Tales of People, Psychopaths and Political Communities: New Perspectives on the Corporation

You are cordially invited to this workshop on New Perspectives on the Corporation. 

Organized by the department of Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy (ESPF) and the Centre for Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE).

Attendance is free and open to all.

Corporations are Just Collections of People

J.P. Smit, Stellenbosch University

13.00 – 14.15

Break

Corporations as Psychopaths: Collective Agents Without Moral Agency

Frank Hindriks, University of Groningen

14.30 - 15.45

Break

Governing the Corpopolis: the Firm as a Political Community

Kendy Hess, College of the Holy Cross

16.00 - 17.15

Abstracts are included below.

J.P. Smit: Corporations are Just Collections of People

In this talk I consider the ontological status of corporations. Based on the incentivised action view of institutional objects, and specifically the view of legal language that derives from it, I argue that corporations just are their members, individuated in a specific way.  I discuss the arguments that make such a view seem untenable, and argue that their force is an illusion, mostly due to a misunderstanding of the nature of legal language.

Frank Hindriks: Corporations as Psychopaths: Collective Agents Without Moral Agency

According to the Psychopathy Thesis, corporations are like psychopaths: they are rational agents, but lack moral agency. The Market Hypothesis explains corporate psychopathy in terms of the costs of morality and the competitive pressures that corporations face. Due to these two factors, corporations that are moral agents cannot survive in the market. But this need not be a bad thing. Perhaps the market should be regarded as an amoral domain, as morality distorts it and is detrimental to social welfare. According to the Ideology Hypothesis, the belief that the market should be regarded as an amoral domain is an ideology, a distorted conception of the market. Yet, it is real in its consequences. It explains why corporate members who subscribe to it do not support corporations that try to engage in moral thought and action. In contrast to the Market Hypothesis, the Ideology Hypothesis supports social change. Corporate members should be made to realize that the ideology of the market is misguided. They will then support their corporations in transforming themselves into moral agents and taking their responsibility.

Kendy Hess: Governing the Corpopolis: the Firm as a Political Community

Firms—business enterprises in all their various forms—occupy an increasingly contested position in contemporary society. Some argue that their proper role is strictly limited to the impersonal provision of goods and services. Others argue that their wealth, power, and position require much more from them vis-à-vis their communities, the environment, and, most relevantly here, their employees. Very little of the debate over the proper behavior of firms has drawn on the collective action literature despite the fact that firms exist and function exclusively as the result of collective action. In this paper, as elsewhere, I show that attending to the collective nature of the firm can help us resolve some of the debated issues. I begin by presenting a holist, structuralist account of corporate agents: highly structured collectives that qualify as moral agents in their own right. Almost any functional firm with multiple employees will qualify as a corporate agent and thus, I have argued elsewhere, will be bound by traditional moral obligations. Unlike other accounts, this particular account emphasizes the social aspects of corporate agents and thus of firms. Looking at firms through this lens highlights their nature as communities of people joined together for the purpose of improving their own lives. In short, this account shows that firms are a lot like the Aristotelian polis.

I draw on Aristotle and recent work in political science to fill a gap in the literature by offering a novel account of a “political community.” And I show that collectives that qualify as corporate agents will generally qualify as political communities as well. I go on to argue that political communities should be governed in accordance with political theory rather than moral theory, i.e., that the governing bodies should draw on normative standards from political theories (liberalism, libertarianism, etc.) rather than from individualistic moral theories (Kantian ethics, virtue ethics, etc.). Finally, I briefly explore the implications for firm governance, most of which are sharply at odds with contemporary practice, but I close with a warning for those who assume that the political nature of the firm wins them a liberal, democratic workplace.

Contact

Contact Frank Hindriks f.a.hindriks rug.nl for information.