bilby said:
Corporate entities have responsibilities (and indeed an existence) that are not attributable to their members, nor to a specific subset of their members.
Legally, you mean, or morally?
When it comes to morality, only individual humans (well, and some other monkeys) can be guilty of things, deserve punishment, etc. (well, at least on Earth, in the real world; there are other possible entities that have such properties, and perhaps some other real ones). Organizations can be said do be so only in the secondary sense that some of their members are guilty, etc., in connection to their activities related to the organization.
Also, when it comes to owing things (morally too), guilt is not necessary (e.g., if you get insurance for your car and it's damaged as specified, the insurer owes you money even though they're not guilty), but even then, those obligations are the obligations of some people. It's just that they do not have an obligation - moral or legal - to respond with all of their money, but with some they dedicated to some activity.
bilby said:
It's quite possible for the Catholic church to be guilty of killing children in their care, even if no current member of the Catholic church is personally guilty of that offence. However in this case it's highly likely that both the church and a subset of its current members are guilty.
No, that is not possible. Not in the moral sense of 'guilty', i.e., blameworthy. More to the point, some members would be guilty of something like choosing to kill a child, or choosing to deprive them of food, or whatever. But guilt is - in the end - for choices, not for results.
bilby said:
The church could, and should, mitigate some of its guilt by actively seeking out and bringing forward for legal action those members who are personally responsible; And the church's failure to do so is morally reprehensible.
No. And who is "the church"? Who are the people you say should act in such and such way guilty of?
bilby said:
This individualistic idea that bodies corporate are incapable of being criminal, or morally wrong, because guilt and/or immorality can only be attributed to specific members of the body corporate is childish and dangerous nonsense. Religious organisations, governments, companies and other bodies corporate can and should behave morally, and can and should be held to account if they do not.
On the contrary, the idea that something
other than a mind can be morally guilty is dangerous nonsense (except in a figurative sense, or in a secondary sense that refers even if indirectly to a mind or minds). It is one thing to use it as a legal fiction to attribute compensations - which do not require moral guilt to be owed, even in the moral sense; see again insurance -, but actually believing this entity is guilty is nonsense.
Now, given that organizations are the activity of some people, and of course people can act immorally, then sure, there are in that sense immoral organizations. But the behavior cannot be immoral
without a corresponding immoral behavior of the people involved.
(organizations can be criminally guilty if the law says so of course, but that's another matter).
bilby said:
This is particularly true when, like the Catholic church, the organisation holds itself up as the ultimate arbiter of morality. The Catholic church is vile, hypocritical, corrupt, and unaccountable. It's well past time that other powerful bodies, such as national governments, made the church accountable for its many crimes. It has repeatedly demonstrated its inability to police itself.
No, "the organization" only "holds itself up..." in the sense that some members of it do that, in the context of the activities that constitute the church. And many people engage in vile, hypocritical, corrupt, behavior when acting in the context we say the church is acting. Others are not. But the organization can be said to be vile, etc., only in the secondary sense that some of the members (many, most, etc.) are engaging in such behavior when acting in the capacity of church officials. It's all anchored in individual behavior.