Kendy Hess | College of the Holy Cross (original) (raw)

Papers by Kendy Hess

Collective Responsibility: Perspectives on Political Philosophy from Social Ontology

Firms currently occupy a highly contested position in contemporary society, with scholars, politi... more Firms currently occupy a highly contested position in contemporary society, with scholars, politicians, and the general public increasingly engaged in debate over whether their proper role is strictly limited to the provision of goods and services or extends far beyond that. While firms exist and function exclusively as the result of collective action, however, very little of the scholarly debate has drawn on the collective action literature. In this paper as elsewhere, I show that attending to the collective nature of the firm can help us answer those questions.
I begin (Section 1) with a holist account of corporate agents – highly structured collectives, like firms, that qualify as moral agents in their own right. This particular account emphasizes the social aspects of these entities, revealing the modern firm to be startlingly similar to the polis of Aristotelian political philosophy. Section 2 fills a gap in the literature by offering a novel account of a “political community” and Section 3 demonstrates that most firms will qualify. I argue in Section 4 that political communities should be governed in accordance with political theory and explore the implications for firm governance, most of which are sharply at odds with contemporary practice, in Section 5. I close with a warning for those who assume that the political nature of the firm wins them a liberal, democratic workplace.

Inquiry, 2023

My aim in this article is to rescue the holist position on corporate agency (CA) from indignities... more My aim in this article is to rescue the holist position on corporate agency (CA) from indignities heaped upon it by friends and enemies alike. Two general criticisms strike at the core of the position: the charge of 'material failures' (that the corporate agent lacks a proper material presence) and the charge of illusion (that the intentionality of the corporate agent consists in the intentionality of the members). Both attack the holist position on metaphysical grounds, logically prior to any claims of agency; if these charges cannot be answered then much of the CA literature collapses. The article begins by outlining the criticisms and a holist account of corporate agents that incorporates and transcends earlier offerings on corporate agency from French, List and Pettit, and others. It then addresses the charge of material failures, demonstrating that the holist corporate agent is a material entity (nothing 'ghostly,') and arguing that neither its scattered nature nor its dependency on voluntary participation undermines that status. It closes by addressing the charge of illusion, demonstrating that the common charge of double-counting member intentionality is false. Both charges arise from the same misreading of the holist position, which ignores the metaphysics of the corporate agent. 'debunk' (verb)-to expose the falseness or hollowness of (a myth, idea, or belief) My aim in this article is to rescue the holist position on corporate agency (CA) from some of the indignities heaped upon it by friends and enemies alike. The holist is committed to two claims: first, that properly organised groups of people can constitute a distinct entity, and second, that this entity has its own properties and capacities, including the capacity for a highly sophisticated form of rational agency. Peter French and Christian List and Philip Pettit ('L&P'; collectively, 'FLiP') are among the most familiar advocates. 1 The first round in this dialectic-the primary arguments in favor of CA-have been presented elsewhere, by these and other scholars, and I will not rehearse them here. Instead, my goal is to proceed to the third round in the dialectic: proponents have presented the case for CA, critics claim to have 'debunked' it, and I want to 'rebunk' it. Critics have raised many concerns about CA but two general objections strike at the very core of the holist position. First, critics have repeatedly suggested that corporate agents are just 1 The label of 'holist' is mine, and none of the scholars identified as such in this paragraph has (to my knowledge) taken the label for themself. These scholars affirm the commitments I've attributed to them here, but none has addressed the metaphysical implications of the accounts they've put forward. See French (1984) and List and Pettit (2011) for the primary treatments; for other holist treatments in the philosophical literature see Björnsson and Hess (

Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy, 2022

A fundamental task of the government is to "secure generally the comfort, safety, morals, health,... more A fundamental task of the government is to "secure generally the comfort, safety, morals, health, and prosperity of its citizens. .. by insuring to each an uninterrupted enjoyment of all the privileges conferred upon him or her by the general laws." This authority is commonly known as the police power. Sometimes the government regulates its citizens directly in pursuit of these goals, but here I explore the implications of a different technique. It is becoming increasingly common for the government to impose the responsibility inherent in the police power on business enterprises, making firms legally liable for the health and well-being of their employees. I suggest here that implementing such regulations, in which one entity (the firm) is made liable for the well-being of another (the employee) initiates an unfortunate progression. After introducing Foucault's panoptic theory of discipline, I draw on developments in health and safety regulation and workplace climate regulation to suggest that we should heed the warning inherent in Foucault's work. When the government makes one entity liable for the well-being of another it introduces a dangerous logic into workplace management, leading to the near-inevitable exposure and exploitation of the very people the government was trying to protect.

Routledge Handbook of Collective Responsibility

Like the literature on human agency, the literature on corporate agency has been dominated by acc... more Like the literature on human agency, the literature on corporate agency has been dominated by accounts that pick out a single mechanism for the execution of agency. For the human literature, it has been rational autonomy; for the corporate literature, it has been the formalistic elements of “CID Structures” (French) or voting procedures (List and Pettit). The difficulty in each case is that the intentional behavior of these agents – of the whole human or corporate entity that bears the capacity of agency – is in fact shaped by a multiplicity of other mechanisms in a way that these single-mechanism accounts cannot capture. On their own, in each literature, they leave us with a sadly impoverished conception of agency that inhibits our ability to account for actual events, or to assign responsibility for them.

