Structure and Agency: An Analysis of the Impact of Structure on Group Agents

201 Pages·2015·1.08 MB·English

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USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations USF Graduate Theses and Dissertations
January 2012
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Elizabeth Kaye Victor
University of South Florida, [email protected]
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Victor, Elizabeth Kaye, "Structure and Agency: An Analysis of the Impact of Structure on Group Agents"
(2012). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
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Structure and Agency: An Analysis of the Impact of Structure on Group Agents

by

Elizabeth Kaye Victor

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Department of Philosophy
College of Arts and Sciences
University of South Florida

Co-Major Professor: Rebecca Kukla, Ph.D.
Co-Major Professor: Stephen Turner, Ph.D.
Colin Heydt, Ph.D.
Bryce Hueber, Ph.D
Douglas Jesseph, Ph.D.
Walter Nord, Ph.D.

Date of Approval:
May 16, 2012

Keywords: Group Agency, Business Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, Ethics,
Human Resource Management

Copyright © 2012, Elizabeth Kaye Victor
Dedication

I would like to dedicate this dissertation to my father and friend, Joe. Without
your encouragement, support, and fortitude I never would have found my own voice and
the courage to go off the beaten path in pursuit of my dreams.
Additionally, I would like to acknowledge the educators and mentors who have
had a heavy hand in shaping the course of my academic development. To Valerie Doner,
my High School Debate teacher, thank you for showing me that anger in the face of the
world is much better expressed through critical inquiry. To Ellen Klein, my
undergraduate mentor, thank you for introducing me to Philosophy. To Rebecca Kukla,
who has provided me with years of direction and friendship; this project would surely not
have been possible without you at the helm. To each of my committee members,
Rebecca, Steve, Colin, Bryce, Doug, and Walt, thank you for your support, your belief in
me and this project, the endless conversations, and for reading countless drafts and
redrafts of this project.
Finally, I would like to acknowledge my family and friends. My family’s love and
support, both emotionally and financially, has been immeasurable. I have been
surrounded by great friends during the past five years, particularly Andrea Pitts, Emre
Keskin, Michele Merritt, Pete Olen, Jeff Hinzmann, Sacha Greer, Paul Cudney, and
Laura Guidry-Grimes. You all have been the source of delightful and inspiring
conversations, intellectual collaborations, shoulders to cry on, tough words when I
needed them, and years of fun.
Table of Contents

List of Figures .................................................................................................................... iii

Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iv

Introduction ..........................................................................................................................1

Chapter 1: Corporate Persons, Corporate Actions and Agency
1.1 Introduction: Representations of Corporate Agency .......................................10
1.1.1 Agency, Agential Capacities, and Persons .......................................12
1.2 Taxonomy of Firms..........................................................................................18
1.2.1 Group Agents and Organization Structures ......................................22
1.3 Understanding Economic Associations as Associations of Persons ................25
1.4 A Practical Problem .........................................................................................30
1.5 The Politics of Corporate Speech Rights .........................................................33
1.5.1 From the Rights of Corporate Persons to Political Speech ...............35
1.6 First Concern: Economic Associations and Other Associations ......................40
1.6.1 Sphere of Control and Employee Voice ...........................................41
1.7 Second Concern: The Metaphysics behind the Decision .................................43
1.7.1 Contestability as Exit and Voice .......................................................46
1.7.2 Shareholder Primacy and Silencing of Other Stakeholders ..........................49

Chapter 2: The Metaphysics of Group Agents: Groups, Minds, Groups with Minds
2.1 Introduction: Kinds of Groups .........................................................................56
2.1.1 Collectives and Group Agents ..........................................................59
2.1.2 Collective Action and Group Agents ................................................60
2.2 Bratman’s Complexity Ceiling ........................................................................64
2.3 Tuomela’s Structural Passivity ........................................................................71
2.4 Expanding the Scope of Group Capacities: List and Pettit’s Theory ..............75
2.4.1 Taking Group Agency Seriously ......................................................77
2.4.2 The Epistemic Desideratum, Rationality and Truth-tracking ...........80
2.4.3 Spheres of Control, Rights, and Freedom .........................................84
2.4.4 Making Sense of Group Responsibility and Obligations .................90
2.5 Dynamic Group Agents: Moving beyond List and Pettit ................................97
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Chapter 3: External Structures, Firm Agency, and Organizational Design
3.1 Introduction: Shifting Orientations ..................................................................99
3.2 Economic Associations: A Brief History .......................................................103
3.2.1 Measuring Success in Economic Associations ...............................104
3.3 Environmental Pressures and Organizational Design ....................................112
3.3.1 Efficiency and Instituted Knowledge..............................................118
3.3.2 Instituted Knowledge and Moral Reasoning ...................................128
3.3.3 External Assessments of Firm Capacities and Judgments ..............134
3.4 Environmental Values and Moral Reasoning Capacities...............................136

