Corporations, Rights, and Lobbying

While there may be several practical concerns regarding the practice of corporate lobbying of government officials, there is the more basic question of a corporation’s moral right to do so. I argue that group agents such as corporations have no moral rights, and thereby cannot have the right to lobb...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ethical theory and moral practice
Main Author: Gee, Quentin (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V [2016]
In: Ethical theory and moral practice
RelBib Classification:NCD Political ethics
XA Law
Further subjects:B Moral patiency
B Corporations
B Legal rights
B Lobbying
B Corporate rights
B Moral rights
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:While there may be several practical concerns regarding the practice of corporate lobbying of government officials, there is the more basic question of a corporation’s moral right to do so. I argue that group agents such as corporations have no moral rights, and thereby cannot have the right to lobby. There may be a basis for some legal rights for corporations, but I argue that lobbying cannot be one of the legal rights, even by reference to the rights of the individuals that make up the corporation. I end the paper by a discussion of how this argument applies to all private organizations, including public interest organizations.
ISSN:1572-8447
Contains:Enthalten in: Ethical theory and moral practice
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10677-015-9631-3