John Hasnas (Georgetown University - Robert Emmett McDonough School of Business) has posted The Phantom Menace of the Responsibility Deficit (Chapter in book "The Moral Responsibility of Firms: For and Against", Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
The strongest argument for the conclusion that corporations should be held morally responsible for their actions has been advanced by Philip Pettit. Pettit's argument proceeds in two steps; arguing first that corporations are fit to be held morally responsible, and second that, given this fitness, they should be. This chapter assumes that Pettit has established his first point – that corporations can bear moral responsibility, – but argues that nevertheless, they should not. The argument for this conclusion is based on the twin observations that 1) attributing moral responsibility to corporations has no useful practical value – it does not supply any desirable end that is not achievable without corporate moral responsibility – and 2) attributing moral responsibility to corporations is incompatible with the basic values of a liberal society.
