2013 46th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
Corporate and Artificial Moral
Agency
Alan E. Singer
Holshouser Distinguished Professor of Ethics
Appalachian State University.
Abstract The paper considers the implications of the
Corporate Moral Agency debate for the notion of
artificial moral agency and the general intelligence
project. A distinction is drawn between metaarguments and object-level arguments, whilst the
implications of the arguments within each category
are indicated. The “metaphor” “mutuality” and
“political” arguments are then discussed further.
1. Introduction
The debate about the application of moral philosophy
to non-human entities has been wide ranging and
enduring. Within business ethics, it has focused upon
the notion of corporate moral agency (CMA) and
hence the capabilities, responsibilities, duties, rights
and blame-worthiness of corporations per se. Within
CIS and cognitive-science, somewhat similar
questions have arisen about the notion of artificial
moral agency (AMA) as well as the possible moral
responsibilities of artificial general intelligences
(AGI’s) and their builders. In broadest terms, the
present paper considers the relationship between the
CMA and AMA debates. However, the primary
focus is upon the ways in which the CMA debate
(CMAD) informs (i) the very idea of AMA, and (ii)
the ethical issues involved in AGI-building (AGIB).
“being run by AGI’s” [18, p.313].In the following
section a way of re-structuring the entire CMAD is
first proposed 2. A distinction is drawn between the
meta-arguments (section 3) and (object level) CMA
arguments (section 4). These are further grouped into
sub-classes, whilst the implications for AGI’s and for
AGIB’s of arguments within each sub-class are
drawn out 3. In the later sections of the paper, a
selection of these arguments is briefly developed
further.
2. Structure
The CMAD is comprised of (i) a set of metaarguments that are essentially attempts to qualify the
importance of the CMA debate itself, and (i) a set of
(object level) pro-CMA and anti-CMA arguments
that attempt to establish or else critique the very idea
that corporations are moral agents (Figure 2). Various
(overlapping) types of argument can then be
identified within each set, as listed below and
depicted in Figure 2.
Meta-arguments
Pro-debate
Metalevel
Crucial
Anti-debate
Distraction
Premature
Metaphor
Pragmatism
Qualify the
importance of
Object
- level
Legalistic
Systemic
Re-casting
Implying
AGI
Superiority
CMA arguments
(Pro- & Anti-CMA)
Figure 2. The structure of the CMA debate
Pro & antiCMA
arguments
MA of
Virtual
firm
Pro & antiAMA
arguments
Inform
3. Meta-arguments
There are essentially four main categories of metaargument. These claim, respectively, that the CMAD
is: crucial; a distraction; a mere metaphor, or else
misconceived (for other reasons such as “mutuality”).
Figure 1. The CMA debate informs AGI/B.
From the outset, it is also worth bearing in mind that
the entire CMAD is also an AMA-debate (Figure 1)
if one considers the special case of a virtual firm 1
1
Hall-Stores [18] asked “can we say anything about the rights
and duties of corporations if…the AI’s will be running them
within the next few decades?”. The present paper turns that
1530-1605/12 $26.00 © 2012 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/HICSS.2013.149
question around: much has been said about CMA, but what does
that tell us about AMA’s?
2
Moore [27] also reviewed some selected pro-CMA and antiCMA arguments. Any article-length review of the CMAD can cite
only a suitable subset of many relevant contributions.
3
Henceforth the acronym AGI/B’s is used, to accommodate the
recursive self-building (self-programming) capabilities of AGI’s.
