The Moral Status of Corporations

Abstract

In this chapter, I analyze the notion of corporate responsibility from the person-centric perspective. I offer a four-dimensional exposition in terms of which I examine the corporate moral personhood view. These four dimensions are explained and critiqued to arrive at a definition of moral responsibility and status appropriate to corporations. I suggest that a corporation cannot be construed as a person in the sense in which individuals are persons. Since a corporation cannot be an independently existing entity, it cannot have an independent moral personality of its own as individual persons have. Therefore, I argue that a reasonable construal of corporate moral personhood has to exploit a different point of view altogether. With this difference of standpoint, I develop what is called the institutional personhood view. I argue that corporations do acquire a sort of collective institutional moral personality.

Citation

Mishra, N. (2017), "The Moral Status of Corporations", Modern Organisational Governance (Developments in Corporate Governance and Responsibility, Vol. 12), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 47-66. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2043-052320170000012003