Over the past hundred years, American law has gradually – —and controversially –— expanded the speech rights of corporations. O O ver the same period, corporate speech has become pervasive, and now dominates most major channels of communication. C C orporate speech ranges from anodyne commercial appeals to expressions of ethical values to campaign finance payments. W W hen a corporation “speaks,” who should we understand is the real speaker? T T his chapter explores issues of speech attribution for corporations, and argues that the best approach is for attribution to turn on the corporate governance that produces the speech.

In recent years, there has been increasing pressure on corporate entities to engage in moral or ethical decision- making. Given the immense economic and political power of modern corporate entities, it becomes critical to determine the origin point of these ethical decisions, both to ensure that corporations are held responsible for their moral choices and to tether corporate moral decision-making power to the appropriate group, or groups, of human beings. Determining to whom corporate morality should be attributed is not an easy task, however, and requires consideration not just of the people involved in the corporation but also of the role the corporation plays within a representative democracy. Ultimately, inquiry into the attribution of a corporation’s moral judgments may best be seen as fluid and context-dependent. That is, it should examine both the way the corporation is structured and the importance of representation for the moral choices of corporate stakeholders.