Question of the Day (with background): In light of the SCOTUS decision in Citizens United, there has been a great deal of objection to the idea that corporations are treated as people according to law (they are in fact considered legal fictions). The general tendency has been to argue that corporations should not be legally regarded as people. The motivation for this argument is that corporations do not, or should not, possess certain moral or Constitutional rights (like free speech), and depriving corporations of personhood would block their claim to such rights. [This argument may not work if non-persons, like animals, can have rights -- but thats beside the point here.] While it may (or may not) be true that non-persons have no moral rights, it is certainly true that non-persons have no moral responsibilities. Even if we have a moral obligation to protect tigers, we should not expect tigers to treat us similarly. Consequently, by turning corporations into non-persons and abrogating their rights, in one fell swoop we may be abrogating their responsibilities. One of the primary reasons for making corporations into legal people was so that they would have a DUTY TO PAY TAXES. Corporations might very well be happy to become non-persons, if it means they can no longer be taxed. Primary question: Can organized groups of people -- governments, corporations, institutions, agencies, etc. -- be regarded as possessing moral or legal status, like that of a person? Secondary question: If the answer is yes, how can they justly be deprived of their moral or Constitutional rights? If the answer is no, how can we justly expect such groups to behave responsibly?
Posted on: Thu, 18 Sep 2014 13:55:13 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015