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The first category of argument emphasises the high
importance of the entire CMA-debate (CMAD). It is
held to be central to the subject of business ethics
whilst serving to direct attention towards ethical
concerns in business, generally [11]. The CMAD is
also seen to be very important in law and practice,
due to the need to be able to distribute blame or
liability properly across the corporation per se and
individual managers, in cases where harms have
occurred [14,45]. By implication, a corresponding
debate about AMA is “crucial” for similar reasons.
meta-level with the entire CMAD: “CMA” might be
nothing more than a loose way of thinking (moral
projection, [17] or speaking (i.e. the translatability
thesis [25]. When we talk about “corporate moral
responsibilities or duties” we are being lazy or
making poetical references to the ethics of
individuals, just as phrase “the sun rises” refers to the
Earth rotating5. By implication, debates about AMA
are vague references to the technical specifics of
AGI/B. It has accordingly been suggested that one is
“more likely to achieve good by refusing to reify
abstractions” such as “corporation” or even “ethics”
[21]. By implication AGI/B’s should similarly focus
on technical specifics rather than abstractions like
“agency” or “intelligence” per se.
3.1 Distraction
All of the remaining meta-arguments actually
downplay the CMAD (i.e. they dismiss the entire
debate about CMA as a waste of time, or worse). For
example, it is said to be a diversion from important
“efforts to target the soul of individual managers”
[32]. By implication, any debate about AMA would
also divert efforts “to reach the soul” of AGI/B’s (see
Animism, below). A second distraction-type argument
flows from the political perspective and from the
“intense political struggles and scandals” that have
historically surrounded corporate activities [19]. By
implication, any abstract AMA debate should focus
instead upon the power of AGI/B’s to control society,
or vice versa. Yet another argument involving
distraction is that the CMAD is premature in terms of
progress in philosophy itself [25, 34]. It is claimed
that the very idea of CMA (and AMA) depends on
other fundamental unresolved ontological and
methodological issues 4.
3.3 Mutuality
Further meta-arguments involve subjectivity,
interactivity and mutuality (i.e. philosophical
pragmatism). Forty years ago Ackoff & Emery [1]
argued that rationality and ethics are “in the eye of
beholder”. That is, observers simply ascribe morality
to any agent as they see fit, and that’s all there is to it.
More recently, it has also been argued [45] in the
context of the CMAD that the “only useful way to
think of ‘intention’ is from a third- party perspective
(cf. [12]). Classical American Pragmatism (CAP)
then extends all these positions by arguing that the
very meanings of words like “moral” and “agent” are
never given a–priori to an inquirer. Instead, they gain
their full meaning within the context of each other, as
inquiry proceeds (e.g. [4]). This notion seems to be
gaining ground in line with a wider rise to
prominence of CAP (e.g. [42, 44]). For example CAP
yields the intuitively appealing argument that the
AGI/B project creates its own ethics (section 6).
3.2 Metaphor
The concept of CMA is supported by a rich supply of
metaphors between collectivities and individuals (e.g.
organization-as-organism, etc.). All of these belong
in the pro-CMA camp at the object-level (see
sections 4 & 5) but they also conceal a problem at the
4. CMA arguments
Object-level arguments for and against the very idea
of CMA can also be divided into four overlapping
classes (as depicted in Figure 2, above) namely:
legalistic, psychological, re-casting and super-moral,
as follows.
4
For example, in the “Chip of Theseus” problem (adapted from
the Ship of Theseus, Plutarch c.70A.D.) the chips in an android are
slowly replaced, one at a time. The old chips are stored away, but
then used to rebuild an identical android. Which one is the
original? Until this problem of ontology and identity is resolved, it
is argued, issues like AMA have to wait in line. Similar arguments
apply for the problem of “individualist vs. holist” methodologies
[30] and for the unresolved dispositionalists vs. situationalists
debate in moral psychology [2]
4.1 Legalistic
These are pro and anti-CMA arguments derived
mainly within the law and philosophy tradition.
According to the machine–metaphor [5, 40]
organisations are like traditional machines controlled
by individuals who must bear the moral
responsibility. By implication, if an AGI is viewed
as an amoral machine its builders and managers
become responsible for harms caused. Against this,
French [12] proposed the systems principle: that the
5. Critiques of the CMAD that focus on the notion of “metaphor”
have two functions. First, they serve to downgrade or dismiss the
entire debate by claiming that it is (on the pro-CMA side at least)
nothing more than a structured set of metaphors; but this type of
meta-argument also extends support to the anti CMA side at the
object level, in other words the metaphor type arguments also
serve to uphold individual moral responsibility.
