Final published version
Research output: Book/Report/Proceedings › Book
}
TY - BOOK
T1 - Kant Incorporated
AU - Williams, Garrath
PY - 2025/10/31
Y1 - 2025/10/31
N2 - Corporations are legal bodies with duties and powers distinct from those of individual people. Kant discusses them in many places. Universities must figure in a rightful condition; churches play an important ethical role. He criticises feudal orders and some charitable foundations; he condemns early business corporations’ overseas activities.This Element argues that Kant’s practical philosophy offers a systematic basis for understanding these bodies. Corporations bridge the central distinctions of his practical philosophy: ethics versus right, public versus private right. Corporations can extend freedom, structure moral activity, and aid progress toward more rightful conditions.Kant’s thought also highlights a fundamental threat. In every corporation, some people exercise the corporation’s legal powers, without the liability they would face as private individuals. This threatens Kant’s principle of innate equality: no citizen should have greater legal rights than any other. This Element explores the justifications and safeguards needed to deal with this threat.
AB - Corporations are legal bodies with duties and powers distinct from those of individual people. Kant discusses them in many places. Universities must figure in a rightful condition; churches play an important ethical role. He criticises feudal orders and some charitable foundations; he condemns early business corporations’ overseas activities.This Element argues that Kant’s practical philosophy offers a systematic basis for understanding these bodies. Corporations bridge the central distinctions of his practical philosophy: ethics versus right, public versus private right. Corporations can extend freedom, structure moral activity, and aid progress toward more rightful conditions.Kant’s thought also highlights a fundamental threat. In every corporation, some people exercise the corporation’s legal powers, without the liability they would face as private individuals. This threatens Kant’s principle of innate equality: no citizen should have greater legal rights than any other. This Element explores the justifications and safeguards needed to deal with this threat.
U2 - 10.1017/9781009641364
DO - 10.1017/9781009641364
M3 - Book
SN - 9781009641388
T3 - Elements in the Philosophy of Immanuel Kant
BT - Kant Incorporated
PB - Cambridge University Press
CY - Cambridge
ER -