Anglo American is a UK public limited company headquartered in London. It is one of the world’s leading mining companies and it operates around the world especially in the continent of Africa where 76% of its workers live. Anglo American is a major producer of minerals such as diamonds, copper, nickel, iron ore and coal. In 2008, a report by Mr. Philip Mattera, a private investigator, investigates the track record of Anglo American. He claimed the company has a series of abuse of labour rights, safety and environmental protection, to name a few in the past (Mattera, 2008). The Renewable Resources Coalition and Nunamta Aulukestai commissioned the report in which both are pressure groups opposing a project by Anglo American in Alaska (Mattera, 2008). This paper will focus on the labour issues claimed by the report based on the corporate social responsibility frameworks of utilitarian, libertarian and deontology.
Mr. Matera claimed that over 220 mine workers have died in Anglo American mining operation in a five years span from 2003 to 2008, among other workplace safety abuse and labour abuse. The death cause varied from lethal fumes of polyurethane foam to methane gas explosion (Mattera, 2008).
In utilitarian theory, the highest principle of morality is to maximise overall balance of pleasure and happiness over pain (Sandel, 2010). Jeremy Bentham founded the philosophy of utilitarian, where the maximisation of utility is the measure used in deciding right and wrong (Mill, 1998). In utilitarian view, the fatalities of those miners are justified because the benefits from the mine operations would be greater than the death statistics. This is due to the fact that other stakeholder such as the company itself and industrial users may...
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...d in a manner that is appropriate for the labour to work safely. Labour unions and pressure groups have to continuously ensure that the public and especially the companies and authorities of the problem faced by the miners if there is any and it must be done with due diligence.
Works Cited
1. Mattera, P. (2008). Anglo American’s Track Record: Rhetoric or Reality? [Online]
Available at: http://www.infomine.com/library/publications/docs/Mattera2008.pdf [Accessed 10th December 2013]
2. Sandel, M. J. (2010). Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do? London: Penguin Books.
3. Nozick, R. (1974). Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books.
4. Anglo American (2008). Anglo American: The Reality [Online]
Available at: http://www.angloamerican.com/~/media/Files/A/Anglo-American-Plc/media/publication/guides/AngloAmericanTheReality.pdf [Accessed 10th December 2013]
...plete report. Before this was done the mine blew up. In the end, the news story that broke was focused on union campaign contributions and not on mine safety.
One of the biggest problems with working in a mine is the the health risks you are taking when stepping into a mine and staying there anywhere from 10-16 hours of the day. Miners of the Gilded Age, needless to say, did not live very long at all. Some of the diseases they contracted were black lung, Silicosis, and COPD. Coal Miner’s Pneumoconiosis, more commonly referred to as Black Lung, is caused by inhaling respirable coal mine dust. Silicosis is a more specific, but yet still commonly found in coal miners, version of Black Lung caused by inhaling respirable crystalline silica, such as Quartz, a major component in rocks. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, or COPD, is still common today in people who don’t even work in mines. COPD is a progressive disease that increases airway
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Nineteen died from sundries and five from shaft. There were a small number of deaths from shafts though. ”There are not many accidents in the shafts considering how deep they are and the speed at which the cages travel up and down”. This means Also all these deaths they were miners, miners that had families that loved them and did a lot of mourning over
Pollock, J. M. (2012). Crime & justice in America: An introduction to criminal justice (2nd ed.). Waltham, MA, USA: Anderson Publishing (Elsevier).
Classical utilitarianism is a normative ethical theory which holds that an action can only be considered as morally right where its consequences bring about the greatest amount of good to the greatest number (where 'good' is equal to pleasure minus pain). Likewise, an action is morally wrong where it fails to maximise good. Since it was first articulated in the late 19th Century by the likes of Jeremy Bentham and later John Stewart Mill, the classical approach to utilitarianism has since become the basis for many other consequentialist theories such as rule-utilitarianism and act-utilitarianism upon which this essay will focus (Driver, 2009). Though birthed from the same utilitarian principle of maximising good, rule-utilitarianism and act-utilitarianism provide two very different accounts on how the maximising of good should be approached. This essay will compare these two approaches and try to ascertain whether rule-utilitarianism is indeed preferable to act-utilitarianism.
The accidents involving machinery kill and/or hurt more coal miners in a year than any other mining accident. The machinery in mines are located in cramped spaces with little light, causing miners to have two times the chance of accidents. The accidents involving roof and rib failures can usually be averted if a mining company has a roof support plan. For a roof support plan to be made, information like entry widths, mine geometry, the number of pillars that must be left up right, and the number of bolts that must be used are needed (Cobb 3 of 5) Accumulations of gases in underground coal mines is another very serious hazard. If certain gases like methane and carbon monoxide are at or above 5% in the air they can cause violent explosions. Blasting in coal mines are the main cause for such dangerous levels of carbon monoxide.
As a philosophical approach, utilitarianism generally focuses on the principle of “greatest happiness”. According to the greatest happiness principle, actions that promote overall happiness and pleasure are considered as right practices. Moreover, to Mill, actions which enhance happiness are morally right, on the other hand, actions that produce undesirable and unhappy outcomes are considered as morally wrong. From this point of view we can deduct that utilitarianism assign us moral duties and variety of ways for maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain to ensure “greatest happiness principle”. Despite all of moral duties and obligations, utilitarian perspective have many specific challenges that pose several serious threats which constitute variety of arguments in this essay to utilitarianism and specifically Mill answers these challenges in his work. These arguments can be determinated and analyzed as three crucial points that seriously challenges utilitarianism. The first issue can be entitled like that utilitarian idea sets too demanding conditions as to act by motive which always serves maximizing overall happiness. It creates single criterion about “being motived to maximize overall happiness” but moral rightness which are unattainable to pursue in case of the maximizing benefit principle challenges utilitarianism. Secondly, the idea which may related with the first argument but differs from the first idea about single criterion issue, utilitarianism demands people to consider and measuring everything which taking place around before people practice their actions. It leads criticism to utilitarianism since the approach sees human-beings as calculators to attain greatest happiness principle without considering cultural differ...
The ethical theory of utilitarianism is associated with the philosopher Jeremy Bentham. Utilitarianism essentially is the theory that good is what causes a person pleasure and evil is what causes a person pain. Bentham’s utilitarianism is sometimes titled Act Utilitarianism because it focuses on individual actions A “right” action, according to Betham, is one that produces the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Where a “wrong” action is one that would cause more pain than pleasure. Before a person commits an action, they should look at the consequences that it can have on the individual and others. Hedonic Calculus is a method in determining how much pleasure or pain an action will elicit. Hedonic Calculus consists of seven criteria including intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity, fecundity, purity and extent. Each criteria can be given a score between -10 (worst pain) to +10 (highest pleasure). The action becomes ethical and moral if there is an overall net happiness for everyone that is affected. An acti...
...Available By: Acker, James. Contemporary Justice Review, Sep2008, Vol. 11 Issue 3, p287-289, 3p; DOI: 10.1080/10282580802295625
Contemporary Readings in Law & Social Justice, 5(2), 454-460.