This blog basically exists to document my exploration of legal fiction (mainly the concept of the corporation) and its effect on the moral judgement process. There isn't much here at the moment, except for the account of my theory of how certain types of legal fiction seem to pose a fundamental problem to the moral judgement process... anyways hope you find this interesting, and please contact me if you are interested in discussing this!
Morality as a Relational Engagement
I am not quite certain where to begin discussing this issue, so perhaps to give a fuller picture, I will start by sharing how this journey began. I am not terribly graceful with words so please bear with me here!:
If I were to start from the beginning, the short of it is that for a lot of my life, there has always seemed to be this sense of moral confusion and a lack of clarity, in my life and in the lives of those around me. And later, even when I started exploring religion and such and became a Christian, I found myself exploring morality even more, but unfortunately I was surprised because even then I found myself even more morally confused, even in simple every day activities, for example I would feel guilty about listening to a friend play illegally downloaded music, or going slightly over the speed limit! Well I think I should say though that I don't really think religion was the source of the confusion and guilt, rather all it really did was to inspire me to explore morality more honestly and authentically.
At any rate, while exploring why I was so morally confused, I eventually came to the strange realization that if I remove the concept of the corporation (i.e. the business corporation) from my thinking, virtually all the moral confusion would vanish... at first I thought this is perhaps a clear indication of a psychological imbalance in my judgement, but after thinking about the dynamics of the situation quite a bit, the idea of removing the concept of the corporation to establish moral clarity seemed to make a lot of sense...
In terms of moral reasoning, this seems to add up: to put it simply, it seems that the problem really comes down to the fact that the corporation has no "will" or "being" we can relate to, but rather can only be related to through law and regulation. Morality is naturally entirely a relational engagement, not merely compliance to a written code... for example, you can say something like "I don't think Fred will mind me borrowing his lawnmower", even if your neighbor Fred isn't around to confirm that; that is, you can know your neighbor enough to know what he does and doesn't mind. But playing fair in society and public law means respecting the personhood of the corporation (Indeed, we must respect the personhood of the corporation, otherwise the concept of the corporation falls apart). And since the corporation must be respected as a person, but has no relatable "will" or "being", the only way we can truly respect its personhood is through careful (that is, literal) compliance to law and regulation (as there is no will or being against which we can make a judgement about what parts of the law are or aren't important... in otherwords, you can't say something like "I don't think the corporation entity will mind me borrowing its lawnmower", like you could if the corporation were instead a person). But since it is virtually impossible to always strictly and literally comply (again, as by our nature we cannot perfectly comply to law, but look for a will behind it to make judgements against... i.e. suppose you listen to your friend play illegally downloaded music... unfortunately you can't "know" the corporation entity in any way so as to say the music label corporation wouldn't mind you doing that!), we must basically adopt a position in society that is essentially willing to play unfair; that is, to adopt a position of fundamental moral compromise.
Thus what it seems to come down to is that morality is essentially about playing fair... but it seems that the introduction of the concept of the corporation in our society essentially places us into a position in which we choose not to play fair. Of course that is a questionable position... for one thing, if indeed we are fundamentally placing ourselves in a position in which we choose to play unfair, are we not basically explicitly limiting ourselves in terms of what we can explore in the realm of the abstract, especially when it comes to exploring intention and meaning? Also, in perhaps a broader sense, I think people in general have a sense that something is wrong with the corporation concept, that something gets thrown off. Indeed it is important that we develop good moral values, and let go of wrong or dated ones... but however virtuous or popular our values may be, it is difficult to have a thorough and enduring confidence in our decisions and practices if the sense of the reality of things remains that the game cannot be played fair.
Well, it is difficult to truly know and express how people would develop and process morality (and live out life in general) outside the legal fiction such as the concept of the corporation, as I myself am "in the game", and must respect the personhood of the corporation, and thus cannot escape the moral judgement and abstract thought complications introduced by the concept. I don't think there exists any nation or state in the world where I can go to explore the reality and relational dynamic of a corporation-less system, unfortunately (well the society wouldn't have to be corporation-less... if it could allow certain individuals to change their relationship with the corporation, i.e. 1) allow me to see business corporations as if it had no shareholders of any kind, like charitable corporations are sometimes arranged, that would work too! Something about the existence of shareholders seems to be what causes the challenge to the moral judgement process... removing the shareholder part of the corporation concept seems to resolve the judgement complications. Or 2) another option would be to designate physical locations as special legal administrative regions where the concept of the corporation doesn't exist, or where the Corporations Act has no jurisdiction, or something like that...). But my theory is that the person that develops morally and judgmentally having to respect the concept of the corporation will tend to be more outwardly compliant to requirements and somewhat be more reactionary to sudden occurrences, and perhaps not be as confident about moral choices, while the person that develops outside this legal fiction will be more motive and intention oriented (in terms of his own motives and in obedience to others) in making judgements, and will generally be more responsive rather than reactionary, and perhaps will find themselves more confident about their choices...
Anyways this is all guesswork from a layman... though I suppose, if the concept of the corporation is causing problems it shouldn't come as much of a surprise. We are essentially trying to separate value and meaning from responsibility and liability, and going so far as to create fictional legal members of society to do that... does it really make sense to think we get rid of responsibility and liability that way? The concept of the corporation is a terribly artificial concept, and heavily influences how we relate to others, both socially and in terms of mental dynamics... would it really be surprising if it did introduce even some unnatural psychological complications? Well anyways I dunno... of course realistically I don't think people will be willing to give up corporations, and I think I should say nor am I absolutely positive that the concept of the corporation really is fundamentally problematic to our moral judgement faculty... but every indication seems to at least indicate this is worthy of scientific inquiry. Indeed it is doubtful that society would want to give up such a powerful economic engine... though actually, I think if we cleverly arrange things, we might be able to have the best of both worlds... the vast economic power of the corporation driven economy, with the unique abstracting, design, and strategizing style of the legal fiction-free mind. Well, this would certainly be a very interesting approach to the science of our social well being, whatever the case...
In Progress
At anyrate, this is all I have at the moment in terms of having explored this issue... again please contact me if you would like to discuss this, and check back once in a while to see how this progresses!