In the corporate literature, I propose to address this difficulty with an account of corporate agents that begins with the metaphysical material whole of the agent, then moves to account for its agency. For one thing, this allows us to address persistent criticism of “ghostliness,” and to address important questions regarding membership and (hence) member responsibility. More importantly, it allows us to recognize those “non-captured” behaviors as corporate actions that arise from other, unrecognized aspects of the agent rather than forcing us to reject them as non-actions or non-corporate. From this perspective we can see that all of the mechanisms picked out by French, List and Pettit, and others will likely be present and operating (and competing) within any given corporate agent. This approach does not compete with theirs; it incorporates them, and in doing so it presents a corporate agency which draws on different sources and involves different members than those picked out by the formalist accounts. This broader, richer understanding of corporate agents and their agency has significant implications for how we understand the moral responsibility of the corporate agent itself, and of the members who constitute it.

Collectivity: Ontology, Ethics, and Social Justice. Kendy Hess, Tracy Isaacs, and Violetta Igneski, eds (Rowman and Littlefield 2018)

The various "collective" literatures have generally focused on collectives that are unified and d... more The various "collective" literatures have generally focused on collectives that are unified and directed by "shared intentions" – mental or intentional states that are (1) possessed by each member of a collective, in some sense, and (2) immediately relevant to the formation and behavior of the collective. Three people moving a couch are unified by the shared intention to move the couch because each has an intention to move the couch and to do so with the other members. There are a number of different ways to theorize these shared intentions, and I am not trying to choose among them. Instead, I would like to recognize them as a group and contrast them with theories of a very different kind of collective: the large, highly organized collectives increasingly identified as "corporate agents.”
The literature has often failed to recognize the very different kind of unity that binds the members of a corporate agent, and the failure to recognize this difference has led to unnecessary confusion and implausible claims. I begin by describing this "peculiar unity" in some detail, then turn to the question of whether this unity is sufficiently robust to underwrite claims of material existence. In the absence of consensus on the requirements for material existence, I test my account against popular proposals from Baker (2000) and van Inwagen (1995). I conclude in each case that the corporate agent qualifies as a material object in its own right, and suggest that these successes suggest that it would qualify on other accounts not addressed here.

Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 2018

"Who's responsible?" has become a pressing question in the wake of the financial crisis. While t... more "Who's responsible?" has become a pressing question in the wake of the financial crisis. While the answer will obviously be very complicated, the question itself seems relatively simple. But each of the two words comprising the question is importantly ambiguous, and the way we interpret them will have significant implications for the answers we come up with. Here I focus on the complexities of the “who”: does it include collective agents, like firms? If we hold the collective agents responsible, do we thereby hold their members responsible for too much, or too little? How are they responsible at all?

There are individualist, collectivist, and holist answers to those questions. The first two approaches refuse to recognize the firms and rely on a distributive approach to moral responsibility that yields implausible results. The holist approach recognizes the firms themselves as potentially responsible, but critics object that this forces us to either blame their members for things they haven’t done or excuse them entirely. I reply that using a suitably robust account of corporate agents and a non-distributive paradigm of moral responsibility (“collateral responsibility”) avoids both outcomes. I close by considering the implications for Countrywide and its members.

Journal of the American Philosophical Association

Does Kantian moral agency require phenomenal consciousness? More to the point, can firms (and oth... more 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 agency, 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.

The Oneness Hypothesis: Beyond the Bounds of the Self. Philip Ivanhoe, Owen Flanagan and Victoria.Harrison (eds), Columbia University Press, 2018

The Moral Responsibility of Firms Revisite. Orts, Eric and N. Craig Smith (eds). Oxford University Press., 2017

I begin this chapter by arguing that there is an unrecognized consensus just below the surface of... more I begin this chapter by arguing that there is an unrecognized consensus just below the surface of the FMR debate: almost everyone believes that firms shouldn’t do things that are morally wrong. This consensus is masked by metaphysical and metaethical complexities (briefly outlined), but the central claim is usually held to be true regardless of how we resolve those complexities. It’s important that we recognize this, as doing so reframes the debate in helpful ways and avoids the appearance of serious disagreement about this basic point.
The second section raises two concerns about the contemporary debate. First, the myopic focus on explicit executive decision-making implies what I’ve started to call “the homunculus theory of corporate behavior” – the idea every firm has a little man inside who carefully, precisely, and effectively shapes corporate action. Any executive can tell you that’s simply not the case; they wish it were! We need a theory that captures all of the major forces that shape the actions of firms, and I briefly present my own as a contender. My theory focuses on the corporate commitments that drive corporate behavior – commitments that arise through explicit decision-making, distributed decision-making and cultural shift, among other things. This yields an account that is at once truer to life and more useful in guiding interventions. Second, much of the debate about corporate moral agency relies on human paradigms in a way that closes off the possibility of a non-human moral agent. I close the section by briefly outlining a model which avoids this difficulty.
The chapter closes by arguing that even within the “pro-FMR” camp, there is more consensus than is usually acknowledged. After explaining how our current labels mask this consensus, I note that almost all the major players agree with the basic claim that “firms” (in some sense) act morally and immorally. Recognizing this hidden consensus – again – allows us to reframe the debate in helpful ways, and puts us in a position to recognize that most of the “competing” claims don’t really compete. What is needed is an over-arching account of corporate moral agency that captures the contributions made by the other theories, and I demonstrate that my own account (described above) can fill this need as well.

