Corporations and the sins of their forefarthers – A reply to Velasquez

Citation: Magdalena Smith (2013/06/03) Corporations and the sins of their forefarthers – A reply to Velasquez.
DOI (original publisher): http://www.academia.edu/3643090/CORPORATIONS_AND_THE_SINS_OF_THEIR_FOREFATHERS_-_A_REPLY_TO_VELASQUEZ
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Tagged: Philosophy (RSS) business (RSS), business ethics (RSS), ethics (RSS), philosophy (RSS), responsibility (RSS), corporate governance (RSS)

Summary

Are we in the right when attributing moral responsibility to corporates? Man’s role as a moral agent is both well established and widely researched. Less clear is the role – if any – of corporations as moral agents. When speaking of corporations we do so as if they were a person in their own right, a person whom can be held responsible and accountable for their actions or lack of them. A person whom we can appropriately attribute praise or blame relating to their actions or their lack of them. In many ways we come across as viewing such a collective corporate body as having moral obligations reflecting those of its ‘parents’ and society as a whole.In this paper I argue that a company can be said to be morally responsible for its actions while living up to Velasquez’s metaphysical conditions, rather than being viewed as a fictitious legal entity or a simply a real organization whose members’ actions causally bring about or constitute corporate deeds.