What question did this study set out to answer?

The aim is to explore the limitations of applying mens rea to corporations, emphasizing their lack of moral reasoning.

February 13, 2026Open Access

Corporate Criminal Liability and the Impossibility of Mens Rea: Why Guilty Minds Require Moral Agents

Puntos clave

The aim is to explore the limitations of applying mens rea to corporations, emphasizing their lack of moral reasoning.
Analysis of how corporations operate as optimization algorithms.
Conceptual exploration of mens rea and its implications in criminal law.
Critique of current liability frameworks for moral agents.
Established that corporations do not possess guilty minds due to their structural design.
Demonstrated that traditional criminal liability frameworks are ineffective for optimization engines.
Highlighted the mismatch between legal expectations of moral agents and the behavior of corporations.

Resumen

Criminal law requires mens rea: defendants must possess the cognitive capacity to form guilty minds. This paper argues that corporations architecturally lack this capacity. Corporations are optimization algorithms embodied in legal form—they maximize expected value through cost-benefit calculations, immune to shame, moral reasoning, or social expectations beyond material consequences. Corporations do not reason morally; they calculate. They weigh expected penalties against expected gains, nothing more. This is not a behavioral claim subject to empirical testing. It is an architectural claim about what corporations are: Level 1 intentional systems operating in games designed for Level 3 players. The paper demonstrates why criminal liability designed for moral agents systematically fails when applied to optimization engines.

Leer artículo completoexternamente

Preguntar a la IA

Me gusta

Guardar

Ver artículo completo