Abstract

This paper argues that organizations, such as corporations, can act and exercise power. This is possible because they possess decision making structures which are more or less formal. The actions of such organizations are not reducible to the actions of its individual members. Further, because these formal group agents could have acted differently or could have been organized to have acted differently, they are morally responsible for the untoward effects of the power they exercise. Morally responsible organizations are subject to degree judgments of blame. These degrees, in decreasing order of blameworthiness are: exercising power purposely, knowingly, recklessly, or negligently. Each level of blame is associated with a particular disposition or state of mind, and I also argue that the organization's disposition is not reducible to the dispositions or degrees of blame of the individual members who participated in a group's internal decision process.