Self-study
P1
Many people complain about corporations, but there are also those whose criticism goes further and who hold corporations morally to blame for many of the problems in Western society. █████ █████████ ██ ███ ████████ ██████ ███ ██████████ ██ ███████ ████████ ███████████ ███ ███████ ██ ███ █████ █████████ ████████ ██ ██████ █████████ █████ ██ ████ ████ ████████ ███████ ███████ ██████ ██ ███████ ████ █████████ ████ ██████████ ██ ███ ██████ █████ ███
Some people's view ·
Corporations are immoral when they ignore their impacts on the public good
Economists' view ·
Shouldn't apply ethics to economics
P2
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Context ·
Corporate responsibility
Corporations aren't inherently moral/immoral. Instead, corporate responsibility is made up of employees' individual responsibilities.
Context ·
Corporate structure
CEO has obligation toward corporation's owners
P3
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Economists' view ·
One responsibility of CEO: maximize profits
Meets CEO's obligation to owners and also serves public good
P4
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Author's criticism ·
Economists are wrong
Premise ·
Maximizing profits doesn't always serve public good
E.g.: maximizing profits for paper mill can harm public good
Premise ·
Public good outweighs obligation to maximize profits
CEO should serve public good even when it's not in owners' interest
Passage Style
Critique or debate
19.
With which one of the █████████ █████ ███ ██████████ █████████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ████ ██████ ██ ██████
a
Even CEOs of ██████████ █████████████ ███ █████████ ██ ████████ ████████
Anti-supported. The economists believe CEOs are obligated to serve owners, but for charitable organizations, the owners' interest is
b
CEOs of owner-operated █████████████ ████████████ ██████ ████ █████████ █████ █████████ ██ ██████████ ████████
The economists believe that the only obligation of CEOs is to owners, and for noncharitable corporations, the owners' interest is
c
Owner-operated noncharitable corporations ███ ████ ██████ ██ ██ ██████████ ████ █████ █████████████
There’s no discussion of how profitable any kind of corporation is, whether from the economists’ perspective or anyone else’s. The economists do believe that CEOs should maximize profits, but there’s no text to support a comparison between how much profit different types of corporation might earn.
d
It is highly ████████ ████ ███ ███████ ██ ███ ██████████ ███ ████ ███████ ███ ███████
Anti-supported. The economists believe that a CEO's role is to maximize profits and that doing so
e
CEOs should attempt ██ ████████ ███████ ██████ ████ ████████ ██████ ██ ████ ██ ███ ████████████
Anti-supported. This says that the only exception to a CEO’s obligation to maximize profits is when it would harm the environment. But the economists say that there are actually several exceptions to a CEO’s obligation to maximize profits: (1)