit of DeGeorge's approach. That spirit recognizes the limitations of attempting to provide necessary and sufficient conditions in response to many questions in applied philosophy. John R. Danley is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophical Studies at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. His Liberalism, Aboriginal Rights and Cultural Minorities, has recently appeared in Philosophy & Public Affairs (1991). Polestar Refined: Business Ethics and Political Economy has recently appeared in Journal of Business Ethics (1991). Other articles have appeared in the following journals: Mind, Philosophical Studies, The Southwestern Journal of Philosophy, Business and Professional Ethics, Journal of Negro Education, and Journal of Business Ethics. Articles have also appeared in Action Theory and The Ethics of Organizational Transformation, and elsewhere.     

The “Modified Vendetta Sanction” as a method of corporate-collective punishment

Shannon Shipp argues for the Modified Vendetta Sanction as a method of corporate-collective punishment. He claims that this sanction evades the difficulties of Peter French's Hester Prynne Sanction. In this paper I argue that, though the Modified Vendetta Sanction evades the problems that Shipp poses for it, it fails to evade some of the difficulties that I pose for French's method. Moreover, there are some difficulties that plague the Modified Vendetta Sanction which do not count against the Hester Prynne Sanction. Therefore, if my analysis holds, then Shipp's method neither improves significantly on the Hester Prynne Sanction nor is unproblematic in its own right. The significance of this paper is that it foils yet another attempt by some corporate punishment theorists to establish the plausibility of a method of corporate-collective punishment. J. Angelo Corlett has authored papers on ethics, social/political philosophy, history of philosophy, value theory, epistemology and metaphysics. His papers appear in such journals as the Public Affairs Quarterly, the Journal of Business Ethics, Business & Professional Ethics Journal, the American Psychologist, Idealistic Studies, the American Philosophical Association Newsletter on Philosophy and Medicine. He is the editor of and contributor to two forthcoming books: Equality and Liberty: Analyzing Rawls and Nozick and Analyzing Marx: The Moral Assessment of Capitalist Exploitation.     

Conflicts of interest

This paper has two distinct objectives. (1) I defend an analysis of the concept of a conflict of interest. On my analysis the concept of a conflict of interest is broader than is generally supposed. I argue that a very large class of cases not ordinarily regarded as conflicts of interest should be so regarded. Conflicts of interest are an integral feature of many professional relationships and do not (as is often supposed) require the existence of external financial or personal relationships. (2) I defend and explain the commonsense view that conflicts of interest areprima facie wrong and argue that in ordinary cases it is wrong, all things considered, to allow an avoidable conflict of interest to occur. I attempt to establish these claims on the basis of weak and relatively noncontroversial assumptions.Thomas L. Carson is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University Chicago. He is the author ofThe Status of Morality and numerous papers on ethical theory and business ethics.     

Rights and risks

A satisfactory normative theory of acceptable risk would be useful in resolving current disputes over government safety regulation of the workplace, consumer products, and technology. Alan Gewirth has attempted to develop such a theory, arguing from the individual's right not to be harmed by the risk-imposing activities of others. His theory is analyzed in detail, and the difficulties faced by such rights-based (deontological) approaches are pointed out. It is argued that a satisfactory theory will not be of a simple rights-based form. Reason is also given for doubting that it will be of a simple utilitarian form. Eric Von Magnus is Assistant Professor of Humanities at the University of New Haven, and Fellow at the Center for the Study of Values, University of Delaware. His most important publication is: Risk, State, and Nozick, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Vol. 7, Social and Political Philosophy.The author gratefully acknowledges support from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Center for the Study of Values, University of Delaware.     

Corporate punishment: A proposal

Corporate Punishment: A Proposal is an exercise in logic and creative thinking. I shall argue that no good reasons exist for the supposition that corporations have rights independent of the rights and interests of the persons they serve and that the error of treating corporations as though they do have autonomous rights derives from a sloppy argument from analogy. I shall further argue that the analogy of corporations to citizens, though pushed too far by some courts and lawmakers, remains a useful analogy if its logical relations can be cleaned up and clarified. Finally, I shall conclude this essay by employing the refurbished analogy in such a way that it yields a proposal for more effective criminal punishment for corporate wrongdoing. Robert J. Rafalko received an A.B. in philosophy from the University of Scranton, Scranton, PA, an M.A. in philosophy from Tufts University, Medford, MA., and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Temple University, Philadelphia, PA. in 1984. He was the owner and operator of a retail bookstore. In 1982, Dr. Rafalko was the nominee of a major political party for the U.S. House of Representatives in the 10th Congressional District, Pennsylvania. Dr. Rafalko has taught philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. In 1988, he accepted an appointment at California State University, Bakersfield, CA, where he is currently teaching logic, political philosophy and business ethics. Dr. Rafalko is the author of an introductory logic textbook, Logic for an Overcast Tuesday, to be published by Wadsworth Publishing Co. in the winter of 1989–1990.     

Business and games

This paper responds to the popular argument that business is like a game and is thus insulated from the demands of morality. In the first half of the paper, I offer objections to this argument as it is put forward by John Ladd in his well-known article, Morality and the Ideal of Rationality in Formal Organizations. I argue that Ladd's analysis is flawed both because it deprives us of the ability to assert that a business is acting badly or that its goals are irrational, and because it is internally inconsistent. In the second half of the paper, I give reasons for thinking that business is not like a game.Peter Heckman teaches business ethics at Santa Clara University. His publications on Nietzsche can be found inThe British Journal of Aesthetics andPhilosophy and Rhetoric.     

