Can a group be morally responsible instead of, or in addition to, its members? An influential defense of corporate responsibility is based on results in social choice theory suggesting that a group can form and act on attitudes held by few, or even none, of its members. The members therefore cannot be (fully) responsible for the group’s behavior; the group itself, as a corporate agent, must be responsible. In this paper, I reject this view of corporate responsibility by showing how (...) it pays insufficient attention to individual agency. By accounting for group members’ strategic behavior, we shall see how they control collective attitude formation and are therefore responsible for their group’s behavior. (shrink)

Should we conceive of corporations as entities to which moral responsibility can be attributed? This contribution presents what we will call a political account of corporate moral responsibility. We argue that in modern, liberal democratic societies, there is an underlying political need to attribute greater levels of moral responsibility to corporations. Corporate moral responsibility is essential to the maintenance of social coordination that both advances social welfare and protects citizens' moral entitlements. This political account posits a special capacity of self-governance (...) that corporations can intelligibly be said to possess. Corporations can be said to be "administrators of duty" in that they can voluntarily incorporate moral principles into their decision-making processes about how to conduct business. This account supplements and partly transforms earlier pragmatic accounts of corporate moral responsibility by disentangling responsibility from its conventional linkages with accountability, blame and punishment. It thereby represents a distinctive way to defend corporate moral responsibility and shows how Kantian thinking can be helpful in disentangling the problems surrounding the concept. (shrink)

This essay provides a critical overview of the debate about corporate moral responsibility. Parties to the debate address whether corporations are the kinds of entities that can be blamed when they cause unjustified harm. Proponents of CMR argue that corporations satisfy the conditions for moral agency and so they are fit for blame. Their opponents respond that corporations lack one or more of the capacities necessary for moral agency. I review the arguments on both sides and conclude ultimately that what (...) divides the two is not so much competing conceptions of the corporation as it is disagreement about what moral agency requires. Homing in on the real site of contention will, it is hoped, allow future participants in the debate to focus their efforts more productively. (shrink)

Current norms among professional military officers that govern obedience and dissent strongly discourage officers from offering public criticism of policy enacted by civilian authorities, even if that policy is immoral, illegal, or unconstitutional. We identify a set of circumstances that create a moral imperative for an officer to take action and we leverage prevailing ethical guidelines to argue that in certain cases, even individual officers not directly involved in the execution of the policy have moral standing to offer public criticism (...) of it. We consider the consequences of relaxing norms prohibiting public dissent and explore the trade-off between tolerating immoral policy and the likelihood of mistakenly criticizing appropriate policy. Finally, we offer evidence that current military-civilian relations in the United States are such that placing higher value on dissent would benefit professional military officers and may improve policy. (shrink)

The United States is using the theme of rights to build its unilateralism. In order to transform this unilateralism into a convincing universalism, it needs to reinforce its “soft power,” appeal to its partners and convince them of the necessity of its initiatives. Aggressive or offensive rights and crude unilateral military interventions are dangerous per se; they might also endanger American power in the long run. Culturally, this challenge is rooted in America’s origins and in its enthusiastic desire to reform (...) the world. In that respect, the shaping of a so-called “world community,” America is challenging continental Europe and its hierarchical universal power rooted in Catholic verticality. On the contrary, the U.S. conception of power is based on a horizontal dynamic, inspired by the structure of the reformation movement. American coercive rights are defying a universal powerless law; Luther is certainly taking its revenge against Rome. Indeed, as for now, America’s universal competence turns out to be more effective than the ICC. However, if the United States does not take into account its own aspirations to define universal norms, it will be more and more difficult for the United States to justify the necessity of its military decisions. any step back to crude realism could be a fatal regression. It will be a mistake for the pursuit of America’s own interests; it would also most probably endanger the stability of the international system, as it would foster rivalries and hostile reactions. (shrink)

The United States is using the theme of rights to build its unilateralism. In order to transform this unilateralism into a convincing universalism, it needs to reinforce its “soft power,” appeal to its partners and convince them of the necessity of its initiatives. Aggressive or offensive rights and crude unilateral military interventions are dangerous per se; they might also endanger American power in the long run. Culturally, this challenge is rooted in America’s origins and in its enthusiastic desire to reform (...) the world. In that respect, the shaping of a so-called “world community,” America is challenging continental Europe and its hierarchical universal power rooted in Catholic verticality. On the contrary, the U.S. conception of power is based on a horizontal dynamic, inspired by the structure of the reformation movement. American coercive rights are defying a universal powerless law; Luther is certainly taking its revenge against Rome. Indeed, as for now, America’s universal competence turns out to be more effective than the ICC. However, if the United States does not take into account its own aspirations to define universal norms, it will be more and more difficult for the United States to justify the necessity of its military decisions. any step back to crude realism could be a fatal regression. It will be a mistake for the pursuit of America’s own interests; it would also most probably endanger the stability of the international system, as it would foster rivalries and hostile reactions. (shrink)

This essay discusses the nature of collective responsibility and explores various controversies associated with its possibility and normative value.