Rönnegard, David

Corporate accountability. not moral responsibility - Journal of Human Values - 30(1), Jan, 2024: p.32-37

The aim of this article is to briefly spell out why corporate moral agency is a fallacy and to show how this conclusion should shift the field of business ethics more in the direction of political philosophy and the rule of law. An argument based on a false assumption can be valid, but it cannot be sound. If corporate moral agency is a fallacy, and thus also moral prescriptions for corporations, how do we salvage the field of business ethics? To the extent that business ethics is about corporate behaviour (rather than individual managerial behaviour), the field can shift its foundational paradigm from ethics (which requires the attributes of moral agency) to legal accountability (which can be imposed instrumentally on corporate legal agents). By letting our elected representatives legislate the norms of acceptable corporate behaviour we can hold corporate legal entities legally accountable. What these norms should be then becomes the central focus of business ethics seen through the lens of political philosophy.- Reproduced

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09716858231209644



Corporate Moral Agency, Business Ethics, Political Philosophy, Rule of Law, Legal Accountability, Corporate Behavior, Moral Prescriptions, Ethical Paradigm, False Assumptions, Legal Agents, Norms of Corporate Conduct, Managerial Responsibility, Regulatory Frameworks, Governance, Economic Policy, Ethical Fallacy, Social Responsibility, Legislative Oversight.