Mike is right; the definition is the important thing, and it's mutable.

Is it socially responsible to try to increase the share value of a company to help the assets of fixed income retirees who have invested in the company? Is it socially responsible to use only ingredients that have been obtained from swamp and jungle plants in an attempt to reduce the habitat for the mosquitos that are a primary disease vector in poor, tropical countries? How about not using ingredients from swamp and jungle plants in an attempt to save the habitat of threatened species? (You might notice some conflict in the above.)

Now, of the above, which have you explicitly promised to do? (It might help to understand the concept of "fiduciary duty".) It's possible, of course, that your promise has been to balance these or some other responsibility.

As I see it, your primary social responsibility is to not lie about what you are trying to do.

ps. As to "machine gun[ning your] competition", it seems to me that we do have some pretty explicit laws that might be understood to create a requirement of some sort; perhaps I'm wrong. Shall I take your argument as meaning that any time anyone invokes the sacred mantra of "social responsibility", this implies an equivalence with a social obligation not to murder? Since that strikes me as silly, I can only assume that your screed about social responsibility refers only to that concept in the sense that there are some generally agreed upon responsibilities. Since it doesn't seem likely to me that Michael intended to suggest that there is any debate about whether companies have no responsibilities whatsoever, your comment seems unresponsive.

If, on the other hand, you intend to seriously invoke a slippery slope argument, you'll need to adduce a mechanism. I might suggest that you take a look at Eugene Volokh's "The Mechanisms of the Slippery Slope" for a fuller discussion. (That link is to a draft version.) Absent such a mechanism, your argument is more hyperbolic than substantive.

pps. Your invocation of the Mafia strikes me as as an attempt to damn by association. (The Mafia holds that position, libertarians hold a similar position, the Mafia is bad, therefore, libertarians are bad.) The best that can be said of that argument is that it is fallacious, and I'm afraid that I (at least) am unwilling to be that charitable.

Posted by: Doug Sundseth on June 16, 2005 4:19 PM

In China, there will be a search engine that won't capitulate. It will win. Hands down.

Posted by: heron543 on June 16, 2005 8:25 PM






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