Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CMP (Corporate Moral Progress)
Período documentado: 2023-05-01 hasta 2025-10-31
Within business ethics, there is a longstanding debate concerning Corporate Moral Responsibility, the question of whether corporations themselves are the kinds of things that can be responsible for wrongdoing. Proponents of this view hope to vindicate our sense that firms are the appropriate targets of blame and censure. However, proponents have failed to decisively make their case, and they have also failed to come to terms with the magnitude of corporate wrongdoing. Even if firms are possibly responsible, this is far short of showing that corporations have the sensitivity, incentives, position, to be anything but accidental agents for good, let along equal members of the moral community.
As corporations are some of the most significant actors in modern society, this presents a real problem. If it is right to think that corporations have genuine obligations, then a sincere effort must be made to come to terms with why they fail to meet them as well as how to train firms to behave morally in the future. In short, corporations need a moral education. Given this, CMP is broken into three objectives:
- It will consider whether corporations are capable of being morally responsible for their actions.
- It will uncover the challenges to corporate moral conduct.
- It will determine whether and how to facilitate corporate moral progress.
CMP will meet these objectives with resources far outside of business ethics. Defending corporate moral agency involves using cutting-edge work within metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of action. Understanding corporate wrongdoing requires reconceiving of how corporations make moral decisions and are motivated to act on them, as well as the nature of their privilege in society. And determining how to improve firms morally requires integrating work on moral education and moral progress with management disciplines such as strategic management. By doing all of this, CMP will pursue concrete ways to improve firms for good.
As corporations are some of the most significant actors in modern society, this presents a real problem. If it is right to think that corporations have genuine obligations, then a sincere effort must be made to come to terms with why they fail to meet them as well as how to train firms to behave morally in the future. In short, corporations need a moral education. Given this, CMP is broken into three objectives:
- It will consider whether corporations are capable of being morally responsible for their actions.
- It will uncover the challenges to corporate moral conduct.
- It will determine whether and how to facilitate corporate moral progress.
CMP will meet these objectives with resources far outside of business ethics. Defending corporate moral agency involves using cutting-edge work within metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of action. Understanding corporate wrongdoing requires reconceiving of how corporations make moral decisions and are motivated to act on them, as well as the nature of their privilege in society. And determining how to improve firms morally requires integrating work on moral education and moral progress with management disciplines such as strategic management. By doing all of this, CMP will pursue concrete ways to improve firms for good.
The activities currently being performed involve the writing and submission of numerous papers on the central topics concerning the function of firms generally, the question of how to justify holding them criminally liable, whether they can be obligated to assume sustainable business models, whether corporations can suffer from weakness of will, whether we should think of firms as oppressive agents in society, the the relation between corporate autonomy and corporate purpose, whether firms can be morally competent, and others. Also in preparation is a book manuscript directly defending corporate moral responsibility from the many challenges to it.
Thus far, published or forthcoming during and connected with the project are three journal article outputs:
"Excusing Corporate Wrongdoing and the State of Nature" co-authored with Paul Garofalo in Academy of Management Review. Available here (https://philpapers.org/rec/SILECW(se abrirá en una nueva ventana)). This paper argues that firms can be excused from certain kinds of wrongdoing where acting rightly would put them at a demonstratable competitive disadvantage. This is connected to the project in how it shows that the availability of this excuse really turns on an acceptance of corporate personhood, and how it brings more discussion from the subfield of strategic management to bear on this topic of corporate personhood within business ethics.
"Corporate Weakness of Will" in Journal of Business Ethics. Available here (https://philpapers.org/rec/SILCWO(se abrirá en una nueva ventana)). This paper argues that, contrary to popular belief in the literature, corporate agents are capable of acting from akrasia/weakness of will. This is connected to the project in that it shows a critical way in which firms are led to act wrongly, as well as articulating some of the challenges of engaging them to act better.
"Determination from Above" in Philosophical Issues. Available here (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/phis.12256(se abrirá en una nueva ventana)). This paper argues that those concerned about the threats posed by determinism to free will should also be as worried about certain kinds of social/political threats to freedom. Connected to the project somewhat loosely, it does make space for articulating how corporate control threatens our individual freedoms and so is something we need to check.
Thus far, published or forthcoming during and connected with the project are three journal article outputs:
"Excusing Corporate Wrongdoing and the State of Nature" co-authored with Paul Garofalo in Academy of Management Review. Available here (https://philpapers.org/rec/SILECW(se abrirá en una nueva ventana)). This paper argues that firms can be excused from certain kinds of wrongdoing where acting rightly would put them at a demonstratable competitive disadvantage. This is connected to the project in how it shows that the availability of this excuse really turns on an acceptance of corporate personhood, and how it brings more discussion from the subfield of strategic management to bear on this topic of corporate personhood within business ethics.
"Corporate Weakness of Will" in Journal of Business Ethics. Available here (https://philpapers.org/rec/SILCWO(se abrirá en una nueva ventana)). This paper argues that, contrary to popular belief in the literature, corporate agents are capable of acting from akrasia/weakness of will. This is connected to the project in that it shows a critical way in which firms are led to act wrongly, as well as articulating some of the challenges of engaging them to act better.
"Determination from Above" in Philosophical Issues. Available here (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/phis.12256(se abrirá en una nueva ventana)). This paper argues that those concerned about the threats posed by determinism to free will should also be as worried about certain kinds of social/political threats to freedom. Connected to the project somewhat loosely, it does make space for articulating how corporate control threatens our individual freedoms and so is something we need to check.
The potential impact of this project is to substantially advance the conversation around corporate moral responsibility and corporate personhood, integrating many disparate fields from philosophy and the management sciences to chart a path towards improvement corporate morality.