Group Ontology and Skeptical Arguments

David, Edward A.

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-56211-3_3

Edward A. David⁴

Part of the book series: Palgrave Frontiers in Philosophy of Religion ((PFPR))

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Abstract

This chapter anticipates objections to the use of group ontology for the ascription of legal rights to corporate religious liberty. Three positions are addressed: first, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s attempt to eliminate the possibility of group agency for for-profit corporations; second, James D. Nelson’s social theory of conscience, which restricts group agency to a narrow range of group-types; and, third, Richard Schragger and Micah Schwartzman’s argument that group ontology is indeterminate and morally distracting for rights ascription. Especially through critical engagement with the latter theorists, the chapter ends with a basic framework for legal rights ascription, one that integrates group ontology and ethical concepts in a methodologically appropriate way. This framework is used to develop a Christian approach to corporate religious liberty.

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Notes

1.
Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 134 S.Ct. 2751, 2794 (2014).
2.
Hobby Lobby, 134 S.Ct. at 2794 (citations omitted).
3.
For an overview of types of corporate theory see Eric W. Orts, Business Persons: A Legal Theory of the Firm (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 13–15.
4.
For example, see those discussed at Sect. 3.3.3.
5.
Hobby Lobby, 134 S.Ct. at 2793.
6.
Hobby Lobby, 134 S.Ct. at 2787.
7.
Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990).
8.
Hobby Lobby, 134 S.Ct. at 2787.
9.
Hobby Lobby, 134 S.Ct. at 2794.
10.
Hobby Lobby, 134 S.Ct. at 2794–7.
11.
Oklahoma Solicitation of Charitable Contributions Act, 18 OK Stat § 18-552.2 (2014).
12.
18 OK Stat § 18-549 (2014) (italics mine).
13.
18 OK Stat § 18-1006(A) (2014).
14.
Hobby Lobby, 134 S.Ct. at 2794, 2805–6.
15.
Hobby Lobby, 134 S.Ct. at 2794.
16.
For example, see Paul Horwitz, “Defending (Religious) Institutionalism,” Virginia Law Review 99, no. 5 (2013): 1049–63; and Richard Schragger and Micah Schwartzman, “Against Religious Institutionalism,” Virginia Law Review 99, no. 5 (September 2013): 918–85.
17.
For a sampling of this line of argument, see Mark Rienzi, “God and the Profits: Is There Religious Liberty for Money-Makers?” George Mason Law Review 21, no. 1 (2013): 59–116; and Hobby Lobby, 134 S.Ct. at 2787.
18.
James D. Nelson, “Conscience, Incorporated,” Michigan State Law Review 2013, no. 5 (2013): 1565–1620.
19.
Nelson, 1568 (italics in original).
20.
Richard Schragger and Micah Schwartzman, “Some Realism About Corporate Rights,” in The Rise of Corporate Religious Liberty, ed. Micah Schwartzman, Chad Flanders, and Zöe Robinson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 368; and Cécile Laborde, Liberalism’s Religion (London: Harvard University Press, 2017), 184.
21.
Nelson, “Conscience, Incorporated,” 1575–8.
22.
For arguments against the claim that freedom of religion is based solely on the freedom of conscience, see Germain Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus, vol. 1, Christian Moral Principles (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1983), 76–7, chap. 3, q. B, para. 9 (henceforth this volume of Grisez’s work is cited with the abbreviated title CMP, chapter, question, and paragraph number: e.g., CMP, chap. 3, B-9).
23.
“About Us,” Ameris Capital, accessed May 11, 2009, https://en.fisameris.cl/fis-ameris/.
24.
Nelson, “Conscience, Incorporated,” 1578.
25.
CMP, chap. 3, A-5 (italics mine).
26.
CMP, chap. 3, B-6; app. 1.
27.
CMP, chap. 7, C-3; chap. 7, D-2 through 4.
28.
See CMP, chap. 7, E–F (the first principle of morality); and CMP, chap. 8 (the specifications of the first principle of morality, i.e., the modes of responsibility).
29.
CMP, chap. 7, E-2.
30.
CMP, chap. 7, F-2, F-4.
31.
On the limitations of Grisez’s natural law theory, see Nigel Biggar and Rufus Black, ed., The Revival of Natural Law: Philosophical, Theological and Ethical Responses to the Finnis-Grisez School (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000).
