College of the Holy Cross

Faculty Member, Philosophy

Brake Smith Assistant Professor of Social Philosophy and Ethics

Thesis Title: “No Body to Kick, No Soul to Damn” … And Yet: The Modern Corporation as Moral Agent

About

At the moment, my primary project is the articulation and defense of a holist meta-ethics -- specifically, how certain groups qualify in their own right as moral agents.  I call such qualifying groups "corporate entities", and claim that they have their own beliefs, desires, and the ability to act on them, and further that they can and therefore should act on the basis of morally relevant information.  They have free will and the capacity for other-regarding agency, among other things, and the absence of phenomenal consciousness (with its attendant emotional states) is not problematic. 

Corporate entities are commonly found, of course, in the business arena, and I have a particular interest in the moral obligations of business entities that derives in part from my business background.  I was a transactional environmental lawyer (brownfields redevelopment, regulatory compliance, mergers and acquisions) for fifteen years before taking my PhD in philosophy, and I draw on that experience in my work.

I have related interests in environmental philosophy and issues, business ethics (different than the corporate moral obligations discussed above), political philosophy, and the philosophy of education.  Plus a recent curiosity about the moral obligations of parents for the free action of their children....

I took my PhD in philosophy at the University of Colorado-Boulder (2009), my masters in liberal arts from Northwestern University (2003), and my law degree from Harvard Law School (1993).