Legal entities, speech, and imputation
notes on the criminal liability of collective agents in light of Klaus Günther's theory of lia-bility
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17882880Keywords:
criminal liability, enterprise, discourse theoryAbstract
This article examines the possibility of holding legal persons criminally liable based on Klaus Günther’s discourse theory of responsibility. By conceiving imputation as a symbolic and communicative process linked to the agent’s deliberative capacity, the theory allows for a rethinking of criminal responsibility beyond the individual subject. The article argues that, although Günther does not directly address collective agents, his theory can be extended to include legal persons as autonomous rational agents. Drawing on contemporary critiques, the text proposes internal adjustments to Günther’s framework to maintain its democratic coherence while enabling the criminal liability of corporations without undermining normative constraints on political citizenship.
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