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Re:How the food lobby fights sugar regulation in the EU [pdf] by brudgers on Saturday July 30, 2016 @11:16AM (#12193291)
No. Tobacco companies are not moral agents.

Such a scenario might well involve individuals engaged in banal evil and because individuals are moral agents, that's where blame and praise may accrue.

Anthropomorphizing a tobacco company muddies our thinking. A trade agreement is a document. The consequences of following the ideas in that document may be detrimental. But it is not a moral agent.

Re:How the food lobby fights sugar regulation in the EU [pdf] by josinalvo on Saturday July 30, 2016 @11:51AM (#12193464)
Your definition of moral agent is not very useful.

For me, a moral agent is not one that can 'feel responsible', but one that I can affect, by changing my own behavior, when it does 'something bad'.

The discussion of internal states is less useful. Also, the discussion of morality of people I can't affect is less useful.

Re:How the food lobby fights sugar regulation in the EU [pdf] by brudgers on Saturday July 30, 2016 @12:24PM (#12193584)
Not very useful definitions are by definition more useful than useless definitions.

If a person lobs avalanche prevention ordinance upon an unstable mountain slope thereby preventing the demise of the hikers I invented earlier, that person's actions might be said to have affected the behavior of the mountain.

If the person lobs ordinance after the invented hikers have met their fate, that person may well change the mountain slope geometry in such a manner that unique unstable accumulations are no longer physically possible [while others may be].

Clearly neither seems like a case where there is moral agency in the mountain. We get moral agency when the person lobbing ordinance onto the mountain slope is doing or forgoing the activity in the presence of hikers.

Re:How the food lobby fights sugar regulation in the EU [pdf] by tim333 on Saturday July 30, 2016 @01:12PM (#12193765)
Things don't need to be moral agents to be good bad or evil. I had a good bath and a bad haircut but neither of those are moral agents.