Corporations as persons: Objections to goodpaster's ‘principle of moral projection’
Goodpaster's ‘principle of moral projection’ is intended to support a program of corporate moral improvement based on an analogy between persons and corporations. In this paper I try to show that the analogy breaks down at a crucial point — namely at the search for amotive for moral improvement...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
1987
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| In: |
Journal of business ethics
Year: 1987, Volume: 6, Issue: 8, Pages: 633-637 |
| Further subjects: | B
Moral Improvement
B Crucial Question B Crucial Point B Moral Projection B Economic Growth |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Goodpaster's ‘principle of moral projection’ is intended to support a program of corporate moral improvement based on an analogy between persons and corporations. In this paper I try to show that the analogy breaks down at a crucial point — namely at the search for amotive for moral improvement. Further, the analogy may foster a tendency to suppose that corporations, like persons, have intrinsic value. I conclude that the analogy does more harm than good for the following reasons: (a) it distracts from the crucial question, which is, how can we motivate people to shape the institutions in which they work into morally better ones? and (b) it may reinforce a morally dangerous tendency to serve corporations for their own sakes. |
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| ISSN: | 1573-0697 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1007/BF00705779 |
