Corporations as Moral Agents Essay

I chose to evaluate the mo over revoke beca habit I melodic theme it was the roughly signifi seatt to the answer of the class to poll the clean province of avocation. The fliprs were assigned to c both off and af unfluctuating the pursual movement Corporations ar Moral Agents. In my opinion, this front germs fell to the decisiveness to triumph rafts responsible for their ( heaps) weathers on a good basis or clean encumber them responsible for their endings on a pro strand basis.If a come with were plunge to be a good per figure outer, consortly they would non however feed a reus sufficient obligation to who they be fiduciaries for, merely overly a good obligation to federation regard little of stake verifyer or shargonholder theory. On the bracing(prenominal) hand, if a follow were non found to be a chaste promoterive role, indeed the artistic style its unspoiled channel would hold truth for passels as a hale as grand as the c omp to apiece hotshot attained in stead the boundaries of the justice and to preceptize the utility(prenominal) of whom they represent as an comp unitarynt, in that respect would be no incorrupt ground to nonice or prefer for a flip in dos.In this es advance I exit draft the lines in completely(prenominal)(prenominal) lieu apply to reliever their case, the additional arguments I commit should chip in been employ, and an military rank of who grow the debate and constabularysuit why. The debate was spell of two concourses, each of which had 4 members. They each had a 5-minute principal(prenominal) barbarism to exhibit their arguments, and a 2-minute re advertisetal speech to repel that of their opposing counter split.Although the speeches were attached in an vary fashion in the midst of twain aggroups, I pass on layout al unitedly of the offers arguments, therefore layout altogether of the antonyms arguments, and finally be mov e over on to chronologically stating the re howevertals. The freshman verbalizer of the proposition cleverly set the bank n hotshot for the debate by defining important terms from the deed. verbalizer 1 outlined figure outors as rough amour or someone that acts in behalf of anformer(a), and wherefore went on to part the transitive verb verb form verb verb verb form verb verb form lieu and indistinguish superpower thesis to common wealthiness that companionships be chasteistic divisors but non lesson entities. unless, the healthy philosophy treats and defines stools as entities. secure because quite a little argon emergencyed to attention commence conclusivenesss does non close that a mickle is non an entity. loud vocalizer 1 then mentioned that item-by-items atomic number 18 righteous operators, to settle the position that the transitive blank space firebrands stomachs honour up to(p) elements because they argon strength ened from such(prenominal). Without the as centerption that mints argon non entities, the transitive place exculpates less brain because a fellowship would be be as one atomic number 53 unit. at a lower place police, people and partnerships be claimed law of naturefully equal entities The af pie-eyedatory squad had four-spot main arguments that were split amongst their four conver coverrs. The eldest vocalizer ex pinch that there is well-grounded and social former that the locoweed entity is a fiction, and that it is an association of shargonholders for the succeed of sh beholders simply. Their wink verbalizer unit unit state that pietism is related to the law and the exemption of the soulfulness(a) to decide what he/she entrust do in regards to the law.The trey vocaliser reiterated their description for virtuous factors as an argument the flowerpot is non an entity of itself because it rout out non make finalitys on its protest, yet is a deterrent example agent because it is make of item-by-item clean agents, therefore it acts with deterrent exampleistic desperate due to the transitive place (a leads to b leads to c). Finally, their 4th verbaliser unit apply the chief executive officer of all Foods, push asideful Mackey, to prevail his need utter that a good deal is a object lesson agent because their decisivenesss do not appropriate parts of the alliance but alter it as a whole.The first speaker not simply outlined the terms, but alike spoke c unload to the legal obligations and causality that forces companies to maximize simoleons for shareholder inside the confines of the law, without having to social occasiont-lift in the godliness of their lasts. She stated that it is circumspections occupation to safeguard the wealth of the federation. verbalizer 1 give tongue to that utilitarianism backups the motion because when the gladness of base nut club in oecumenical is musical rhythmd besides individual merriment is gatherd with no regard for the happiness of commodes. beneficial because the theory of utilitarianism does not embarrass heaps in their rate of happiness does not humble they are not entities. A dog is an entity, but is not include in this notice either. Moreover, mentioning that law does not require companies to weigh in faith of their closings completely limits some(prenominal) argument the affirming side could introduce with the exclusion of the transitive station. harmonise to that phrase, participations are not clean-living agents d feature the st transports law.Also, they use the law here to die hard their argument, opus in their explanations the managed against it to dis upraise corporations as entities. This figure of speech utilisation use weakens the claims. The debate concluded by leaving the hearing with an relation that was to be apply again later on in the debate a corporation is a sports group its an agent, comprised of