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existence of a “corporate internal decision structure”
licenses a description of corporate acts as
“intentional” and hence as carrying moral
responsibility. A variant known as the identificationprinciple holds that a layer of senior managers is the
“internal structure” and the locus of responsibility.
By implication, an AGI itself can be responsible
because it obviously has an “internal decision
structure”.
4.2 Systemic and Psychological
Several other pro and anti CMA arguments involve
systems and theories of psychology, such as the claim
that corporations ought to be capable of “adult”
levels of moral reasoning (e.g. [39]. By implication,
AGI’s also ought to be able to (i) respect other’s
values, (ii) understand that it can be ethical to
disobey unjust laws and (iii) invoke universal
principles in moral reasoning (e.g. [41]). A second
line of argument involves the concept of purposefulsystems [1]. An argument on the anti-CMA side
deems that corporations are unlike humans (and by
implications, not moral beings) because they contain
within themselves goal-selecting sub-systems
(divisions, managers, etc). On the other hand, maybe
humans do too: as in the psychological concept of
multiple selves [8]. The latter idea extends the
individual-organization metaphor and is accordingly
pro-CMA. The implications for AGI’s are simply
that (i) an AGI ought to be able to manage its internal
value conflicts and sub-systems, and (ii) ethics or
ethical routines can be diffused throughout any
system (e.g. by combining top-down and bottom-up
approaches).
Various other considered positions suggest that moral
(and legal) responsibility is generally shared or
“distributed” amongst the corporate entity itself (i.e.
the agency principle) and its component individuals.
For example, the principle of composite-mens-rea
states that (senior) manager(s) must accept some
responsibility for harm where “information acquired
or developed by several different employees was
never assembled into overall understanding by any
one individual” [30]. Furthermore, “most cases of
harm associated with corporate acts do involve
personal moral fault on part of one or more
individuals”. Yet it is also recognized that “often
unjust and impractical to blame particular
individual(s) inside a corporation”. By implication,
an AGI itself ought to be punished when it has
caused harm (along with any individual designers
builders and managers who can be clearly shown to
have “caused” the harm). This implies that an AGI
has to be punishable, by, for example, slowing it
down or computing a negative quasi-emotion (cf.
[41]).
Other “psychological” arguments for and against
CMA have involved the themes of emotion [9]
character [2] and culture (i.e. the spanning-themes, as
depicted in Figure 4 below).
For example,
corporations per se lack the “emotional make-up”
that allows an individual human to show virtues and
vices [9]. By implication, AGI’s need quasiemotions in order to be able to demonstrate moral
capability and have moral standing. X2 Yet other
arguments involve social and cross cultural
psychology. For example, the bystander effect [6]
and the empirical phenomenon of “diffusion of
responsibility” [22] demonstrate that individuals
often tend to suppress their responses to morally
relevant features of a situation when they are
accompanied by others. This particular behavioural
limitation adds weight to the argument that ethical
routines ought to be deliberately built into
organizations (and by analogy into AGI’s) in order to
compensate for a likely increase in moral lapses by
managers (or AGI/B’s) who are indeed typically
accompanied by colleagues.
It has also been suggested (with reference to the
“political perspective” mentioned earlier) that the
power of governments (or markets 5) to disband entire
corporations seems “totalitarian” [21].
By
implication, AGI’s merit limited political rights not
to be switched off or destroyed. On the other hand,
corporate rights, such as the right not to be
disbanded, are “conventional” rather than inalienable
[29]. That is, they “depend on someone’s choice and
acceptance of ‘constitutive’ rules” and are conferred
by social convention. By implication a particular
society might grant AGI’s “a right not to be
destroyed” subject to politically determined
conditions (i.e. laws established in that society). If a
self-programming AGI subsequently violates those
laws (i.e. post-takeoff), the “society” is then entitled
to pull the plug or even to destroy it.