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (forthcoming)

Recently, a number of people have argued that certain entities embodied by groups of agents thems... more Recently, a number of people have argued that certain entities embodied by groups of agents themselves qualify as agents, with their own (analogs of) beliefs, desires, and intentions; even, some claim, as moral agents. However, others have independently argued that fully-fledged moral agency involves a capacity for reactive attitudes such as guilt and indignation, and these capacities might seem beyond the ken of “collective” or “corporate” agents. Individuals embodying such agents can of course be ashamed, proud, or indignant about what the agent has done. But just as an entity needs to have its own beliefs, desires, and intentions to qualify as a bona fide agent, the required capacity for reactive attitudes is a capacity to have one’s own reactive attitudes. If fully-fledged moral agency requires reactive attitudes, the corporate agent must itself be capable of (analogs of) guilt and indignation. In this paper, we argue that at least certain corporate agents are. Or, more precisely, we argue that if there are bona fide corporate agents, these agents can have the capacities that are both associated with guilt and indignation and plausibly required for moral agency; in particular certain epistemic and motivational capacities.

Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy

This article was written for inclusion in a volume about “The Ethical Limits of Markets,” and on... more This article was written for inclusion in a volume about “The Ethical Limits of Markets,” and one of the biggest problems with markets is that they simply don’t recognize ethical limits. This plays out in a number of different ways, but I’m most interested in the impact of what I’ll call the market meme. “The market meme,” here, refers to a distinctive set of intellectual commitments bound up in contemporary discourse about the market, together with accompanying language, practices, and habits of thought and behavior. The market meme embodies a certain way of looking at the world, and a certain approach to the world that is well suited to both markets and market society. Adopting the market meme facilitates the functioning of the market and our participation in it; it is both efficient and effective. At the same time, however, memes are like invasive species in their tendency to spread beyond their original habitats. The most powerful ones spread fastest and farthest and cause the most disruption in the territories they invade, and the market meme is enormously powerful.
Section 1 provides a brief survey of historical concerns about the ethical impacts of markets, concluding with the historical conviction that many of these concerns could be addressed by “counter-market institutions” like the family, governance, the professions, and education. I then turn to my own concerns. Section 2 introduces “the Enlightenment construct” – a distinctive paradigm of the person together with the distinctive set of values that typically accompanies it. This familiar paradigm is often used by philosophers and theorists in the social sciences as a kind of simplified stand-in for “human nature,” and the values tend to come along with the paradigm. I then trace the process by which the Enlightenment construct escapes the bounds of theory and becomes “the market meme” – a much less carefully articulated and employed version of the original, freed from the constraints of the lab and at large in the world. With this preliminary work done, Section 3 explores my concern that the market meme has invaded precisely the counter-market institutions meant to contain it and counter its ill effects. None of this leads to a hysterical rejection of markets or market-driven systems, or to a call for government action. Instead it reveals a personal, ethical choice that each of us must make about how far we want to allow the market meme to invade our own understandings of family, friendship, governance, professional behavior, education, and the rest.

This is an autobiographical essay, unlike other papers on this page. It was written for inclusio... more This is an autobiographical essay, unlike other papers on this page. It was written for inclusion in a volume of essays, and I post in here on the off chance that someone will stumble across it and find it helpful. And to answer a question my students keep asking, and asking, and asking: Why did I leave my law practice? The answer was much more complicated than I'd realized....

I was a corporate environmental attorney for fifteen years. It was a job I enjoyed, and one that provided me with wealth, power, and security, but something about it just didn’t feel right and I finally left. The Western accounts of morality that I now study and teach couldn't identify any serious problems with the situation I’d left behind, and I remained unable to account for the deep sense of wrongness that had ultimately driven me out. Looking back, however, the theory of ahimsa provides a completely different perspective on both my practice and my experiences there. It reveals the depth and pervasiveness of violence in the contemporary workplace, and provides a sobering look at the implications of contemporary ideals of professionalism.

Beastly Morality: Animals as Moral Agents

For centuries, without the slightest bit of embarrassment and only the most miniscule of caveats... more For centuries, without the slightest bit of embarrassment and only the most miniscule of caveats, philosophical discussions of morality have assumed that moral agents are human. These discussions constantly assume human wants, needs, and capacities, and the resulting theories – which are presented as theories of “morality itself” and “moral agency itself” – are thus nothing of the kind. Instead, they are carefully shaped so as to ensure that only human beings comfortably fulfill the requirements (and not even all of them).
There are three contemporary discussions that challenge this practice: the debates over whether corporations, artificial intelligences, and non-human animals might qualify as moral agents. The difficulty in each case is to explore the question without relying on paradigms of moral agency that presume a human agent. I offer my own approach, developed in the context of the corporate moral agency debate, as one likely to solve this problem.
I begin by tracing the historical expansions of the "circle of moral concern" (regarding moral subjects, or patients) and the "circle of moral respect" (regarding moral agents), exploring the approaches that have enabled previous expansions. I then present my own, functionalist account of moral agency -- basically, X is a moral agent if X can function as a moral agent -- and outline the process of evaluating whether corporations can meet this standard. In the final section, I briefly suggest what it might look like to approach the question of whether non-human animals might qualify as well, and close by raising some concerns.

