Denying Corporate Rights and Punishing Corporate Wrongs

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (04) ◽  
pp. 517-534 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy J. Sepinwall
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
Moral Rights ◽  
Legal Rights ◽  
Corporate Rights ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Strategy I

ABSTRACT: Scholars addressing the moral status of corporations are motivated by a pair of conflicting anxieties: If corporations are not moral agents, we will be unable to blame them for their wrongs. But if corporations are moral agents, we will have to recognize corporate moral rights, and the legal rights that flow therefrom. In early and under-appreciated work, Tom Donaldson sought to allay both concerns at once: Corporations, he argued, are not moral persons, and so are not eligible for many of the rights that persons enjoy; but they are moral agents, and so ought to bear responsibility in many of the ways that persons do. This article offers a sympathetic critique of the Donaldsonian strategy. I argue that, as it has been elaborated, the strategy necessarily fails. Nonetheless the strategy embodies a worthy aim and so I seek to provide an alternative way to vindicate it.

scholarly journals Group Agency and Artificial Intelligence

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian List
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
Intelligent Systems ◽  
Group Agency ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Legal Personhood ◽  
The Social ◽  
Intentional Agents ◽  
Regulatory Challenges

AbstractThe aim of this exploratory paper is to review an under-appreciated parallel between group agency and artificial intelligence. As both phenomena involve non-human goal-directed agents that can make a difference to the social world, they raise some similar moral and regulatory challenges, which require us to rethink some of our anthropocentric moral assumptions. Are humans always responsible for those entities’ actions, or could the entities bear responsibility themselves? Could the entities engage in normative reasoning? Could they even have rights and a moral status? I will tentatively defend the (increasingly widely held) view that, under certain conditions, artificial intelligent systems, like corporate entities, might qualify as responsible moral agents and as holders of limited rights and legal personhood. I will further suggest that regulators should permit the use of autonomous artificial systems in high-stakes settings only if they are engineered to function as moral (not just intentional) agents and/or there is some liability-transfer arrangement in place. I will finally raise the possibility that if artificial systems ever became phenomenally conscious, there might be a case for extending a stronger moral status to them, but argue that, as of now, this remains very hypothetical.

scholarly journals Copyright and Copyright Protection

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 36
Author(s):  
Safet Emruli ◽  
Agim Nuhiu ◽  
Besa Kadriu
Keyword(s):  
Copyright Protection ◽  
Key Agreement ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
Moral Rights ◽  
Legal Rights ◽  
Financial Reward ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
Bern Convention ◽  
Artistic Works ◽  
The Right

One of the legal intellectual property disciplines are copyrights which concerns artistic and literary works. Copyright is: bundle of exclusive legal rights that has to do with protection of literary and artistic works. It is granted to authors and artists to protect expressive works against unauthorized reproduction or distribution by third parties. Copyright protect “works”, expression of thoughts and ideas. Literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works must be original, it means not to be a copy. Copyright covers two other types of right: economic rights, the right of the owner to benefit financial reward from use of his work by others and moral rights which always have to do with original holder no matter if economic rights are transferred or not. Economic rights can be transferred. Bern Convention for the Protection of the Literary and Artistic Works is international key agreement and the oldest multilateral agreement in the field of copyright. Copyright subsists automatically on the creation of a work, no application needed, nor do any formalities apply. Nature of copyright is territorial and the minimum term of protection is life of the author plus 50 years after his/her death. In European Union and in certain number of countries, terms of protections of are extended to life of the author plus 70 years after his/her death.

Animals in Political Theory

2015 ◽  
pp. 42-64
Author(s):  
Sue Donaldson ◽  
Will Kymlicka
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
Animal Ethics ◽  
Moral Rights ◽  
The Public ◽  
History Of ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Animal Question ◽  
Blind Spots

Western political theorists have largely ignored the animal question, assuming that animals have no place in our theories of democracy, citizenship, membership, sovereignty, and the public good. Conversely, animal ethicists have largely ignored political theory, assuming that we can theorize the moral status and moral rights of animals without drawing on the categories and concepts of political theory. This chapter traces the history of this separation between animals and political theory, examines the resulting intellectual blind spots for animal ethics, and reviews recent attempts to bring the two together. Situating animal rights within political theory has the potential to identify new models of justice in human-animal relations, and to open up new areas of scholarship and research.

Human Rights

Philosophy ◽  
2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
John-Stewart Gordon
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Due Process ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Practical Importance ◽  
Moral Rights ◽  
Legal Rights ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
Widespread Agreement

