The moral outrage over BP’s oil spill is both understandable and appropriate. Some, however, want to excuse BP and its leadership, arguing that . . . well, accidents happen. Balderdash.
We have a responsibility to assess the potential impact on others of the risks we take. If while driving you decide to turn left in front of on-coming traffic, you must determine whether you can pull off the maneuver without causing a pile-up. Your brain must compute the risks involved in a fraction of a second. If you get it wrong, no one—least of all those who are injured—will shrug and say, “well, accidents happen.” And the law won’t either.
If you are incapable of making accurate judgments of this kind (for whatever reason), you should not be driving a vehicle. Period.
Part of our responsibility to others includes the duty not to take risks that put others in danger unless failing to act would cause even more harm. Did the BP board of directors and employees take unjustified risks with the environment and other peoples’ lives and livelihoods? Did they do everything possible to reduce the risk?
We can’t live risk free in a complex, highly industrialized society. Roughly 40,000 people are killed in traffic accidents in the U.S. each year. That’s part of the price we pay for individual transportation on millions of miles of highways. But we do expect that everyone will drive responsibly, eliminating or reducing risks wherever possible by, for example, not getting behind the wheel when drunk.
We still need to get a full report of the facts associated with BP’s decision to drill. Who made what decisions how and when? What preparations did they make for containing and cleaning up a possible spill? We don’t yet have complete answers. What we have learned so far, however, raises grave questions about whether board members and employees—the organization as a whole—disregarded their responsibilities toward the rest of us. Were people who raised safety concerns shunted to the back of the room or excluded entirely? Did marginal profit trump safety?
The public would be unwise to assume that “this is just the way corporations behave.” The leaders of many corporations put their responsibilities to the safety and well-being of the environment, the communities in which they operate, the employees, and other stakeholders at the top of the value chain—and create companies that act accordingly. We can design and operate socially responsible corporations. We know how. It’s a matter of will.
Perhaps BP will survive. Perhaps not. But if it manages to continue in business, we should demand that its board of directors and employees completely reform the policies and culture of the organization to assure that in the future, it does not behave recklessly. We have the right to insist that all the BP’s of the world—not just oil companies—obey the basic principles of morality and conform to the rules of the road.
Mike Palmer