Midwest Studies in Philosophy

Much of the current work on collective agency proceeds by developing new conceptual machinery – n... more Much of the current work on collective agency proceeds by developing new conceptual machinery – new, distinctively collective ways of understanding agents, agency, obligation, and responsibility. My goal in this article is to establish that this is unnecessary when the collective qualifies as a moral agent in its own right. As argued here, certain collectives (typically corporations, governments, colleges, etc.) can have their own beliefs and desires, their own “rational points of view,” their own actions, and (thus) their own moral obligations and responsibilities. These “corporate agents” should act in ways that avoid harm, respect rights, or pursue excellences unique to their kind for exactly the same reasons that human beings should do the same: because they can.

Journal of Value Inquiry

I aim to disentangle two very important debates: one about whether corporations can be moral age... more I aim to disentangle two very important debates: one about whether corporations can be moral agents (and thus have moral obligations), one about whether corporations are persons (and thus entitled to certain rights and protections). Critics often conflate these two debates, arguing that moral agency entails personhood and then treating that entailment as a kind of reductio for claims of corporate moral agency. My primary purpose is to rebut the claim of entailment, demonstrating that even the highly sophisticated moral agency of corporations does not entail the kind of personhood at issue here: to be a person requires a kind of vulnerability that corporations do not have. Additionally, exploring how this is the case reveals a flaw in the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Citizens United.

Philosophical Studies

Moderate holists like French, Copp, Hess, Isaacs, and List and Pettit argue that certain collecti... more Moderate holists like French, Copp, Hess, Isaacs, and List and Pettit argue that certain collectives qualify as moral agents in their own right, often pointing to the corporation as an example of a collective likely to qualify. A common objection is that corporations cannot qualify as moral agents because they lack free will. The concern is that corporations (and other highly organized collectives like colleges, governments, and the military) are effectively puppets, dancing on strings controlled by external forces. The article begins by briefly presenting a novel account of corporate moral agency and then demonstrates that, on this account, qualifying corporations (and similar entities in other fields) do possess free will. Such entities possess and act from their own “actional springs”, in Haji’s (2006) phrase, and from their own reasons-responsive mechanisms. When they do so, they act freely and are morally responsible for what they do.

The Background of Social Reality

In this chapter, I argue that the existence and content of shared intentions is irrelevant in cer... more In this chapter, I argue that the existence and content of shared intentions is irrelevant in certain cases of collective action, those involving what I call “corporate entities.” A corporate entity is a social entity that has its own intentional states, agency, and moral agency. My claim here is that the intentional states of the members – shared or otherwise – are theoretically irrelevant to the intentional states of the corporate entity. We can have a corporate entity that believes that x and acts on the basis of that belief despite the fact that its members have no beliefs whatsoever regarding the truth of x and no intention to act in ways that express it. In fact, we can have such a corporate entity even if the members have no intentional states at all. If we approach every candidate social entity intent upon finding the shared intentions hidden inside, we may fail to see or appreciate other important aspects, namely, the distinct intentionality that sometimes drives their actions. We will miss the forest for the trees. This chapter begins with a quick sketch of the manner in which corporate entities typically come into existence and develop their distinct intentionality, then notes the irrelevance of shared intentions to the process described. The proponent of shared intentions might respond to this claim negatively by voicing specific objections to holist accounts or positively by emphasizing the preferability of individualism. The third and fourth sections thus address each potential response in turn. The third section answers four typical individualist objections to holist accounts, and the fourth section takes on individualism itself (albeit briefly). I close by providing four reasons to be skeptical of individualist approaches and individualism as a whole.

Ethics, Policy, and the Environment

‘Species egalitarianism is the view that all living things have equal moral standing’ (Schmidtz, ... more ‘Species egalitarianism is the view that all living things have equal moral standing’ (Schmidtz, 2011). David Schmidtz claims that the species egalitarian who would affirm this statement has the initial burden of proof, but he gives no justification beyond the fact that it is the egalitarian who has made the positive claim. This is unsatisfying, as it just depends on who started the conversation. Moreover, it assumes that we should never accept a positive claim until it has been adequately supported, and this is a more interesting difficulty.

Why should we deny species egalitarianism (SE) until it is proved, rather than believing SE until it is disproved? I suggest two reasons why the burden belongs to the denier, concluding that we are not only entitled but obligated to adopt SE as a default position.

Southwest Philosophy Review

In this article I explore the question of whether the "socially constituted individual" of commun... more In this article I explore the question of whether the "socially constituted individual" of communitarian, feminist, and conservative theory is an apt candidate for moral obligation. The ethics of Karl Marx provide a wonderful opportunity to explore just this question. According to Kain's recent interpretation, Marx began and ended his ethical career as a humanist, but the early Marx built his ethical theory around a more-or-less Aristotelian conception of human nature while the later Marx tried to build a similar theory around a conception in which "social relations" had replaced the Aristotelian essence. I conclude that his later efforts to construct a morality for the socially constituted individual failed, and for reasons that have significant implications for modem efforts to do the same.

