Individuals are generally considered morally responsible for their
actions. Who or what is responsible when those individuals become part
of business organizations? Can we correctly ascribe moral
responsibility to the organization itself? If so, what are the grounds
for this claim and to what extent do the individuals also remain
morally responsible? If not, does moral responsibility fall entirely
to specific individuals within the organization and can they be
readily identified? A perennial question in business ethics has
concerned the extent to which business organizations can be correctly
said to have moral responsibilities and obligations. In philosophical
terms, this is a question of "corporate moral agency." Whether firms
can be said to be moral agents and to have the capacity for moral
responsibility has significant practical consequences. In most legal
systems in the world, business firms are recognized as "persons" with
the ability to own property, to maintain and defend lawsuits, and to
self-organize governance structures. To recognize that these "business
persons" can also act morally or immorally as organizations, however,
would justify the imposition of other legal constraints and normative
expectations on organizations. In the criminal law, for example, the
idea that an organized firm may itself have criminal culpability is
accepted in many countries (such as the United States) but rejected in
others (such as Germany). This book collects new contributions by
leading business scholars in business ethics, philosophy, and related
disciplines to extend our understanding of the "moral responsibility
of firms."
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780192520562
Publisert
2020
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
OUP Oxford
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter