Collective agency: The morality of the group

Although much has been written concerning the application of ethics to famine relief, absolute poverty and environmental degradation, few have adequately attended to the role that institutions play in helping to perpetuate and/or resolve these problems. I provide evidence for thinking that there is a significant gap in discussions of applied ethics with respect to the moral role played by institutions as such. I then argue that this problem can best be dealt with by gaining a better understanding of collective moral agency. I argue that rationality, intentionality, and the capacity to respond appropriately to punishment (or to develop such a capacity) are jointly sufficient for moral agency. Since companies and other sufficiently organizes collectives bear these three traits, I conclude that they are in fact moral agencies of a sort. Many would object to the claim that these three features are jointly sufficient for moral agency or would deny that collectives can have such traits. In response to these objections, which are often rooted in broader theoretical commitments, I maintain that regarding sufficiently organized collectives as if they were moral agencies of a sort is at the very least a highly useful fiction with many practical benefits. After establishing that sufficiently organized collectives ought to be thought of as moral agencies, I consider the sorts of virtues appropriate to collective agencies and especially businesses. I contend that consistency in acting according to recognized norms, the development of conscience, and appropriate response to censure are crucial virtues for collective moral agencies. I then consider how a better conception of collective moral agency and development of virtuous corporate character can improve conceptions of business obligation, especially as it relates to issues involving problematic institutional infrastructure. I argue that a virtue theoretic approach to corporate obligation is a useful supplement to most standard theories of business ethics. I then discuss ways in which the development of virtuous institutions may aid in coping with the moral problems that arise in a globalized economy especially with respect to absolute poverty and the environment