Collective Responsibility: Perspectives on Political Philosophy from Social Ontology

Inquiry, 2023

Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy, 2022

Routledge Handbook of Collective Responsibility

Collectivity: Ontology, Ethics, and Social Justice. Kendy Hess, Tracy Isaacs, and Violetta Igneski, eds (Rowman and Littlefield 2018)

Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 2018

Journal of the American Philosophical Association

The Oneness Hypothesis: Beyond the Bounds of the Self. Philip Ivanhoe, Owen Flanagan and Victoria.Harrison (eds), Columbia University Press, 2018

The Moral Responsibility of Firms Revisite. Orts, Eric and N. Craig Smith (eds). Oxford University Press., 2017

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (forthcoming)

Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy

Beastly Morality: Animals as Moral Agents

Midwest Studies in Philosophy

Journal of Value Inquiry

Philosophical Studies

The Background of Social Reality

Ethics, Policy, and the Environment

Southwest Philosophy Review

Native Plant Trust, 2022

Why should we care about the environment, if indeed we should at all? There are many different a... more Why should we care about the environment, if indeed we should at all? There are many different answers to that question, each with its own beauties, baggage, and blind-spots -- it can be satisfying and empowering to gain a deeper understanding or your own intuitive response, and often reassuring to gain a deeper understanding of the different responses of others. Join us for an evening to learn about four classic answers and a modern addition.

Seeing the Forest and the Trees Symposium, 2023

We tend to divide people into "liberals" and "conservatives" -- and sometimes "libertarians" and ... more We tend to divide people into "liberals" and "conservatives" -- and sometimes "libertarians" and "progressives" -- and then often assume that only liberals and progressives care about the environment. Nothing could be further from the truth, and any political theory can be green. One does not need to be anything but human to care about the natural world, and the natural world is not interested in what political stripes we wear. It's possible to advocate for nature and the environment without abandoning our existing political commitments, and it's possible to reach across the political lines that (seem to) divide us and agree about the needs of nature and the environment. You just have to know how to do it.

(A video of this talk is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRAzH5L85pg, beging around 56:15.)

The Liberal Arts and the Future of Work, 2023

It is increasingly common to discuss what the humanities have to offer to business. Typical resp... more It is increasingly common to discuss what the humanities have to offer to business. Typical responses include an outraged rejection of the question, a weary sigh, and more or less enthusiastic references to the value of careful reading and critical thinking. All three responses do a gross misservice to the humanities, and all miss the more interesting question of what business has to offer the humanities. Most of all, though, the question tacitly rejects the possibility of a shared project between the two.
Once we recognize business as a social institution on a par with the family, the church, and the school, the possibilities become far more inclusive and far more exciting.

The Liberal Arts and the Future of Work, 2023

Traditional business education -- and business ethics education -- treats business like a trade: ... more Traditional business education -- and business ethics education -- treats business like a trade: a set of practices with a fixed end, with little to learn but how best to navigate it. This does a disservice to everyone involved in the endeavor. Recognizing business as a social institution on a par with the family, the church, and the school opens up a much broader and more interesting set of questions and introduces a more powerful, inspiring set of options. Among other things, it moves ethical concerns to the absolute center of the project, and reveals an essential role for the humanities.

Group Thinking: New Foundations Project, 2023

Group membership is a pervasive, inevitable fact of human society. The groups we belong to and t... more Group membership is a pervasive, inevitable fact of human society. The groups we belong to and the significance we attach to that membership vary, but we are always already members and our membership has significant implications for our ability to live safe, happy, meaningful lives. Among the many complexities of membership is the question of how (if at all) to remain authentic to our whole, complex selves while still supporting the cohesiveness of the groups we belong to and rely on. This task becomes exponentially more difficult when we recognize the possibility that each group may have its own identity -- its own whole, complex "self" that demands recognition but is not exclusively derived from its members. I begin with a quick sketch of the kinds of groups generally recognized in the literature on collectives, then consider the (very different) sources of their identities. I conclude with a brief exploration of what this implies about the possibility of authenticity for both the groups and their members.

Reputation: Ethics, Trust, and Relationships at Oxford Symposium, 2023

Can firms and other corporate agents be "virtuous" in the full Aristotelian sense of possessing c... more Can firms and other corporate agents be "virtuous" in the full Aristotelian sense of possessing character traits that are excellent for their kind? If they can, would we want them to be? For the first question, yes, firms and other corporate agents can have character on a strict Aristotelian account. The paper begins my claim (developed and defended at length elsewhere) that firms qualify as sophisticated rational agents in their own right, and I give a quick sketch of the mechanics that make this possible because those same mechanics enable firms to develop their own character traits. A firm's traits need not reflect or derive from the traits of its members; contra Hasnas 2018-and Alan-a firm can itself be greedy or generous, regardless of the greed or generosity of its members. For the second question, yes, we want firms to be virtuous, to develop the true excellences of their kind. To see this, we need to begin by recognizing that corporations are of a different kind than human beings. Having acknowledged that, we can set aside Aristotle's conclusions about human virtue and instead avail ourselves of the reasoning by which he arrived at those conclusions: Every kind has a telos (natural end) and an ergon (a particular function). Every kind has distinctive excellences (areté) that enable it to better perform its ergon and achieve its telos. The virtues are the areté of intellect and character. Applying this reasoning to the question of corporate agents yields Aristotelian conclusions about corporate virtue, and the results are promising.

ERC project on The Normative and Moral Foundations of Group Agency, 2022

Contra Hasnas 2018 and other skeptics, firms and other corporate agents are fully capable of deve... more Contra Hasnas 2018 and other skeptics, firms and other corporate agents are fully capable of developing their own character traits, and of shaping their characters or having their characters shaped by external influences. My presentation begins with the claim that firms qualify as sophisticated rational agents in their own right. I will not argue for this claim here; instead, I open with a quick sketch of the Aristotelian metaphysics that support claims of existence and of the mechanics that enable rational agency, as those same mechanics make it possible for firms develop their own character traits. A firm’s traits need not reflect or derive from the traits of its members; a firm can itself be greedy or generous, regardless of the greed or generosity of its members.

