The "Social Contract"

This week we will be reading and discussing the topic of the "social contract" between businesses and workers.

Please read the following articles concerning pensions and healthcare:

This article discusses the current state of pensions.

This article discusses Wal-mart and its new options in healthcare, as well as its corporate strategy in relation to healthcare. This article has a link to the Wal-mart memo.

Everyone should post on this topic: what are a company's obligations to its employees in the areas of healthcare and retirement security?

Wal-Mart and energy conservation

This is an interesting article on how being 'green' can also be profitable.

Course Midterm and Rescheduled Office Hours

Midterm for Business Ethics (Phil 200)

Please write both of the two essays. Combined, they should be a minimum of four pages and a maximum of 5 pages. (Double-spaced, reasonable fonts and margins. Please number your pages.) While answering the questions make sure to demonstrate that you have read and understood a wide swath of the assigned reading for the course.

Essay #1: What went wrong with Enron? Describe problems with individuals associated with the case and with the culture at Enron and other relevant places. What influence did individuals have on the culture, and what influence did the culture have on individuals? How would Professor Silver’s theory of corporate moral responsibility apply in the case of Enron?

Essay #2: What is the correct theory of corporate moral responsibility? Make sure to look at stockholder and stakeholder theory. You might also mention utilitarianism, Kantianism and/or the difference between conservative and liberal values. Illustrate with at least one case discussed on the course blog. In addition, you may illustrate with other cases not mentioned in the blog.

This midterm is due Friday, October 28th at noon. Please send it to dsilver@udel.edu in a Word file.

Office hours are cancelled on Monday and Wednesday.
I will be holding additional office hours from 1-2:30 on Thursday.

Intellectual Property

Apparently, one fifth of the human genome is patented. God should have hired a better lawyer.

Shocked!

People are using "Bud Pong" in ways not consistent with the directions. . .

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Budweiser-Drinking-Game.html

Presentation Topics

Post your presentation topics here in the comments section.

Google and Global Poverty

Link:

Google gave the first details yesterday of how it would carry out its commitment to devote a share of its lucrative public stock offering to charity and social causes. It said it had donated $90 million to a new charitable foundation it started and would give another $175 million to nonprofit groups and what it considers socially useful businesses over the next two to three years.

Sheryl Sandberg, a Google vice president for sales who is also coordinating the foundation and related programs, said the company would focus its charitable efforts in two areas: global poverty, and energy and the environment. She said the two priorities were selected by Google's founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. . . .

In Google's annual report, filed in April, Mr. Brin and Mr. Page said they had decided to put the money into a broader range of initiatives including investments in "socially progressive corporations" and "influencing public policy."

Burger King and the “Enormous Omelette Sandwich”

Link

BURGER KING, Britain’s second-biggest fast food chain, has snubbed the government’s attempts to reduce levels of salt, fat and sugar in food to make it healthier.
It has pulled out of a joint initiative between the food industry and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) to reformulate fast foods to make them less unhealthy. The chain will instead concentrate on making its burgers and other products as “tasty” as it can — a decision that will mean no further cuts in salt, fat or sugar.

Rather than promoting healthy foods, the company is considering selling the “Enormous Omelette Sandwich”, a product recently launched in America. It offers 740 calories and 4.9 grams of salt comprising two slices of cheese, two eggs, three strips of bacon and a sausage patty on a bun.

Pharmaceutical Companies and AIDS drugs

Here is an interesting story about Abbott Labs (disclosure: my brother works for Abbott) and their pricing for their AIDS drug Kaletra in Brazil. Did the Brazilian government act ethically? Did Abbott?

Conservatives and Liberals

Post your comments on the Lakoff reading here. . .

Everyone should comment at least once on this post.

Supreme Court

President Bush nominated Harriet Miers today to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court. Miers is a member of Bush's inner circle and has never been a judge. She has worked as a commercial litigator representing companies such as Microsoft, Walt Disney Co., and Republic National Bank.

Later in the semester I will show you how the National Association of Manufacturers (among other groups) has worked to help bring to the bench (in my opinion, overly) corporate friendly jurists.

UPDATE: Note that some of the stronger opposition to Miers is coming from different stripes of conservatives. Indeed, it is simply a mistake to identify corporate interests with the interests of conservatives.

UPDATE #2: Miers has an interesting view of the role of the judiciary:

"President Bush praises Harriet Miers as an opponent of legislating from the judicial bench, but as a corporate lawyer she lobbied then-Gov. Bush to let the Texas high court rather than the Legislature decide if attorney fees should be limited."