Corporate Weakness of Will

Bibliographic Data

ID21465242
AuthorsKenneth Silver (0000-0003-0634-1976, Trinity College, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume199
Issue4
Pages731-747
Publication date2025-07-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Business Ethics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0167-4544 • E-ISSN: 1573-0697
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1007/s10551-024-05804-x
PMID40636517
OpenAlexW4401927838
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited104

Proponents of corporate moral responsibility take certain corporations to be capable of being responsible in ways that do not reduce to the responsibility of their members. If correct, one follow-up question concerns what leads corporations to fail to meet their obligations. We often fail morally when we know what we should do and yet fail to do it, perhaps out of incontinence, akrasia, or weakness of will. However, this kind of failure is much less discussed in the corporate case. And, where it is discussed, the view is that corporations are less prone to weakness. Here, I argue that proponents of corporate responsibility should say that corporations can and often do instantiate weakness of the will, and that this is important to recognize. Weakness of the will requires certain capacities that these proponents typically take corporations to have. And once this is appreciated, we can assess how corporate weakness might proceed differently than how it does for individuals. We can also begin a conversation about how best to meet the distinctive challenges for recognizing and correcting corporate weakness, using a number of resources from management scholarship

Business · Business ethics · Political science · Public health · Public relations · Quality of Life Research · Weakness · Medicine · Organizational Strategy and Culture

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