The more interesting question is whether we would want them to be “virtuous” in the Aristotelian sense of possessing character traits that are excellent for their kind. According to Aristotle, a virtuous person should be honest, generous, and magnanimous, not because these things are good in themselves (in the broadest sense) but because they are good things for humans to be. Given the nature of the modern firm, it might seem that a “virtuous” corporation, possessing the excellences of its kind, should be dishonest, callous, and rapacious. I close by outlining a response to this concern.

5th Annual Meeting of the Society for Philosophy, Politics, and Economics , 2022

Before we can seriously address applied questions about current moral responsibility for historic... more Before we can seriously address applied questions about current moral responsibility for historic injustices (like those associated with colonialism), current injustices (like those associated with racism, or disruptions of the democratic process), or current reactions to those injustices (the Black Lives Matter movement, the nascent discourse about anti-Asian violence), we must first address the preliminary question of who – or what – can be morally responsible. Does it include collective, “corporate” agents like firms, NGOs, religious orders, and governments? If we hold the corporate agents responsible, do we thereby hold their members responsible for too much, or too little? How are they responsible at all?
There are individualist, collectivist, and holist answers to those questions. Individualist approaches face difficulties because individuals rarely meet traditional thresholds of knowledge and control for anything big enough to qualify as an injustice, or a significant reaction thereto. Collectivist approaches avoid that difficulty, but are rarely applicable in such contexts because the members of the relevant collectives are not unified as required by the theories. Beyond those difficulties, both rely on a distributive approach to responsibility that yields implausible results.
Holists recognize corporate agents themselves as potentially responsible, but critics object that this forces us to either blame their members for things they haven’t done or excuse their members entirely. A suitably robust account of corporate agents answers the first concern: having recognized the corporate agent as the agent directly responsible for a particular action, there is no responsibility for that action “left over” to then distribute to the members. This, however, raises the second concern: that the members – who obviously contributed to Acme’s actions in various ways – will be entirely excused from responsibility. This concern assumes the kind of distributive approach to responsibility suggested above. I answer this concern by drawing attention to a familiar, non-distributive paradigm for responsibility which I call “collateral responsibility.” We see this paradigm at play in any situation in which one autonomous agent (X) significantly influences the choices of another (Y) without fully controlling Y or otherwise undermining Y’s autonomy. (The paradigm is familiar from situations involving parents and children, advisors and advisees, etc.) Y remains directly morally responsible for its own free actions while X is directly responsible for the ways it influenced Y and collaterally responsible for the actions that resulted.
Together, these theoretical innovations allow us to properly allocate responsibility for injustice and reaction, past and present, to the various corporate agents who so often cause such events, and to hold their members responsible for their own contributions.

Said Business School, R:ETRO Seminar Series (Reputation: Ethics, Trust, and Relationships at Oxford), 2021

A question that always arises in the aftermath of corporate wrongdoing is, “Who’s responsible?” (... more A question that always arises in the aftermath of corporate wrongdoing is, “Who’s responsible?” (“Who can fix this?” might be a better question, but it’s not the one we usually turn to.) While the answer will typically be quite complicated, the question itself seems relatively simple. But each of the two words comprising the question are importantly ambiguous, and the way we interpret them will have significant implications for the answers we come up with. Here I focus on the complexities of the “who”: does it include collective agents, like firms? If we hold the collective agents responsible, do we thereby hold their members responsible for too much, or too little? How are they responsible at all?

There are individualist, collectivist, and holist answers to those questions. The first two approaches refuse to recognize the firms and rely on a distributive approach to moral responsibility that yields implausible results. The holist approach recognizes the firms themselves as potentially responsible, but critics have objected that this forces us to either blame their members for things they haven’t done or excuse them entirely. I reply that using a suitably robust account of corporate agents and a non-distributive paradigm of moral responsibility (“collateral responsibility”) avoids both outcomes, allowing us to properly allocate responsibility to the firms and to hold the members responsible for their own contributions.

Centre for Social Innovation of Trinity Business School , 2021

The Centre for Social Innovation of Trinity Business School is delighted to invite you to the nex... more The Centre for Social Innovation of Trinity Business School is delighted to invite you to the next event of the virtual Trinity Business Ethics Speaker Series.

The guest speaker for the upcoming event on March 18, 5 pm Dublin time is Dr. Kendy Hess. Kendy is the Brake Smith Associate Professor in Social Philosophy and Ethics at College of the Holy Cross. With a background in philosophy and previous practice in environmental law, Kendy is one of the leading international scholars on corporate moral responsibility, on which she has published widely.

Kendy will give a talk based on the paper, "…and There be Dragons": Modern Corporations as Political Actors. Despite decades of debate about the moral status of corporate agents, there has been surprisingly little exploration of their political status. This talk thus begins with an overview of Kendy's account of corporate agents – from metaphysics to moral obligation – and then moves on to explore some of the political implications. Setting aside the question of political rights and duties, Kendy considers the permissibility of three modes of political engagement: (1) as an extension of the government, under government direction; (2) as subjects, attempting to influence government action, and (3) as the government, exercising governmental authority in their own right. She suggests that the first two are unproblematic (if complicated), while the third is inevitable to some extent: any functional government will necessarily qualify as a corporate agent in its own right. There is another possibility for the third, however: proponents of so-called "political corporate social responsibility" argue that, in the absence of a successful state, literal "corporations" (a subset of corporate agents) should step in and govern. The talk closes by considering what Kendy's theory of corporate agency reveals about the latter possibility.

