Corporations depend on individual decisions

The argument

With individual agency playing such a prominent role in corporate decision-making, company morals become redundant. The company’s ethics become dependent on the moral virtues of the individual. Therefore, company morals are unnecessary. In the instance of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, it was not BP that had the moral obligation to prevent the oil spill, it was the individual managers who implemented cost-cutting measures that compromised the safety of the pipeline.

Context

The internal structure of companies means that many important decisions are based on individual agency.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The corporation and the individuals are not the same things. A corporation can adopt a strategy and make decisions against the wishes of senior management or majority shareholders. Therefore, the corporation has its own agency and has the responsibility to adopt its own morals. Corporate decision making is also a messy process. It is not always easy to point to one definitive person that made an ethically dubious decision. Often someone may have planted an idea, someone else signed off on it, someone else implemented it, but no single person can take responsibility for corporate action. In the absence of the individual decision-maker, the company must have its own morals to protect against unethical behaviour.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Companies don't always function through individual decision making.

Framing

Individuals have the moral responsibility to behave in a morally correct manner. This translates into their professional decision making on behalf of a company. If individuals are committed to behaving in a morally correct way, corporate morals become redundant.