32.
Ameris Capital, Lecciones Aprendidas: Fondo de Inversión Social—FIS, December 2016, 14, http://en.fisameris.cl/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/lecciones-aprendidas-FIS-Diciembre-2016.pdf.
33.
Nelson, “Conscience, Incorporated,” 1578.
34.
Germain Grisez, “Natural Law, God, Religion, and Human Fulfillment,” The American Journal of Jurisprudence 46, no. 1 (2001): 7.
35.
This question follows from Grisez’s modes of responsibility. See CMP, chap. 7, G-6.
36.
CMP, chap. 7, F-2.
37.
Nelson, “Conscience, Incorporated,” 1568.
38.
Nelson, 1586, 1610.
39.
Nelson, 1610, 1578–80.
40.
Nelson, 1579.
41.
Nelson, 1579–80.
42.
Ibid.
43.
Germain Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus, vol. 2, Living a Christian Life (Quincy, IL: Franciscan Press, 1993), 113, chap. 2, q. E, para. 1 (henceforth this volume of Grisez’s work is cited with the abbreviated title LCL, chapter, question, and paragraph number: e.g., LCL, chap. 2, E-1).
44.
CMP, chap. 23, C-11; and LCL, chap. 2, E-1.
45.
CMP, chap. 7, F-1. See also Grisez, “Natural Law, God, Religion,” 22, 27.
46.
LCL, chap. 2, E-2a.
47.
LCL, chap. 2, E-3d.
48.
LCL, chap. 2, E-5b.
49.
Nelson, “Conscience, Incorporated,” 1602.
50.
Ibid.
51.
Gallup, State of the American Workplace: Employee Engagement Insights for U.S. Business Leaders, 2013, 21, https://www.gallup.com/file/services/176708/State%20of%20the%20American%20Workplace%20Report%202013.pdf.
52.
Nelson, “Conscience, Incorporated,” 1587–90.
53.
Nelson, 1602 (referencing a 1997 study on employee motivation).
54.
ESOPs are retirement plans for employees and qualified owners. See Steven F. Freeman, “Effects of ESOP Adoption and Employee Ownership: Thirty Years of Research and Experience” (working paper, University of Pennsylvania, 2007), 3, http://repository.upenn.edu/od_working_papers/2/.
55.
Freeman, 1.
56.
Nelson, “Conscience, Incorporated,” 1582.
57.
Nelson, 1581–3 (italics in original).
58.
See Harris Interactive, New Harris Poll Finds Different Religious Groups Have Very Different Attitudes to Some Health Policies and Programs, October 2005, https://theharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Harris-Interactive-Poll-Research-New-Finds-Different-Religious-Groups-H-2005-10.pdf; and Guttmacher Institute, Countering Conventional Wisdom: New Evidence on Religion and Contraceptive Use, April 2011, http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/Religion-and-Contraceptive-Use.pdf.
59.
Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1994), para. 2032.
60.
“Burwell v. Hobby Lobby,” Becket, accessed May 11, 2020, https://www.becketlaw.org/case/burwell-v-hobby-lobby/.
61.
Of course, the moral uses of (a separate and legal) corporate personality should not be overlooked. See discussion relating to property, land ownership, and limited liability in Alan Dignam and John Lowry, Company Law, 7th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 15–18.
62.
John Finnis, Aquinas: Moral, Political, and Legal Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 28.
63.
Schragger and Schwartzman, “Some Realism,” 365–6.
64.
Ibid.
65.
John Dewey, “The Historic Background of Corporate Legal Personality,” Yale Law Journal 35, no. 6 (1926): 657, 661.
66.
Dewey, 660.
67.
Dewey, 658. Also see Frederic W. Maitland, introduction to Political Theories of the Middle Ages, by Otto von Gierke, trans. Frederic W. Maitland (London: Cambridge University Press, 1938), i–lxxx.
68.
Dewey, “Corporate Legal Personality,” 660 (italics mine).
69.
Ibid.
70.
Dewey, 660–1.
71.
Dewey, 657.
72.
Dewey, 660.
73.
Dewey, 661–3.
74.
Dewey, 661.
75.
Finnis, Aquinas, 21 (italics in original).
76.
Finnis, 23, 62. See also John Finnis, Natural Law & Natural Rights, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 127, n. 1.
77.
Finnis, Aquinas, 24 (italics mine).
78.
John Finnis, “A Grand Tour of Legal Theory,” in Philosophy of Law: Collected Essays; Volume IV (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 109–11 (arguing that ethics extends to politics and that politics requires a theory of law).
79.
For example, see Orts, Business Persons, 1 (defining law as a social technology).