Technological risk and small probabilities

Many scientists, businessmen, and government regulators believe that the criteria for acceptable societal risk are too stringent. Those who subscribe to this belief often accept the view which I call the probability-threshold position. Proponents of this stance maintain that society ought to ignore very small risks, i.e., those causing an average annual probability of fatality of less than 10^–6.After examining the three major views in the risk-evaluation debate, viz., the probability-threshold position, the zero-risk position, and the weighted-risk position, I focus on the arguments for the first of these views, since it is the position which currently undergirds most public policy (especially in the U.S.) regarding acceptable risk. After analyzing Arrow's argument from decision theory, Comar's and Gibson's argument from ontology, and Starr's and Whipple's argument from epistemology, I conclude that these defenses of the probability-threshold position err in a variety of ways. Most commonly, they fail because they tacitly accept the assumption that magnitude of probability, alone, provides a sufficient condition for judging the acceptability of a given risk. In the light of these errors, I suggest that it might be more desirable for risk assessors, decision theorists, and policymakers to weight various risk-cost-benefit parameters according to alternative ethical criteria, rather than to evaluate risks solely in terms of mathematical considerations. Kristin Shrader-Frechette is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Florida. Previously she was Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She has held an NSF Scholar's Award in History and Philosophy of Science, a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and an NSF Fellowship. She is the author of four books: Nuclear Power & Public Policy; Environmental Ethics; Science Policy, Ethics and Economic Methodology and Risk Analysis & Scientific Method. She also has published about 50 articles on philosophy of physics, philosophy of economics, and technology assessment and public policy.     

Lying and intentions

In this essay I criticize recent attempts to prove that the concept of lying does not include the intent to deceive. I argue that examples by Isenberg and Carson fail to prove that one can lie without intending to deceive and, furthermore, that untoward consequences would follow if these authors were correct. I conclude that since intending to deceive is indeed a necessary condition of lying, the class of statements that constitute lies is smaller than what Isenberg et al. would suggest. Hence the class of deceptive advertisements is also correspondingly smaller. Gary E. Jones is Associate Professor at the Philosophy Department of the University of San Diego. He won the Review of Metaphysics Dissertation Essay Contest, 1977 and he holds fellowship of the University of Cincinnati and the University of Tennessee. His most important publications are The State and the Right to Health Care (in Philosophical Quarterly), Rights and Desires (in Ethics), Vindication, Hume, and Induction (in Canadian Journal of Philosophy), Engelhardt on Abortion and the Euthenasia of Defective Infants (in Linacre Quarterly) and Clendinnen, Jackson and Induction (in Philosophy of Science).     

Dismemberment,divorce and hostile takeovers: A comment on corporate moral personhood

We can explain our intuitions about corporate takeover cases by appeal to Peter French's picture of the corporation as a moral person. He argues that corporations are persons in much the same sense as you and I, and are entitled to the same rights as humans. On this analysis, takeovers are murders, attempted murders, attempts to enslave, etc. I want to explore the consequences of this view for corporate takeovers. I shall argue that, though French can explain why our moral intuitions seem to arise in response to some concern about the corporations themselves, his analysis commits us to the wrong intuitions in some cases. I shall then offer an account of these intuitions which focuses on the character of corporations.Rita C. Manning is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at San Jose State University. She has published widely — on Artificial Intelligence, Ancient Philosophy, Ethics, Philosophy of Law, Social and Political Philosophy, and Informal Logic, in addition to Business Ethics. She is currently working on a Feminist critique of Moral Philosophy.     

When two ‘wrongs’ make a right: An essay on business ethics

Sometimes two wrongs do make a right. That is, others' violations of moral rules may make it permissible for one to also violate these rules, to avoid being unfairly disadvantaged. This claim, originally advanced by Hobbes, is applied to three cases in business. It is suggested that the claim is one source of scepticism concerning business ethics. I argue, however, that the conditions under which business competitors' violations of moral rules would render one's own violations permissible are quite restricted. Hence, the observation that two wrongs may make a right does not give people a broad warrant for ignoring moral standards in their business activities. Gregory S. Kavka is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Irvine. He was awarded a NEH Fellowship for Independent Study and Research, 1982–83. His most important publication is: Some Paradoxes of Deterrence, Journal of Philosophy (June 1978).My work on this paper was partly supported by a University of California, Irvine Summer Faculty Research Fellowship. I am grateful to the University of Virginia for use of its library facilities, and to Mike W. Martin, Rick O'Neil, a referee for the Journal of Business Ethics, and participants at the Society for Business Ethics meeting at the Pacific Division APA convention in March 1982, for helpful comments on earlier drafts.     

Corporate responsibility and corporate personhood

In this paper, I consider the claim that a corporation cannot be held to be morally responsible unless it is a person. First, I argue that this claim is ambigious. Person flags three different but related notions: metaphysical person, moral agent, moral person. I argue that, though one can make the claim that corporates are metaphysical persons, this claim is only marginally relevant to the question of corporate moral responsibility. The central question which must be answered in discussions of corporate moral responsibility is whether corporations are moral agents or moral persons. I argue that, though we can make a case for saying corporations are moral agents, they are not moral persons, and hence, we can hold them responsible. In addition, we need not treat them the way we would be obligated to treat a moral person; we needn't have the same scruples about holding a corporation morally responsible as we would a moral person. Rita C. Manning is Lecturer at California State College, San Bernardino. She has published in Southern Journal of Philosophy and in Informal Logic.