The event will be accompanied by an exclusive piano music performance by Josef Barnickel.

One of the fundamental tasks of the government is to “secure generally the comfort, safety, moral... more One of the fundamental tasks of the government is to “secure generally the comfort, safety, morals, health, and prosperity of its citizens” (Black's Law Dictionary, citing Keystone Coal). This authority is commonly known, appropriately enough, as the "police power." Sometimes the government regulates its citizens directly in its exercise of the police power, but here I explore the implications of a different technique. It is becoming increasingly common for the government to delegate the responsibility inherent in the police power to firms in their role as employers, effectively making firms legally liable for the health and well-being of their employees. I suggest in this paper that this approach to ensuring the health and safety of its citizens is ultimately counterproductive. After introducing Foucault's panoptic theory of discipline, I draw on developments in health and safety regulation and workplace climate regulation to suggest that we should heed the warning inherent in Foucault's work: When the government makes an entity capable of effective surveillance liable for the well-being of the surveilled, it introduces a dangerous logic into workplace management, leading to the near-inevitable exposure and exploitation of the very people the government was trying to protect.

The central motivating question here is what I've called "the question of firm responsibility": W... more The central motivating question here is what I've called "the question of firm responsibility": What do firms owe to those around them in terms of consideration, restraint, and support? This is basically a question about moral responsibility, but we've tried to answer it in terms of "social responsibility" (whatever that is). It's a contested, underdeveloped concept-especially compared to "moral responsibility"-but there's a bigger problem. In doing so we have licensed firms to move beyond private moral practice and into the political realm-not just as subordinates or subjects of a governing entity, but as the governing entity itself. Proponents call this "political CSR" (though I prefer "corporate political responsibility"), and think it's an improvement over alternatives. Together with Milton Friedman, I disagree.

The literature on corporate agency has not paid enough attention to the metaphysics of the entiti... more The literature on corporate agency has not paid enough attention to the metaphysics of the entities in question. It has focused on corporate agency to the exclusion of corporate agents, and this myopic focus on agency has left the impression that the (usually single) mechanism for agency defines the entity, providing the sole source of its unity and cohesion. Critics have responded with an entirely appropriate skepticism, charging that such an entity is " ghostly " and " immaterial, " and too flimsy to support the robust capacities proponents claim for it. To those criticisms I add my own: that this presentation does a disservice to the holist position, failing to acknowledge the deep integration of the corporate agent and (thus) oversimplifying its agency, among other problems. Here I begin with a quick sketch of my own, metaphysically robust account of corporate agents, briefly address its relation to familiar accounts of corporate agency, and close by using it to respond to critical concerns about material presence.

The central motivating question here is what I've called " the question of firm responsibility " ... more The central motivating question here is what I've called " the question of firm responsibility " : What do firms owe to those around them in terms of consideration, restraint, and support? This is basically a question about moral responsibility, but we've tried to answer it in terms of " social responsibility " (whatever that is). It's a contested, underdeveloped concept – especially compared to " moral responsibility " – but there's a bigger problem. In doing so we have licensed firms to move beyond private moral practice and into the political realm – not just as subordinates or subjects of a governing entity, but as the governing entity itself. Proponents call this " political CSR " (though I prefer " corporate political responsibility "), and think it's an improvement over alternatives. Together with Milton Friedman, I disagree.

In this paper I first consider (and reject) two concerns that might lead people to avoid CMR, then sketch some of the many things that CSR has (and does) encompass. If we remove the obligations of CMR from CSR we find that the remainder is -- for the most part -- explicitly political. I raise some concerns about firms taking on political -- as opposed to moral or "social" -- responsibility, and close by acknowledging that Friedman raised much the same concerns for much the same reasons.

"Who's responsible?" has become a pressing question in the wake of the financial crisis. The answ... more "Who's responsible?" has become a pressing question in the wake of the financial crisis. The answer will obviously be very complicated, but the question itself seems relatively simple. And yet each of the two words comprising the question is ambiguous, and how we interpret them will have significant implications for the answers we come up with. Here I focus on the complexities of the " who " : does it include collective agents, like firms? If we hold the collective agents responsible, do we thereby hold their members responsible for too much, or too little? How are they responsible at all? A suitably robust account of corporate agents and a non-distributive paradigm of moral responsibility (" collateral responsibility ") allows us to blame the firms for their own actions without either blaming their members for things they haven't done or excusing them entirely.

Singh begins by acknowledging the apparently monolithic, all-encompassing presence of modern capi... more Singh begins by acknowledging the apparently monolithic, all-encompassing presence of modern capitalism. The totalizing effects of modern capitalism are social, political, and even epistemic. Wedded to neoliberalism as a normative political theory, capitalism extends beyond the market to place its distinctive stamp on our political efforts, our social interactions, and even the basic concepts that we use to encounter and interpret the world. 1 He then challenges this rendering, suggesting that the apparent capitalist hegemony is more fractured and divided against itself than it seems. Singh suggests that proponents of capitalism are well aware of this vulnerability, and that their efforts to hide that vulnerability and shore up the accompanying ideology follow a familiar pattern.

