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Does the Machine Need a Ghost? Corporate Agents as Nonconscious Kantian Moral Agents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 September 2018

KENDY M. HESS
KENDY M. HESS*
Affiliation:
COLLEGE OF THE HOLY CROSSkhess@holycross.edu
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Abstract

Does Kantian moral agency require phenomenal consciousness? More to the point, can firms (and other highly organized collectives) be Kantian moral agents—bound by Kantian obligations—in the absence of consciousness? After sketching the mechanics of my account of corporate agents, I consider three increasingly demanding accounts of Kantian moral agency, concluding that corporate agents can meet each successively higher threshold. They can (1) act on universalizable principles and treat humanity as an end in itself; (2) give such principles to themselves, treat their own ‘humanity’ as an end itself, and act out of respect for the law; and (3) to the extent necessary, draw on empathically generated information and insights to inflect their performance, all in the absence of phenomenal consciousness. I close by rejecting two further arguments that phenomenal consciousness is nonetheless conceptually or practically necessary for Kantian moral agency.

Keywords

corporate moral agencycollective intentionalitycollective responsibilityKantian ethicsbusiness ethicsphenomenal consciousness
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , Spring 2018 , pp. 67 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2018 

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Footnotes

I would like to thank BJ Strawser, Norm Bowie, Robert Rupert, and two anonymous referees for the Journal of the American Philosophical Association for written comments on earlier versions of the text. The paper has also benefited from audience questions and comments at the 2013 Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress and a symposium session at the 2015 Central Meeting of the American Philosophical Association.

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