Chapter 4: Corporate Agency and Responsibility
4.1 Introduction: Economic Associations, Responsibility, and Obligations .......139
4.2 List and Pettit’s Account of Responsibility ...................................................143
4.2.1 Situating Group Responsibility .......................................................148
4.3 Moral Respect in Economic Associations .....................................................153
4.3.1 The Role of Identity in Responsibility and Respect .......................154
4.3.2 Rethinking Ideals in Human Resource Management ......................159
4.3.3 A Second Look at Chavez and Weisinger ......................................161
4.4 Group Agents and Group Rights: Revisiting Citizens United .......................166

Conclusion: Moral Economic Group Agents? .................................................................170

Epilogue: Corporate Social Responsibility ......................................................................173

Works Cited .....................................................................................................................184
Legal Cases Cited ............................................................................................................192

ii
List of Tables

Table 2.1 Discursive Dilemma in Majoritarian Decision Processes..................................82

iii
Abstract
Different kinds of collectives help to coordinate between individuals and social
groups to solve distribution problems, supply goods and services, and enable individuals
to live fulfilling lives. Collectives, as part of the process of socialization, contribute to the
normalization of behaviors, and consequently, structure our ability to be self-reflective
autonomous agents. Contemporary philosophy of action models characterize collective
action as the product of individuals who have the proper motivations to perform
cooperative activities (bottom-up); or they begin with the social-level phenomena and
explain this in terms of individual actions and the mental states that motivate them (top-
down). One general goal of this project is to show how and why both of these approaches
through focusing solely on the individuals involved fail to capture and account for
important types of group actions: those of economic group agents.
Group agents, one kind of organized collective, are unique in that they have the
potential to develop group-level decision-making processes that result in the capacity of
the group to engage in practical reasoning. Because of this capacity, group agents can be
stable and respond to reason—capacities we would not expect from other kinds of
collectives. Inasmuch as we value the possibility of influencing the reflexive dynamics
that perpetuate social institutions, understanding the range of organization structures and
their agential capacities will open up the possibility of altering the course of those
dynamics toward more just systems of organization. Understanding what kinds of group
agents currently operate within the systems of organizations that make up social
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institutions is the first step in determining how to move toward developing group agents
that are also moral agents. By analyzing how different systems of constraint—inside and
outside the firm—inform one another to influence the possibility of design and the
group’s possibilities for action, I use Christian List and Philip Pettit’s account of group
agency as a springboard to develop a more adequate account of how structure influences
and constrains the possibilities of economic group agents in non-idealized circumstances
(i.e. this world, with our history).
My chapters include 1) a taxonomy of organization structures and an analysis of
how a narrow conception of organization structure in jurisprudence can lead to systems
of constraint that limit the rights and freedoms of individuals even as it seeks to extend
them, 2) an evaluation of the popular accounts of collective action (cf. Raimo Tuomela,
1997; Michael Bratman, 1993, 1997, 2009; and Christian List and Philip Pettit, 2011) that
could be made to accommodate the actions of certain kinds of economic associations, 3)
an exploration of the standards of evaluation that influence these powerful group agents,
and how these standards limit the economic group agent’s capacity to engage in moral
reasoning, and 4) an analysis of the group agent’s reasoning capacity and the internal
mode of interaction between group agent and group members that perpetuate group
agency.
I argue that we can understand group agents that have the capacity to be moral
agents as the products of a particular kind of decision-making process within an
organization’s structure. The decision-making process, together with the organization
structure and group member support, produces and sustains judgments and actions at the
level of the group that cannot be reduced to the beliefs and actions of particular members.
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In this way, the group displays a systematic unity of actions based on its own judgments.
That is, the group exhibits agency. Moral group agents exhibit more than practical
reasoning; they also demonstrate the capacity for critical reflection upon the ends they
pursue. Member buy-in promotes a tight connection between group members and their
role in bringing about and sustaining group agency, and is the foundation of the group
agent. Without a holistic organization structure, a member’s personal identities could
undermine group aims, thereby undermining group agency. Group moral agency, I argue,
begins with promoting an organizational way of life conducive to collective flourishing
and respect for members.

vi
Introduction

Even those who aim to change the world had better first learn how to describe it.
–Brian Skyrms, Evolution of the Social Contract
Collectives and groups rely upon the actions of human persons to sustain their
existence, but to what extent does the agency of the group depend upon the persons
themselves? That is to say, to what extent can groups of persons be said to cause change
in the world through actions that cannot be descriptively reduced to the actions of the set
of members? How we understand collectives to act, and likewise how we understand
their possibilities for action, is intimately connected to two related yet divergent sets of
principles. On the one hand, our concept of collective action itself is dependent upon the
metaphysical ideas underlying how we conceptualize groups, their capacity for reasoning,
and their possibility to form intentions as reasons for actions. On the other hand, our
understanding of collective action undergirds how the law treats collective behavior, how
we think about individual and collective responsibility, and how models in disciplines
such as economics, political science, and management theory explain present collective
behavior and predict future collective behavior.
Historically, these two sides of the discussion have been distinguished by their
focus and aim. Philosophical or theoretical accounts of group agency seeking to explain
the function of groups at their most foundational level address both ontic and ontological
concerns prior to moving onto practical or applied considerations. Social science
accounts of group agency focus primarily on explaining how groups cause change in the
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