Corporate Ethics

Abstract

Businesses are rarely indicted for corporate manslaughter, as occurred after the 1987 accident of the ferry “Herald of Free Enterprise,” in which nearly 200 passengers died. It is also unusual for a business to evaluate the use of a product safety feature merely by comparing its costs with the economic costs of injuries and deaths that would otherwise result. And yet this has also been done. One automobile company, calculating that a particular safety improvement would cost $ 11 per vehicle on each of its more than 12 million cars and trucks on the road (in 1977), and that these costs far outweighed the economic costs of the otherwise predicted 180 burn deaths, 180 serious burn injuries, and 2100 burned vehicles, finally decided against the additional safety investment, in obvious disregard of the serious consequences [4].

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” said Alice.

“That depends a good deal on where you want to go,” said the Cheshire Cat.

Lewis Carroll

Alice in Wonderland