There is an enormous range of contemporary and rapidly expanding literature on human rights that pervades almost every area of human life. This entry cannot do justice to all of these areas and would inevitably fail to cover all aspects of the philosophy of human rights. Here, the goal is more modest: offering a primary overview of the thorny literature and many vital human rights issues that can become increasingly complex and muddled. The concept of human rights, however, came to particular prominence in the 20th century after World War II, due to the atrocities (e.g., genocide against the Jews) committed by the Nazis. Since then, the idea of human rights has become profoundly influential in many different fields such as ethics, applied ethics, political philosophy, political sciences, law, international law, medicine, and public health. This has led to the formation of a new area in philosophy called “the philosophy of human rights.” The very idea of human rights, however, is older and can be traced back to early religious ideas and the notion of natural rights in Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Generally speaking, human rights are primarily universal moral norms that bind all people in all places at all times independently of any legal recognition. Whether there is a widespread agreement that all human beings have human rights simply because they are human beings is a matter of debate. However, there is currently no common ground with regard to the moral and legal justification or the ontological and epistemological status of human rights. Human rights are primarily universal moral rights and, secondly, international legal rights observed and enforced by nation-states. Despite major caveats concerning the theoretical foundations of human rights, most scholars nonetheless hold the view that there is a vital consensus on the practical importance of human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) (cited under Modern Documents), is the most important human rights document and contains at least seven groups of basic rights: security rights, due process rights, liberty rights, political rights, equality rights, social welfare rights, and group rights.

scholarly journals Corporate Moral Agency and the Responsibility to Respect Human Rights in the UN Guiding Principles: Do Corporations Have Moral Rights?

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia H WERHANE
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Moral Agency ◽  
Moral Rights ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Human Agent ◽  
Guiding Principles ◽  
The United Nations

AbstractIn 2011 the United Nations (UN) published the ‘Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect, and Remedy” Framework’ (Guiding Principles). The Guiding Principles specify that for-profit corporations have responsibilities to respect human rights. Do these responsibilities entail that corporations, too, have basic rights? The contention that corporations are moral persons is problematic because it confers moral status to an organization similar to that conferred to a human agent. I shall argue that corporations are not moral persons. But as collective bodies created, operated, and perpetuated by individual human moral agents, one can ascribe to corporations secondary moral agency as organizations. This ascription, I conclude, makes sense of the normative business responsibilities outlined in the Guiding Principles without committing one to the view that corporations are full moral persons.

scholarly journals A Philosophical Argument for a Bill of Rights

2000 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
CÉCILE FABRE
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Moral Rights ◽  
Legal Rights ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Philosophical Argument ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Fundamental Interest ◽  
Liberal Tradition ◽  
Democratic State

This article seeks to show that the rights which protect people's autonomy should be entrenched in the constitution of a democratic state. It is firmly located in egalitarian liberal tradition, as it takes for valid the following claims: (1) people have a fundamental interest in autonomy; (2) people have rights that their interest in autonomy, and the interests to which it gives rise, be protected and promoted; (3) people's respective interests in autonomy must be protected equally. The argument for a bill of rights unfolds as follows: first, it is argued that we have autonomy-protecting rights not only against private individuals but also against the state, and the meaning of having such rights against the state is explained; then it is shown that it is legitimate to turn certain autonomy-protecting moral rights into legal rights, and that doing so in the case of the rights we have against the state amounts to turning them into constitutional rights; lastly, two objections to the argument deployed earlier are countered.

Coercive Inclusion in the Mexican War on Drugs: A Field Study of Human Rights and the State in Michoacán

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (5) ◽  
pp. 91-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philipp Wolfesberger
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Drug Trafficking ◽  
Private Property ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Moral Rights ◽  
Legal Rights ◽  
Mexican War ◽  
Drug Trafficking Organizations ◽  
Derechos Humanos

Qualitative ethnographic study of the human rights violations committed in the course of the militarized combat against drug trafficking organizations in rural Michoacán unmasks state practices of coercive inclusion. The violation of human rights and the subsequent processing of human rights claims paradoxically bind the marginalized population to the formal state and foster its subordination. The practical configuration of the current arena of human rights is not the lever for a democratic, inclusive Mexico but a curtain that conceals the repressive practices that it makes possible. In the processing of human rights complaints, the legal rights of physical integrity and private property become moral rights with no effect of legal justice. Un estudio etnográfico cualitativo sobre las violaciones a los derechos humanos cometidas durante la lucha militarizada contra las organizaciones de tráfico de drogas en el Michoacán rural sirve para desenmascarar las prácticas de inclusión coercitiva del Estado. Las violaciones y el posterior procesamiento de las denuncias paradójicamente vinculan a la población marginada con el Estado oficial, fomentando su subordinación. La configuración práctica del actual contexto de los derechos humanos no funge como la palanca de un México democrático e inclusivo, sino como una cortina que oculta las prácticas represivas que el Estado hace posibles. En la tramitación de las denuncias sobre violación de derechos humanos, los derechos legales de la integridad física y la propiedad privada se convierten en derechos morales sin ningún efecto de justicia legal.

The Moral Status of Information and Information Technologies

2008 ◽  
pp. 3829-3847
Author(s):  
Johnny Hartz Søraker
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
Information Technologies ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Relational Theory ◽  
Ethical Judgments ◽  
Relational Properties ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Asian Philosophy

The purpose of this chapter is to explore whether information and information technology in certain cases ought to be valued as ends in themselves rather than as mere means to other ends. I will address this problem by proposing a theory of moral status: a theory of who or what has moral status in the sense that we, as moral agents, have an obligation to take their well-being into consideration when making ethical judgments. The proposed relational theory of moral status draws on insights from both classical Western and East Asian philosophy in order to question the exclusion of all nonliving entities in most theories of moral status. The relational properties constitutivity and irreplaceability are singled out as ethically relevant and are suggested as one possible way to ground the moral status of information and information technologies.

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