Singer's Argument

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Singer began his argument by using an analogy of a young boy in danger of drowning in a pond . The basic premise of the analogy was that if you were to see a young boy in danger of drowning on your way to teach some class, then chances are you would stop and save that boy. The reason why Singer states you would do so is because you don’t have anything of significant value to lose. In that situation, a human life would outweigh being late to whatever class you had to teach or ruining some clothes that could be replaced. Then, he takes this analogy and uses it to explain what the “obligation to assist” is and why he feels we are obligated to assist. He argues that if we could see the reasoning behind his analogy of the drowning boy then it …show more content…

This is his basic framework for his actual argument on the corporate responsibilities of shareholders. He explains that corporations only exist to maximize profits for their shareholders. Therefore when it comes to managers who work in the corporations, Friedman believes that this is the promise that they make to shareholders. The flaw in this thinking is that if businesses ONLY exist to make a profit, then how many boundaries should a manager be allowed to overstep in keeping their promise? For example, let’s pretend you’re a manager working at a company and you’ve stumbled across information that could potentially harm your company’s reputation and in turn will probably hurt their bottom line. This is information that should be made public because it threatens the safety of the consumers of that buy the product. Is the manager in this case suppose to turn a blind eye to all the safety issues so they can keep bringing in more revenue? I think not. This argument does not hold up when it comes to issues like safety and health. While businesses do on some level exist so they can make money, that should not always be the primary consideration because some things are more …show more content…

The idea behind stakeholder theory is that it’s all about making the stakeholder which is the group that has a stake in the company , better off. In this model, corporate responsibility involves anyone who has direct ties to the company. For example, as an employee you are responsible to do things such as “...follow the instructions of management most of the time, to speak favorably about the company, and to be responsible citizens in the local communities in which the company operates.” In return for this form of loyalty and their labor, the company is expected to do things such as be there for them during hard times and other standard employee benefits such as wages and security. The whole idea behind corporate responsibility in this theory is that who you have a responsibility to becomes wider if you focus on the stakeholders. This could work if it wasn’t for the fact that even if you get something out of being invested, sometimes that isn’t enough. For example, if you work for a company and you catch your CEO doing some shady stuff. As an employee, you’re invested in whether or not this company continues to thrive under the current CEO. But your loyalty isn’t deserved if the company is engaging in morally questionable behavior. This idea of corporate responsibility fails when applied to real life scenarios in companies that might engage in misconduct or unethical practices. In general, I think that the

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