Corporations as Communicative Moral Agents
摘要
Recently, a small group of authors have begun to interpret the moral agencyMoral agency of corporationsCorporations as a phenomenon that occurs through communicationCommunication. With different approachesApproach, these authors link the moral agencyMoral agency of firmsFirms to their ability to perceive and react to the normative expectations of other agentsAgents. These authors rightly emphasize the communicativeCommunicative nature of moralityMorality. However, they interpret it as a homogeneous phenomenon affecting only individuals and firmsFirms. Like these authors, I assume that moralityMorality always occurs through communicationCommunication. In contrast, I offer a more complex view. In particular, I describe moralityMorality as a communicativeCommunicative phenomenon that occurs at three levelsLevels, determined by the object of communicationCommunication and the functional capacities exercised by agentsAgents. At the expressive levelLevels, agentsAgents use expressions of esteem (such as praise, resentment or blame) to mutually evaluate each other’s attitudes and behaviors, taking as a reference the normative structure that regulates their interactions. At the reflective levelLevels, they communicate about the normative structure that coordinates their expectations and behaviors when interacting. At the ethical levelEthical level, they communicate with a general and abstract approachApproach to some normative element, regardless of how that element materializes in the specific structure that regulates their interactions. Corresponding to those levelsLevels, I identify three modesModes of moral agencyMoral agency (expressive moral agencyExpressive moral agency, reflective moral agencyMoral agency, and ethical agency). After presenting this framework, I argue that corporationsCorporations often exercise these capacities in practice and should therefore be considered moral agentsMoral agents of each type.