With regard to cultural tendencies, it is also
noteworthy that some collectivist cultures link
property rights (like those of corporate shareholders)
to strong duties of care [28]. By implication, any
AGI/B’s duty to care ought to be modified to reflect
the relevant culture. In the last decade or so, the
vexed question of how much “modification” ought to
6 Rankin [32] has argued (on the anti-CMA side) as follows:
when market power is deployed to disband a corporation (i.e. an
acquisition) harm is usually caused to some individuals, whilst the
target corporate-entity is disbanded; but this is not the moral
equivalent of murder.
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take place seems to be tracking towards “not very
much” (i.e. the absolutist/universalist position).
Another argument about CMA of this type involves
the role differentiation vs. role integration component
of the wider business ethics debate [16]. It is
generally argued that an individual ought to
(temporarily) adopt the values of the relevant
corporation/culture/society to some limited extent.
By implication, an AGI that operates in a special
context like the military should essentially adopt
military codes; but only up to a point that has been
settled by prior ethical deliberation and that is subject
to periodic review.
4.4 Super-moral arguments
Various CMA arguments, including several in the
foregoing categories, suggest a potential for supermoral AGIs (refer back to Figure 2). Some of these
arguments involve the limitations or weaknesses of
individual and corporate decision making processes,
implying that AGI’s can be more careful or less
negligent than humans, especially when they “run”
corporations (cf. [18]). The first such “weakness”
argument refers to systematic biases in managerial
cognitions, that is, bounded and quasi-rationality
(e.g. [33]). Another limitation involves the risky-shift
(or agentic-shift) in organisations [20]. By
implication AGI/Bs can be much better at rational
and ethical decision making (e.g. an AGI need not
invoke the availability heuristic when making
probabilistic predictions, nor make biased risk
assessments). Yet another argument of this type
involves Akrasia or the human tendency to decide
upon something, but then actually do something else.
Once again, AGI’s can easily be programmed to
avoid this “human” foible and to exercise moral
judgement independently and consistently.
4.3 Recasting and separating
A final set of CMA arguments are somewhat
rhetorical. They re-cast the CMAD as part of a wider
debate about ethics and strategy, which in turn has
various bi-polar components such as roledifferentiation vs. integration (mentioned earlier) but
also value-priorities (e.g. efficiency vs. justice) or the
shareholder vs. stakeholder “models” of management,
and so on (Figure 3). Pro and anti-CMA arguments
often “separate” the two sides of the framework (in
Figure 3) by linking together several poles on the
same side (e.g. justice, stakeholder model,
compensation for the limitations of markets, and the
pro-CMA position).
Another sub-class of super-moral argument involves
“extreme ethics”: behavior that seems too much to
ask of humans and far beyond corporate capabilities.
For example, according to Levinas “endless
responsibility for the other” is the proper mark of an
ethical individual, but the “hierarchical commodified
relations inside a corporation” are irreconcilable with
any such attitude [3]. In contrast an AGI can indeed
be programmed to serve endlessly or to demonstrate
a (quasi-) love ethic (i.e. artificial Agapism). It is
quite clear that AGI’s are potentially superior in these
respects, so they are presumably more blameworthy
(along with the AGIB’s) to the extent that they fall
short of this “extreme” or ideal. Finally, the notion of
artificial Animism has to be considered in this
context: if an AGI is programmed to believe that
various other types of entity (individuals,
corporations, AGI’s, animals, plants, rocks) possess
souls, that AGI would presumably behave better
towards the “other” and be treated well in return (cf.
“interactivity” above).
Components
Re-casting
Moral-Agency: Corp. vs. Indiv.