80.
See Finnis, “A Grand Tour of Legal Theory,” 111.
81.
Dewey, “Corporate Legal Personality,” 656, 661.
82.
At minimum, following Dewey, we will not have any good (or non-arbitrary) reasons for permitting or disallowing x. See related discussion on moral motivation in Sect. 3.2.1.
83.
Schragger and Schwartzman, “Some Realism,” 347, 353–4; and Dewey, “Corporate Legal Personality,” 658, 665, n.1, 666.
84.
Schragger and Schwartzman, “Some Realism,” 357, 360, 366 (italics mine).
85.
Schragger and Schwartzman, 346, 358.
86.
Schragger and Schwartzman, 367–8.
87.
Schragger and Schwartzman, 348, n. 13 (identifying Víctor Muñiz-Fraticelli, Paul Horwitz, Patrick McKinley Brennan, Steven D. Smith, and Richard W. Garnett as religious institutionalists).
88.
Schragger and Schwartzman, 366–9.
89.
Finnis, Aquinas, 21.
90.
Orts, Business Persons, 1. Orts focuses on business firms, but acknowledges that his theory has applications for other types of organizations.
91.
Orts, chap. 1–2.
92.
Orts, 18.
93.
Orts, 17–18, 19.
94.
Orts, xxii.
95.
See Finnis, Natural Law & Natural Rights, 18–19.
96.
Ibid.
97.
Schragger and Schwartzman, “Some Realism,” 368–9 (italics mine).
98.
Ibid.
99.
Pluralist theories come in many forms. I specifically have in mind Aquinas’s natural law theory, which references a range of human goods or requirements of practical reason and is tied to a rich theological anthropology, one that is not reducible to, say, voluntary consent alone. Finnis, Aquinas, 79–86. See also Kent Greenawalt’s discussion of the benefit of “multiple value theories” for the fair and practical adjudication of religious liberty disputes. Kent Greenawalt, Religion and the Constitution, vol. 1, Free Exercise and Fairness (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 5–9.
100.
Schragger and Schwartzman, “Some Realism,” 348, 360–8.
101.
Schragger and Schwartzman, 348–53, 366–7, 370–1.
102.
Schragger and Schwartzman, “Against Religious Institutionalism,” 957–62, 969, 981.
103.
Schragger and Schwartzman, “Some Realism,” 366.
104.
In addition to Schragger and Schwartzman, see Laborde, Liberalism’s Religion, 164–5 (arguing against the theocratic rule of the church, in favor of the political state’s ultimate authority to define jurisdictions).
105.
Schragger and Schwartzman, “Some Realism,” 349.
106.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I-II q. 23, aa. 3–4. Henceforth, I reference the English Dominicans’ translation, using book, question, and article enumeration. See Summa theologiae, ed. Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 61 vols. (London: Blackfriars, 1964–1980).
107.
See Janet Coleman, A History of Political Thought: From the Middle Ages to the Renaissance (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 41.
108.
Coleman, 43.
109.
For example, see ST I-II q. 23, aa. 3–4.
110.
Coleman, From the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, 43, 46–9 (discussing Cicero, Gratian, Abelard, and Aquinas’s contributions to natural law and to the derivation of corporate rights from individuals).
111.
See treatment of individualism within a Christian ethical context in Sect. 2.2.3.
112.
Patrick McKinley Brennan, “The Liberty of the Church: Source, Scope and Scandal,” Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues 21 (2013): 169.
113.
Coleman, From the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, 42.
114.
Schragger and Schwartzman, “Some Realism,” 352, n. 32.
115.
Coleman, From the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, 42.
116.
Coleman, 43–5 (discussing consent, sovereignty, and natural rights in medieval thought).

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Edward A. David

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David, E.A. (2020). Group Ontology and Skeptical Arguments. In: A Christian Approach to Corporate Religious Liberty. Palgrave Frontiers in Philosophy of Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56211-3_3

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56211-3_3
Published: 22 September 2020
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
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