Businesses can have Ethical Standards but Businesses are Not Moral Agents

Philosophy: Businesses Can Have Ethical Standards, but Businesses Are Not Moral Agents
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Businesses Can Have Ethical Standards, but Businesses Are Not Moral Agents
The idea of corporation or organizations being moral agents has been viewed in different perspectives. Several philosophers believe that organizations are moral agents basing their arguments on the fact that business organizations have some moral duties to play in the society as they pursue their ultimate goal, which is to make profits. However, some would want to believe that corporate’s actions do not originate from the corporation, but the members of the organizations who execute them, and so the members would be the ones responsible for the actions, making them morally and ethically liable for their deeds. Such a contention exhibits the existence of variances in how different people or philosophers define morality. Defining morality in any given time and place could be challenging. Utilitarian theorists believe it is what is liked by the majority then and there aimed at achieving happiness, with immorality being what is not liked (Zimmerli, Richter, & Holzinger, 2007). Such a definition, differs in the context of deontological theorists, who affirm that morality is what is right and does not have to be necessary aligned with the achievement of happiness or morally admirable ends. This emphasizes that morality defines ethics. To understand whether the corporation or business organizations are moral agent or not, and whether businesses can have ethical standards, it is necessary to consider the issue of morality and ethics from the perspective of different theories including the viewpoints of Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy and Immanuel Kant’s universal categorical imperative.
For those who advocate corporates or businesses as moral agents, they base their claim on how the law defines a corporate entity. The law defines a corporation as an entity separate in its personality for the individual who bear its ownership. In this definition, it emerges that a corporation should act and behave as a person and conduct activities solely on its behalf (Zimmerli, Richter, & Holzinger, 2007). The legal stand concerning the corporation’s separate personality elucidate that a corporate entity is obligated to cater for its own legal obligations such as taxation, just the way a person would be liable for his/her own personal income taxation. If corporation were not a separate person, then if would have turned out that those bearing the ownership could take upon themselves to bear the legal responsibilities such as paying taxes on behalf of the entities. This would mean a corporate firm would not be subjected to taxation or any other legal obligations. By forming a corporation, the owners accept the fact that the body would have to legally own assets separately from the personal assets of the owners. A shareholder’s liability in the corporation is limited to his/her asset contribution to the organization and in case of any corporate legal liability, for instance, a debt, a shareholder can only pay up to the amount of his/her own asset contribution to the corporation.
The law stipulates that every legal person i...