Values: justice vs. efficiency
Models: stakeholder vs. shareholder
Mkt. limits: compensate vs. exploit
Separating
etc.
Spanning-Themes
Emotion: sentiments & passions
Character: virtues & vices
Culture: dimensions, rights
Spanning
Figure 3. Recasting, separating and spanning
Many contributions to the wider business ethics
debate involve this type of recasting and separating
(e.g. [13], [31]) but in so doing they do not really
address the central philosophical issue of CMA. By
implication, AGI/Bs should also avoid using such
arguments to defend the idea of AMA per se. On the
other hand, the framework depicted in Figure 3 might
be very useful for AGI/B’s in another way: it can
guide the task of articulating ethical or political
justifications for actions taken by individuals,
corporations and AGI’s alike (cf. [36], [41]).
5. AMA design informs CMA
As a separate matter, there are several ways in which
the AGI project has indirectly informed the CMA
debate (Figure 4). These all involve the circle of
metaphors encompassing individuals, corporations
and AGIs.
Any metaphor between AGIs and
corporations is subject to the critical meta-argument
(section 2 above) although in the special case of the
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(i) Inquiry per se is a major theme in CAP. Charles
Pierce wrote that inquiry “originates from an irritation
resulting from doubt, or because of a puzzling
situation” just as AGI/Bs might be irritated or puzzled
by ethics, or an AGI might detect morally-relevant
features that trigger a subroutine.
“Virtual firm” it is an identity (as depicted in Figure
1 above). As noted elsewhere [37, 38] this metaphor
can be extended with reference to several concepts
and ideas developed within the AGI project, such as:
(i) The idea of easy- to-program values (e.g. survival,
preserve valuable patterns, create diversity) which is
new in philosophy and seems to apply also to
organizations.
(ii) Diagrammatic representations per se are seen as
an important part of scientific inquiry, just as they (or
programmed objects) play a vital role in AGI design
and functioning.
(ii) The concept of ethical-incrementalism, whereby
ethical decision making in organizations is reconceptualized as a series of selections of microactions.
(iii) CAP endorses comprehensive surveys of relevant
facts, just as AGI /B’s might scan for all relevant data.
(iv) Goal-seeking entities are engaged in continuous
invention [26] just as AGI/B’s demonstrate continuous
improvement and moral-imagination
(iii) Subsumptive organizational architectures (i.e.
corporate department heads interact directly, with no
headquarters) which were inspired by the high
performance of insect-like robots where each “leg”
takes its cue mainly from the other legs,
(v) CAP emphasizes the recursive nature of inquiry,
which is the basis of all computing.
(vi) CAP also informs us that when we encounter
ambiguities, they do not have to be regarded as
roadblocks [23]. They are obstacles that can be
negotiated whilst intelligent and productive activities
continue.
(iv) The principle that autonomy precedes sensitivity in
the development of AGI’s which suggests (via the
metaphor) that corporate autonomy (e.g. from
shareholders) precedes “sensitivity”, and
(v) The general trend or evolution from AI towards
AGI (e.g. [10]) which suggests that there is a slow but
inevitably moral progress in business (e.g. [35]).
The nature
of individuals
Partly constitutes
informs
AGI/B
project
Value-difficulty
Incrementalism
Architectures
Autonomy-first
Ethics evolves
The nature of
corporations
CMA
debate
The nature of
artificial
agents
The Meaning
of “Ethics-1”
Partly constitutes
The Meaning
of “Ethics-2 ”
Partly constitutes
The Meaning
of “Ethics-3”
Figure 4. AGI/B informs the CMA debate
Figure 5. The mutuality of “ethics” and “agent”
In assessing these ideas as contributions to the CMA
debate (i.e. pro-CMA arguments) one should remain
mindful of the meta-argument about the general
limitations of metaphors. That is, although the above
ideas from the AGI project seem to strengthen the
case for CMA, they cannot establish particular duties
or obligations for corporations per se.
