Comments on: (The Law of) Agency https://www.timesandseasons.org/index.php/2003/12/the-law-of-agency/ Truth Will Prevail Mon, 06 Aug 2018 17:29:28 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.8 By: anon https://www.timesandseasons.org/index.php/2003/12/the-law-of-agency/#comment-63699 Thu, 21 Apr 2005 16:58:43 +0000 /?p=123#comment-63699 Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them.

]]> By: Nate https://www.timesandseasons.org/index.php/2003/12/the-law-of-agency/#comment-10937 Mon, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 /?p=123#comment-10937 Incidentally, the Law of Agency is the only course in the history of Harvard Law School that went from being required to not being offered. It is now taught entirely as part of the law of business organizations.

]]> By: Greg https://www.timesandseasons.org/index.php/2003/12/the-law-of-agency/#comment-10938 Mon, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 /?p=123#comment-10938 Another set of concepts from business law connotes moral concepts. Directors of corporations have several duties imposed by law. The two basic categories of duties are the duty of care and the duty of loyalty.

The duty of care is often defined as the requirement that the director attend to the business of the corporation with the same care that she would apply to her own business decisions. If you squint a bit, this seems very much like the golden rule.

The duty of loyalty is the requirement that the the director place no competing interests (including her own pocketbook) in front of those of the corporation. You have to squint even less to see the similarity to the first and great commandment here.

And to think, my idealistic friends in law school thought that going into corporate law was soulless!

]]> By: Gordon https://www.timesandseasons.org/index.php/2003/12/the-law-of-agency/#comment-10939 Mon, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 /?p=123#comment-10939 Greg, I am writing a book on fiduciary duties, and one issue I would like to track down is the relationship of fiduciary law to principles in canon law or religious teachings more generally. I think you are absolutely right about the connection.

]]> By: Greg https://www.timesandseasons.org/index.php/2003/12/the-law-of-agency/#comment-10940 Mon, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 /?p=123#comment-10940 I’m sure you’ve seen this in preparation for your book, but there is a good discussion along these lines in “After Enron, Remembering Loyalty Discourse in Corporate Law,” 28 Del. J. Corp. L. 27 (2003).

]]> By: Jim https://www.timesandseasons.org/index.php/2003/12/the-law-of-agency/#comment-10941 Mon, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 /?p=123#comment-10941 Is there any necessary conceptual connection between free agency and free will? One could read free agency as a claim that one is one’s own principal. That would be to read it as those inside and outside the Church often read it. But such a reading seems to me to decide in favor of voluntarism without having thought about voluntarism.

Gordon’s reading makes considerably more sense of the term “free agent.” However, relying as it seems to on modern concepts, I wonder if it is possible to “translate it back” into something we might find in an ancient Hebraic culture.

The covenant between vassal and lord seems to fit well, and would still fit with Gordon’s explanation: the free vassal might be the one who serves his lord without being forced to do so. In other words, perhaps we can undertand free agency in terms of “free vassalage,” as Gordeon suggests.

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