Corporations as Moral Agents
Corporations are moral agents
I chose to evaluate the second debate because I thought it was the most significant to the purpose of the class: to analyze the moral responsibility of business. The debaters were assigned to negate and affirm the following motion: Corporations are Moral Agents. In my opinion, this motion comes down to the decision to hold corporations responsible for their (corporations) decisions on a moral basis or just hold them responsible for their decisions on a legal basis. If a company were found to be a moral agent, then they would not only have a utilitarian obligation to who they are fiduciaries for, but also a moral obligation to society regardless of stakeholder or shareholder theory. On the other hand, if a company were not found to be a moral agent, then the phrase “it’s just business” would hold truth for corporations as a whole; as long as the company acted within the boundaries of the law and to maximize the utility of whom they represent as an agent, there would be no moral ground to criticize or opt for a change in practices.
In this essay I will outline the arguments each side used to support their case, the additional arguments I believe should have been used, and an evaluation of who won the debate and reason why. The debate was composed of two teams, each of which had 4 members. They each had a 5-minute main speech to prove their arguments, and a 2-minute rebuttal speech to disprove that of their opposing counterparts. Although the speeches were given in an alternating fashion between both teams, I will layout all of the proposition’s arguments, then layout all of the oppositions arguments, and finally move on to chronologically stating the rebuttals.
The first speaker of the proposition cleverly set the tone for the debate by defining important terms from the motion. Speaker 1 defined agents as something or someone that acts in behalf of another, and then went on to use the transitive property and identity
I chose to evaluate the second debate because I thought it was the most significant to the purpose of the class: to analyze the moral responsibility of business. The debaters were assigned to negate and affirm the following motion: Corporations are Moral Agents. In my opinion, this motion comes down to the decision to hold corporations responsible for their (corporations) decisions on a moral basis or just hold them responsible for their decisions on a legal basis. If a company were found to be a moral agent, then they would not only have a utilitarian obligation to who they are fiduciaries for, but also a moral obligation to society regardless of stakeholder or shareholder theory. On the other hand, if a company were not found to be a moral agent, then the phrase “it’s just business” would hold truth for corporations as a whole; as long as the company acted within the boundaries of the law and to maximize the utility of whom they represent as an agent, there would be no moral ground to criticize or opt for a change in practices.
In this essay I will outline the arguments each side used to support their case, the additional arguments I believe should have been used, and an evaluation of who won the debate and reason why. The debate was composed of two teams, each of which had 4 members. They each had a 5-minute main speech to prove their arguments, and a 2-minute rebuttal speech to disprove that of their opposing counterparts. Although the speeches were given in an alternating fashion between both teams, I will layout all of the proposition’s arguments, then layout all of the oppositions arguments, and finally move on to chronologically stating the rebuttals.
The first speaker of the proposition cleverly set the tone for the debate by defining important terms from the motion. Speaker 1 defined agents as something or someone that acts in behalf of another, and then went on to use the transitive property and identity