Despite decades of debate about the moral status of corporate agents, there has been surprisingly... more Despite decades of debate about the moral status of corporate agents, there has been surprisingly little exploration of their political status. This paper thus begins with an overview of my own account of corporate agents – from metaphysics to moral obligation – and then moves on to explore some of the political implications. Setting aside the question of political rights and duties, I consider the permissibility of three modes of political engagement: (1) as an extension of the government, under government direction; (2) as citizens, attempting to influence government action, and (3) as the government, exercising governmental authority in their own right. I suggest that the first two are unproblematic (if complicated), while the third is inevitable to some extent: any functional government will necessarily qualify as a corporate agent in its own right. There is another possibility for the third, however: proponents of so-called " political corporate social responsibility " argue that, in the absence of a successful state, literal " corporations " (a subset of corporate agents) should step in and govern. I close by considering what my theory of corporate agency suggests about the latter possibility.

Many prominent figures have argued that moral concerns have no place at the office, and modern bu... more Many prominent figures have argued that moral concerns have no place at the office, and modern business practice takes this claim to heart. The claim is no doubt carelessly stated, but something at the core of it is taken quite seriously. Business practitioners are generally taken to be either legally or morally bound to maximize profit, and (other) moral obligations are ignored as illegitimate constraints on this higher duty; the business practitioner is thus taken to be exempt from moral obligation. We often recognize a similar exemption for politicians, and philosophers have defended that exemption in the literature on “dirty hands.” In this paper I explore four possible justification for the moral exemption in business (effectiveness, efficiency, and two version of “dirty hands”), rejecting all except the fourth as inadequate to the task. The fourth treats business as a particular kind of MacIntyrean practice, and it perhaps succeeds where the others fail. It does so at a significant cost, however, and we can still decide that it is not worth paying.

“debunk” (verb) – to expose the falseness or hollowness of (a myth, idea, or belief) "re-bunk" (... more “debunk” (verb) – to expose the falseness or hollowness of (a myth, idea, or belief)

"re-bunk" (verb) -- to undo a debunking

Critics of corporate moral agency periodically claim to have "de-bunked" corporate moral agency – most notably Velzsquez, in his widely cited "Debunking Corporate Moral Responsibility" (2003), and Rönnegard in his recent The Fallacy of Corporal Moral Agency (2015). There are three steps to the debunking process: (1) adopt a distinctive interpretation of holist accounts, one which “dis-members” the corporate agent before evaluating its capacities; (2) derive the capacities necessary for moral agency from human paradigms rather than from an account; and as a direct result, (3) assume an unduly "phenomenalized" account of moral agency. I respond to each in turn. First, I clarify the commitments of the holist position, drawing on my own account to demonstrate that the corporate agent is a entity and to explain the sense in which its intentionality is dependent on, but not therefore identical to, the intentionality of its members. I then outline my concerns about arguing from a human paradigm rather than an account, and close by arguing that phenomenal consciousness is not necessary for agency.

Re-bunking achieved.

The various "collective" literatures have generally focused on collectives that are unified -- or... more The various "collective" literatures have generally focused on collectives that are unified -- or assumed to be unified -- by what I'll call "shared intentions." By "shared intention" I mean a mental or intentional state that is (1) possessed by each member of a collective, imputed to each member of a collective, or jointly held by each member of a collective in various ways, and (2) immediately relevant to the formation and behavior of the collective. Three people moving a couch are unified by the shared intention to "move the couch" because each has an intention to "move the couch" and to do so with the other members.

There are a number of different ways to theorize these "shared intentions," each of which has its own distinctive vocabulary and taxonomy, and I am not trying to choose among them. Instead, I would like to recognize them as a group and contrast them with theories of a very different kind of collective: the large, highly organized collectives increasingly identified as "corporate agents." The literature has often failed to recognize the very different kind of unity that binds the members of a corporate agent, and this has led to unnecessary confusion and implausible claims. In my paper I will begin by describing this "peculiar unity" in some detail, then explore the question of whether it is sufficiently robust to underwrite claims of existence. It is an open question whether the unity of any collective is sufficiently robust that it can be recognized as a thing, a res in its own right, and a further question whether the peculiar unity of a corporate agent is sufficient to meet traditional criteria. Looking at such (wildly) disparate theorists as Baker, Aristotle, and van Inwagen, I argue that it is.

Journal of Applied Philosophy

The Heythrop Journal, Jan 1, 2010

... Learn more... ProQuest, 'No body to kick, no soul to damn'...and yet: The m... more ... Learn more... ProQuest, 'No body to kick, no soul to damn'...and yet: The moderncorporation as moral agent. by Hess, Kendy Michelle, Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER, 2009, 247 pages; 3366600. Abstract: ...

Collectivity: Ontology, Ethics, and Social Justice brings new voices and new approaches to under-... more Collectivity: Ontology, Ethics, and Social Justice brings new voices and new approaches to under-developed areas in the philosophical literature on collectives and collective action. The essays in this volume introduce and explore a range of topics that fall under the more general concept of collectivity, including collective ontology, collective action, collective obligation, and collective responsibility. A number of the chapters link collectivity directly to significant issues of social justice.

The volume addresses a variety of questions including the ontology and taxonomy of social groups and other collective entities, ethical frameworks for understanding the nature and extent of individual and collective moral obligations, and applications of these conceptual explorations to oppressive social practices like mass incarceration, climate change, and global poverty. The essays draw on a variety of approaches and disciplines, including feminist and continental approaches and work in legal theory and geography, as well as more traditional philosophical contributions.