PHI445: Personal & Organizational Ethics

Week 3 Assignment NAME PHI445: Personal & Organizational Ethics Instructor: Gloria Zuniga y Postigo DATE Week 3 Assignment The British Petroleum (BP) oil spill of 2010 started just 41 miles off the coast of Louisiana, and is a testament to failure and a costly one at that. It is estimated that the total damages to the environment and the coastal economy is around $36.9 Billion, with three things attributing to that cost; “(1) human error and equipment failure at BP’s Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling unit, (2) failure of the US government to assign, and in some cases to permit, resources to assist with the containment of the oil spill, and (3) misinformation disseminated by the news media regarding the amount and location of oil pollution in the water and on the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico” ( Smith, L.C., Smith, L.M., Ashcroft, 2010.) Though a mixed economy, the United States Economy has various traits of Capitalism that I believe fostered the conditions which led to the BP oil spill one of them being greed. Capitalism breeds an environment like that of Darwin’s evolution, which teaches us that only the strongest will survive, creating an environment where cutting corners to get ahead is not only possible but frankly expected. In their effort to maximize its productivity and driven by their profits, BP was found to violate multiple drilling regulations by the Justice Department, specifically the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. Some of these violations being; BP failed to protect health, safety, property, and the environment by failing to perform all operations in a safe and workmanlike manner, BP did not take measures to prevent unauthorized discharge of pollutants into offshore waters, BP failed to take necessary precautions to keep the well under control at all times, BP did not cement the well in a manner that would properly control formation pressures and fluids and prevent the direct or indirect release of fluids from any stratum through the wellbore into offshore waters, BP failed to conduct an accurate pressure integrity test, BP failed to obtain approval of the Temporary Abandonment procedures actually used at the Macondo well (Geman, 2011.) Only under a greed driven environment would cutting corners and violating safety laws to get ahead would it make sense to do such things. I will be examining what led to the BP oil spill and how things could have been different if BP had acted in accordance to any ethical theories, specifically, Virtue Ethics. Aristotle argued that the way of reaching the highest moral good is by “the consistent application of the golden mean to all actions” (Zuniga y Postigo, 2015) meaning that the way to reach ethical behavior is by acting moderately by avoiding excess or deficiency. To build more on the thought of Virtue ethics, Environmental virtue ethics is that part of environmental ethics that concerns character with the core questions of environmental virtue ethics being: “What makes a character trait an environmental virtue or environmental vice, and which particular character traits (i.e., attitudes and dispositions) are environmental virtues and which are environmental vices? That is, what are the character norms of environmental ethics? What is the role of environmental virtue ethics (or an ethic of character) within environmental ethics?” (Sandler, 2013.) Had BP acted in a way that met the values of Virtue ethics, not only could it have saved money, but could have also been acting in the best interest of the environment and those workers who were affected. When the stakes are the environment and safety of the people working for you, it is paramount for a company to act in a way that is ethical. With an environment of an alleged free market, it is hard for people let alone a corporations to act ethical or virtuous. For BP to act in accordance to Virtue Ethics, it would require it to play along safe lines, meaning that it would not risk the lives of their employees nor the risk damaging the environment. I believe that BP should be reconsidered the way it does its business , as it is not impossible to act ethically and make profits as Author Milton Friedman in his article ‘The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits’, “there is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud” (1970.) Meaning that is the responsibility for a company to act ethically while pursuing its profits and cutting corners in order to get a competitive edge, such as ignoring rules We have seem time and time again, greed has led to many environmental and safety disasters in many businesses. Many times companies have paved the way for failure by bypassing safety regulations and ignoring or bypassing governing laws. The general outline of Virtue ethics, state that a person has to act in moderation, this means that it can be excessive in the way they operate, but cannot be deficient either, it is rather a balance of the two that lead to a virtuous and ethical life. In business, this concept can be applied as well, BP was found to be acting without regard to the safety of its employees or the environment, in an effort to make drilling easier and faster, or just by plainly disregarding safety regulations that were set in place by the Justice Department. Under the scope of virtue ethics is can be concluded that BP was acting in a way that was not balanced, as it was acting in a way of excess, and the result has been a disaster on the environment and has also been very costly to them. The Virtue Ethical theory states that a person should strive to act virtuous in their actions; the same thought can be applied to corporations. Ultimately, corporations, such as BP, first concern should be to be the profits for their investors and stock owners, but by striving to act in a virtuous way and an ethical way, profits can be maintained while protecting the environment and protecting their employees. Virtue ethics when applied to business does not imply that one can act in excess, only that moderation has to be considered with every action. References: Fieser, J. (2015). Introduction to business ethics [Electronic version]. Retrieved from Friedman, M. (1970, September 13). The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits. New York Times Magazine. Retrieved from Sandler, R. L. (2013). Environmental virtue ethics. The International Encyclopedia of Ethics. Retrieved from Smith, L. C., Smith, L. M., & Ashcroft, P. A. (2011). Analysis of environmental and economic damages from British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Albany Law Review, 74(1), 563-585. Retrieved from Geman, B. (2011) Interior Dept. issues BP, contractors violation notices for Gulf oil spill. Retrieved From: Zúñiga y Postigo, G. (2015). The moral good in three traditional ethical theories