Abstract
The topic of this paper concerns corporate responsibility and worker safety. In particular it focuses on the notions of willing and intending and how these relate to risk-taking in the workplace. I discuss the metaphysical status of the corporation, the distinction between willing and intending and the motivations of each, and Austin's distinction between accidents and mistakes in light of a single industrial accident which occurred at the Texaco Oil Refinery, Port Arthur, Texas, in October, 1982. My aim is to argue that corporations do not alleviate themselves from moral responsibility in the workplace solely because they might not intend to produce harm in a given situation.
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Joan Catherine Whitman Hoff is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Bentley College. She has been given the NEH 1983 Summer Seminar for College Teachers award and the Northern Kentucky University 1985 Faculty Summer Fellowship. Her most important publications, with J. Ferrante Wallace, ‘Women in Sports’ and ‘The Black Athlete’, appear in Sports History: Selected Materials from Colleges and Universities (eds. D. A. Novern and L. E. Ziewarz).
Many sincere thanks to the NEH for having provided the time and money for this research, to Dr. Peter French for his helpful seminar, and to Mr. Peter Applebome for his stimulating comments.
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Hoff, J.W. The Texaco incident. J Bus Ethics 6, 365–369 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00382893
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00382893