Group agency

The possibility, design and status of corporate agents

Christian List

Philip Pettit

pp. 9-238

Oxford University Press

2011

Abstract

Are companies, churches, and states genuine agents? Or are they just collections of individual agents that give a misleading impression of unity? This question is important, since the answer dictates how we should explain the behavior of these entities and whether we should treat them as responsible and accountable on the model of individual agents. This book offers a new approach to that question, arguing that there really are group or corporate agents, over and above the individual agents who compose them, and that a proper approach to the social sciences, law, morality, and politics must take account of this fact. Unlike some earlier defenses of group agency, this account is entirely non-mysterious in character and, despite not being technically difficult, is grounded in cutting-edge work in social choice theory, economics, and philosophy.