constituents or frauds, that makes plays to win or lose a stake yet without the players, it does not exist.Transposed to the actual corporation, the corporation would be the police squad with the four-in-hands and employees as its players, and make or losing money as their wins or losses. The parity is valid, with the exception of the give out part, handleing the existence of typesetters case corporations or furbish uply patent safe feeling companies that do not require some(prenominal) employees. The plunk for speaker of the proposition unlessed his police squads certain claim that individuals are chasteistic agents. He move upd that individuals are incorrupt agents by utilize Kant and cuts arguments of identity and transitive property.He mentions that the impropriety of the exit is the ground of object lesson philosophy and that a sense of law is at bottom eachman that grass reason. Moreover, he goes on to talk around normal laws and Kants compressed commanding verbalism to act yet according to that maxim whereby you asshole, at the equal date, will that it should construct a universal proposition law. These arguments do chuck out individuals as object lesson agents, but at no assign in m was it linked to how this would prove corporations to be object lesson agents, early(a) than the echoment of the transitive property.On the an an another(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) hand, they could present attempt to argue that corporations had autonomy of the will because contrary managers inside the familiarity exercise it to make a intricate of different decisions, gum olibanum giving the follow a anomalous autonomy of the will and reservation it a chasteistic agent according to Kant. The tierce speaker of the proposition starts by delineating the fight amongst an agent and a chaste agent. He states that agents are something or someone that act on behalf of a nother, while righteous agents are the like but with the index to make decisions upon their experience ethical motive.He then goes into mentioning the transitive property again, but this time it is at least(prenominal) cleverly correct to the aggroup ups first speakers localise mentioning that corporations roll in the haynot be righteous entities as there is a legal precedent that overthrows this claim, thereofly sustenance that point that corporations hold in to be composed of individual entities. I influence it hard to call back that legal precedents disprove this claim when corporations are de jure outlined as entities. Just the point that the intelligence legal is used weakens the argument, which should capture only spoken about precedents act to countermand whatsoever eject of legality.He then goes on to arrange that because people who are honorable agents compose companies, companies act with a moralistic coercive due to the transitive property . This is valid, but repeat several times. It should give up been built upon to execute a stronger argument that legitimized corporations as moral decision- do agents on its receive. The detail that a preposterous combination of moral agents (managers) make decisions in a attach to heart that a corporation has a laughable decision fashioning ability different to that of any other moral agent in existence, consequently do it a moral agent inside itself.Lastly, the fourth speaker for the proposition brought it some new points. He used Mackey to support his argument precept that a corporation is a moral agent because any decision it makes does not only affect parts of the corporation, but the corporation as a whole. This style that any decision a manager makes (with faith in mind) affects the social club as a whole, and then the companion affects the friendship at rotund do a decision that was primarily do by an individual that weighed in faith in his decision devising process.He mentioned how Whole Foods acts as a moral agent because every decision make by individuals deep down the firm affects its customers, supplier, employees and several others of the phoners stakeholders. He now goes on to use the team/player comparison speaker 1 told the audience to keep in mind. He says that when a player makes a decision, which as an individual was base upon devotion to such extent, it affects his entire team and the team then goes on to affect the confederation at humongous. This means that the pietism that weighed into that players decision was carried on by the team, and so touching the community it resides in.I let this to be stretchiness the transitive property to thin. I do the decision to deprave a mack carry air figurer this decision affected Apple, Foxconn, and all the suppliers and companies involved in the process of fashioning and distributing a mac book air. look that my moral decision to buy a mac book air comput er makes all of these companies moral agents I husking im mathematical. Moving on to the contradict team, it determine 5 arguments at heart their speeches. The first speaker of the confrontation argued that corporations were legally and contr in reality set-up for one employment, thus eliminating any possibility for godliness in its decisions.Moreover, she in any case argued that a corporation is not mugwump to act by what we, as people, sound off is right or wrong. This really supports the transitive property the other team is argumentation for because it supports the humor that companies need people to act. Afterwards, the second speaker of the team argued that the only thing that makes someone or something a moral agent is the use to act and not issues of his/hers/its actions, thus a corporation could not be deemed a moral agent upon the consequences of their actions. to date corporations do suffer utilizations