Dismemberment, divorce and hostile takeovers: A comment on corporate moral personhood

Abstract

We can explain our intuitions about corporate takeover cases by appeal to Peter French's picture of the corporation as a moral person. He argues that corporations are persons in much the same sense as you and I, and are entitled to the same rights as humans. On this analysis, takeovers are murders, attempted murders, attempts to enslave, etc. I want to explore the consequences of this view for corporate takeovers. I shall argue that, though French can explain why our moral intuitions seem to arise in response to some concern about the corporations themselves, his analysis commits us to the wrong intuitions in some cases. I shall then offer an account of these intuitions which focuses on the character of corporations.