Last but certainly not least, pragmatists argue that in
general “constructs only gain their full meaning and
significance” within the context of each other [4].
This implies that the very meaning of “ethics”
depends upon which type of “agent” or entity is being
considered (Figure 5). Traditional moral philosophy
contemplates the individual as a given, within its
social or economic context (yielding Ethics-1 in the
figure). Business and economic-ethics (ethics-2) also
tends to focus on the productive activities of firms or
corporations, viewed as givens. Under pragmatism, in
contrast the very meanings of “ethics-1” and “ethics2” are tied up with the nature (ontology) of
“individual” and “business”. By implication, the
AGI/B project co-produces its own “artificial ethics”
(Ethics-3). Put differently “Robotocists are doing
philosophy, whether or not they think this is so”
(Dennett [7]).
6. Pragmatism
As was also mentioned earlier (section 3.3. on
“mutuality”) the philosophical school of Classic
American Pragmatism (CAP) has been making quite
a comeback (e.g. [4, 42, 44]. This, in turn, seems at
least partly attributable to progress in computer
science; because there are so many obvious ways in
which projects like AGI/B embrace and express the
core themes of CAP, as summarised below.
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7. Conclusion
[5] Danley JR (1984) Corporate moral agency: the case for
anthropological bigotry, In: Hoffman and Moore (eds.),
Business Ethics: Readings and Cases in Corporate Morality,
McGraw Hill, pp.172-9.
The above review overall seems to suggest three
broad conclusions for AGI/Bs and for further
philosophical inquiry.
[6] Darley J (1968) Bystander intervention in emergencies:
diffusion of responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology. 8, pp377-383.
(i) Moral responsibilities (and hence blameworthiness
for failures to live up to them) are usually distributed
across all those involved: the AGI itself, its designers,
builders and their managers (but also investors and
other informed contributors). The precise distribution
in any given case depends upon the contextual details.
[7] Dennett DC (1997) Cog as a thought experiment
Robotics & Autonomous Systems 20 (2-4) pp251-6.
[8] Elster J (1986), The Multiple Self, CUP: Cambridge.
[9] Ewin RE (1991) The moral status of the corporation.
Journal of Business Ethics. 10, 10, pp.749-56
(ii) AGI/B’s ought to focus upon creating well-behaved
sociable AGI’s that can be reasonably expected to
improve the human condition. This is an incremental
process of continuous improvement. There is no need
to delve into philosophical abstractions, and finally
[10] Fleishman KR (2007) The evolution of agency: spectra
of bio-agency and cyber-agency. The Information Society,
23, pp.361-431.
(iii) further inquiry into artificial ethics and agency
should focus more closely upon the “political metaargument” (mentioned in section 3).
[11] Freeman RE (1999) Divergent stakeholder theory.
Academy of Management Review, 24, 2, pp.233-236.
[12] French P (1984) Collective and Corporate
Responsibility. Columbia University Press: NY.
With regard to the latter, it is rather obvious that one
has to consider the nature of “AGI/B” and the
meaning of “ethics” in relation to the various possible
political-economic arrangements in which all such
projects and inquiries are embedded. For example,
the military and civilian contexts are very different,
but one might also consider, for example, the
possibility that AGI/B’s could persuade entire
electorates to adopt the laws and politics of an ideal
state. Also, within business ethics in particular, there
appears to be a related need to further clarify the
relationships or useful distinctions (if any) between
the concepts of moral-agency, identity, personhood
and citizenship, as applied to corporate entities. More
generally, the traditional boundaries between ethics,
law, politics and technology do seem to be fading.
These are not mere “perspectives” within a
controversial debate; they are interrelated or mutually
constituted categories of meaning.
[13] Friedman M (1970) The social responsibility of
business is to increase its profits. New York Times Sept 13th
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[19] Iyer AA (2006) The missing dynamic: corporations
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