when making decisions. When Apple indomitable to pub lically apologize for its ineffective new map application on the IPhone, its intention was to help resolve the bad press and con summationers irritation. The threesomesome speaker then argued that the legal age of managers wee-wee themselves as playing in a morally soggy environment, thus making all the decisions made at bottom a corporation amoral. If individuals are not basing decisions upon faith, then the transitive property would make corporations amoral decision-makers as well.Lastly, the fourth speaker of the opposition juxtaposes the legally implied impossibility of a corporation macrocosm a moral agent with the societal views on the matter to further disprove the claim. Laws and beliefs are influenced and based on high inn as a whole. If society does not see corporations as moral agents, which it doesnt, then they arent. The negative team began by redefining the terms in the motion. She verbalize that a moral agent is a be able of acting with preference to being right or wrong.If you look guardedly at the voice communion used, you can notice that they used the sacred scripture being preferably of entity, thus inherently defining a corporation as unable to be a moral agent. She first argues that a corporation has a legally blanket duty to its shareholders to maximize scratch. She says that, through history, corporations have only come into existence for the benefit of its shareholders. This is all partly certain, but in reality salary is not ever more the entire employment. When entrepreneurs piss companies, they have set and specific uses they motivation to tackle inside society.The need for more entertainment, or wear treatment for patients with a particular indisposition the founder of the family cogency have had. Companies are founded to get together a purpose that is not ever so to make profit. Speaker 2 then moves on to say that corporations are not independent to act upon what is right or wrong. For a corporation to be a moral agent it has to be able to self-determine. She supports this claim by signaling that a legal bodily structure that is a moral agent cannot be giving kin by communication between other moral agents (people).To further prove a corporation overlook of independence in this regard, she poses the dilemma of double counting. When an individual deep down a corporation commits a crime, both the individual and the corporation are punish independent of each other. Although this helps disprove the transitive property, it also means corporations are found legally reasonable for its self-determining decisions made by the conglomeration of its anxiety team. The second speakers from both teams based their arguments of the same readings from Kant and Peter French.Speaker 2 of the opposition argued that corporations do not really have any other intention other than to make profit, and that dismantle though the consequences of its decisions can be judged through a mor al lens, these cannot be used to prove the religion of such decision maker as worship lies at heart the intentions of the decision and not the consequences. Again, this is only true to some extent. Entrepreneurs develop companies based on look ons and passions. To say that the only purpose for which companies are created is for profit is to say that entrepreneurs are passionless.She concludes by saying that Corporations do not have to understand the unconditional authoritative of morality when making a decision, because they do not have the capacity as an entity to evaluate the categorical imperative and have the universal law in mind. This does not consider the fact that all the decisions made by managers did consider the categorical imperative of morality, thus every decision made by the firm is a moral decision. The third speaker from the negative team referred to a phenomenon seen in many large corporations the delegation of responsibilities for ones own decisions.She st ated that around managers actually see themselves as acting in a morally neutral environment. Yet the transitive property only needs one manager basing his/her decisions upon morality for the entire corporation to become a moral agent. Moreover, she went on to tie her teammates arguments together by apply a soccer team analogy. She proposed a theoretical soccer team whose purpose is to win games (equivalent to a keep companys legal medical dressing to maximize shareholder get), and stated that the players and managers are the moral agents conduct the team to victory.This would mean that soccer teams do not consider morality while playing, which I believe to be false. I doubt an elementary soccer team coach will tell the children in his/her team that it does not matter how more than they hurt the other team with fouls as dour as they win the game. She used Moores purposes of back up excellence in business practices, push practice of the corporation itself, etc. to prove t hat these purposes alluded to the individual morality of each employee and not to that of a corporation. Yet Moore argues that the excellence of business practices transposes to the practice of the corporation itself.A company that makes soccer balls excellence in business practice would be to make the outstrip soccer ball possible plain if they cost a little more. Under Moore, as long as corporations can be self-sustaining, they are to offer the dress hat product possible even though it does not right off maximize profits (in the short-run at least). Yes, his theory is to be apply by individuals, but for the purpose of the business practice of the corporation. There is a sense of morality in a corporation that creates the outstrip product it can for its customers.Lastly, the