Corporations: Amoral Machines or Moral Persons?

Abstract

The common sense view of a company is that it is not a person in the sense in which individual humans are people. Yet many are quite ready to blame companies for their acts, to sometimes praise them, and even to prosecute them for manslaughter: as if they are people. Thus there has been an on-going philosophical debate as to whether it is proper to confer 'person hood' on companies, to the extent they can be said to be moral agents, who are responsible in a moral sense for their actions and omissions. There are still some companies which claim that they are just economic agents having no responsibility beyond economic efficiency. Strangely, they may, purely voluntarily, also make substantial charitable donations. Other companies realize that they are powerful actors in today's global society and as such they are indeed moral agents. Some of the latter embrace corporate social responsibility (CSR). The CSR perspective appears to take for granted that companies are persons and indeed as 'corporate citizenship' goes further, considering them also citizens, enjoying rights and duties and certainly capable of moral standing. Behind the challenge and coun ter-challenge of NGO campaigns against companies lies the assumption that