Fictitious persons and real responsibilities

Abstract

It is argued that corporations should be held responsible for their actions. Traditional discussions about the moral responsibility of an organization have relied on a model of criminal intent. Demonstrating intent demands that a moral agent capable of intending be found, which has led to problems. An analysis based on criminal law is replaced by one based on tort law. Under this framework, it is suggested that corporations can be held responsible for the harms caused by their activities even if no person or persons in their decision making structure had formed malicious intent, since the sheer fact that the corporate environment encouraged or allowed negligence will be sufficient.