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Full-Text Articles in Law
Adolf Berle’S Corporate Conscience, Elizabeth Sepper, James D. Nelson
Adolf Berle’S Corporate Conscience, Elizabeth Sepper, James D. Nelson
Seattle University Law Review
In this contribution to the symposium on “Corporate Capitalism and the City of God,” we bring Adolf Berle’s distinctive views of morality in corporate life into contemporary conversations about corporate religion. Today’s debates over corporate religious exemptions tend to gravitate toward an entity view of conscience focused on the moral integrity of institutions or an associational view keyed to shareholders’ deep commitments. The foremost corporate law scholar of his day, Berle instead conceived of corporate conscience as a “public consensus” guiding and bounding managerial decision-making. Although he would have sympathized with efforts to integrate faith and business, he would have …
Spirit Of The Corporation, Russell Powell
Spirit Of The Corporation, Russell Powell
Seattle University Law Review
Christian theologians have analyzed the productive and destructive qualities of institutions, sometimes attributing to them human virtues and vices. In City of God, Saint Augustine describes a utopian vision of human community within a Christian context as an alternative to the flawed “City of Man.” Contemporary theologians and sociologists have described collective structures of human behavior in institutions as having a kind of “spirit” analogous to the individual human “spirit.” Institutions are then assumed to take on an existence separate from the individuals within them, and in fact, the “spirit” of an institution influences the behavior of individuals. In The …
The Corporation As Trinity, David Skeel
The Corporation As Trinity, David Skeel
Seattle University Law Review
This Symposium Article takes Adolf Berle's cue in several respects. Most importantly, it will look to Augustine for guidance in developing insights into the nature of the corporation—in particular, corporate personhood. Where Berle drew inspiration from The City of God, this Article looks to a different Augustinian masterpiece, The Trinity, which has played a pivotal role in Christians’ understanding of who God is. Christian theology, as brilliantly explicated in The Trinity, states that God consists of three different persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—but is a single divine being. This Article argues that corporate personhood has similar qualities …