By this argument, from solipsism, I can kill you because you are imaginary to me. However -- your poor arguments notwithstanding -- I do not wish to, but instead try to understand how on earth you can think society is imaginary when it has constructed your roads, schools, constitution, social values. Yes, you have social values, even if they just consist in denying them. And, oh, language. You didn't make that up. Nor did your parents... but a whole huge historical arse of people conjoined, like it or not, into collaborating into creating (and often destroying) their common world and experience.

Men constructed those roads, buildings, and documents - not society.

Or do you contend that "society" is exactly equal to the few dozen men who authored the US constitution? That simply doesn't make sense.

You may want to consider the fact that this applies to "corporations" as well. They're legal fictions. They can't be prosecuted, because they can't break laws, because they can't act. Only individuals can break laws and face prosecution, because only individuals can actually _do_ things.

Again you're going with the Strawman-ing. Without social compacts and agreements, and caring for neighbours none of these men would have acted together. Even in the constitution, that was a few people representing and being part of a greater polity and social scene. They were the agents of this society, from whose values they created the DEclaration of independence, Federalist Papers, constitution, etc. they didn't pluck it out of thin air! Just as the President and his administration are not acting alone.

You seem to have problems with the idea of abstraction. Learn some maths perhaps? It's worth it. You're working on an abstaction right now, as someone has already kindly pointed out.

I also recommend that you Google "theories of collective action", it's an interesting set of ideas which have had much intellectual currency for a long time, and still do.

It is not the case that people are rational actors thinking and acting alone. To understand the world we sense, there has to be collaboration and sensemaking together. Corporations embody the values of the leaders and or founders and shareholders, and are held together byt the rituals and practices of the people there every day.

What are Thanksgiving and Labor Day, if not embodiments of American society?

I love it when someone using a complicated network of computers acts as if something being an abstraction means that it doesn't have real effects.

Property is a right granted by society to use a resource just for yourself. If society is an abstraction, property is as well.

Rights are not granted. There are those that believe that they are inalienable.

Rights are rules in a society. By your argument, they are not inalienable but imaginary.

i.e. "Made up stuff I like is inalienable. Made up stuff I dislike is imaginary."

Jesus fucking Christ. How do people like you even exist? Who thinks this way? Serial killers?

I think we have responsibilities to other people, individually. To construct a single entity out of millions, though, and then assign it rights and interpret obligations to it, makes no sense at all to me.

It is impossible to harm a legal fiction because it is a fiction. It is indeed possible to harm humans and that, of course, must be avoided.

An abstraction that can land you in jail ceases to be an abstraction.

"Social responsibility" is not imaginary, it's just not a useful term in policy debates, because it has no fixed objective meaning. It's like a "fair" tax policy -- 100% of people want a "fair" tax policy and yet can't agree on what that means. Similarly everyone considers themselves socially responsible.