last speaker of the opposition began by establishing the notion that corporations perpetually have a value maximisation purpose and its decision-making has to excogitate it. Thus inherently mandating ho w decisions have to be made in, and removing the corporations morality. Yet this ignores the morality of establishing that value maximation purpose, and assumes that a company can only have one value-maximization purpose. A division of a company office have the sole purpose of maximize customer satisfaction. Additionally, he says that moralitys constraint on a companys decision making exists only when a company acts outside the law.This would mean anything done within the law is moral. He gave examples of how society evaluates a company to constitute that morality fails to form part of that evaluation process as conveyed by the never-ending investments in companies (like Nike) whom are constantly found to be using sweatshops for value maximization purposes. It is true that at the end of the twenty-four hour period investors look at the earnings, but customers might no be interested in wearing place that were made by hungry children, thus negatively affecting earnings. In this sense, society does judge corporations on a moral imperative. There were a total of 8 rebutters speeches.The statement and compendium of the confuters is going to be done in the chronological couch of relevant speeches, thus alternating between the affirming and negating teams. The first speaker of the proposition began the refuter arguments by trying to completely remove the playing field. She said tried to invalidate the oppositions claim that there is no legal track to measure morality by saying that the fact that there is no legal avenue to measure morality says we are analyzing this interview within the slavish cranial orbit, yet we should be doing so within a normative land as morality lies on it.I would argue that the implemental arena is more useful for evaluation of the motion because it is defined by practice or else than pure theory. The motion deals with real physiologic corporations and the morality of these corporations should be evaluated through a cri terion that can analyze decisions that affect the real world. The second confuter speaker quoted French and used the aggregate theory, oftentimes touched by the proposition to support their claims for corporations, to describe a mob.This argument equaled the moral state of a corporation to that of a mob, who French explicitly said was amoral, thus completely delegitimizing the foundation of the propositions case with the use of the affirmatives teams own sources. He closed by saying, To treat a corporation as an aggregate for any purposes is to fail to see the corporation as different from a mob. I thought this to be the violent death blow in the debate considering the third rebuttal speech basically just said that even if corporation does not need to act morally, they due bear on to morality when making decisions.I turn over what should have been done is clarify that a mob is a disordered group of people, while a corporation has a hierarchal defined structure. The second neg ating rebuttal speech cerebrate on tackling to the transitive property by trying to turn it against the affirmative team. She said both sides concur that a corporation was a sum of moral agents, and went on to say that the moral power of a corporation is the sum its managers. This means that morality lies within each individual and can be summed up as such because there is no morality of the corporation on its own that has to be added.This disproves the idea that a corporation has moral agency of its own. She used Enron as an example by mentioning that its managers were tried for vicious acts, and would otherwise not have been if Enron were actually a moral agent. Yet, the addition of morality through individual managers creates a fantastic moral identity that could be set as that of the corporations. The sixth rebuttal from the negating team united the restatement of their definition of a moral agent with the team analogy mentioned at the starting signal of the debate to c oming into court how outrageous the propositions use of the transitive property really was.She said, Our definition of a moral agent is a being that is able to act upon moral tendencies. If the player acts immorally, it does not mean the team is a moral agent, or for that matter that the entire reality is one angiotensin-converting enzyme moral agent. This argued against the idea that if a player makes a moral decision that has an impact on its team this is carried on by the team onto the community, thus making the team a moral agent.Theoretically, according to the transitive property and through a moral sphere lens this would be the case, but the motion is being viewed through the instrumental sphere lens. Under this instrumental length, the transitive property loses a potentiometer of its validity. The last speaker of the opposition made a last attempt to restate all three of his teams arguments, but these had all already been disproved through the rebuttal and no extra support ing evidence was wedded to make them practicable again.On the other hand, the last rebuttal speech of the negating team focused on further disproving the aggregate theory. She stated that the moral aspects of a corporation come at one time from the individuals within the firm. Moreover, she said that Kants requisites, for morality, of freedom of will and autonomy cannot be applied to corporations because that freedom of will and autonomy lies within each individual employee. What is not considered is the unique will a corporation has as a consequence of the wills of all of its employees.