Corporate Cyborgs: the Ontology of the Modern Business Corporation
Wade Rowland Introduction (Note: a version of this article was published in the journal Social Epistemoplogy in 2005) Corporations are much in the news as this is being written. Pharmaceutical firms are being questioned for their unwillingness to provide affordable anti-AIDS drugs to Africa, and for having promoted hormone replacement therapy for menopausal Western women with bogus health claims. Corporate concentration in media is being called a threat to democracy, second only to corporate donations to political campaigns. Corporate lobbies...
Read MoreGreed, Inc.: Book Excerpt – Introduction, Chapter one Part 1
© 2012 Wade Rowland Introduction Protests come and protests go. Sometimes, rarely, they morph into the kind of social movement that can change history. When I briefly attended the Occupy Wall St. gathering at Zuccotti Park on lower Manhattan in late October, 2011, there was no way of knowing whether or not it had legs. The Arab Spring was in full bloom, and the Occupy movement, which had quickly spread to scores of cities around the world, took some inspiration from it. But the young people in Tahrir Square in Cairo and in the bloodied streets of Tunis and Benghazi had been playing for...
Read MoreCanadian Corporate Rights and Canada’s Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of Canada’s decision this July (2007) to uphold federal law restricting the advertising of tobacco was a welcome endorsement of government’s right to control the activities of corporations. Unfortunately, the reasoning used by the Court in dismissing big tobacco’s case may actually strengthen corporate power when the bigger picture is considered. The tobacco companies had argued that the law limiting advertising infringed on their right to freedom of expression under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Court, in a unanimous decision, agreed, but went on to argue...
Read MoreCan the Corporate Workplace be a Moral Environment?
Note: In speaking to various groups concerned with corporate ethics a cluster of questions routinely arise. One of the most frequently asked is the one in the title. It’s always important that I preface my comments by emphasizing that I’m not speaking of corporations that are relatively small and still owned and/or controlled by their founders. I am, instead, speaking of the very large corporations that control the market and are listed on the world’s stock exchanges. There is no reason why corporations that are owned and controlled by individuals or families cannot behave morally, if...
Read MoreConscientious Capitalism? Not Likely.
As someone who has an interest in the connections between science and religion, I often look through the pages of Science and Theology News, a monthly magazine published, I believe by the Templeton Foundation. As its title suggests, it deals with controversies, discoveries, and research in the areas of moral philosophy that are (or ought to be) central to both science and religion. The cover story in the current (May, 2006) issue, for example deals with the ethical issues raised by the biotech revolution and how various scientific ethicists and moral philosophers interpret them. On the op-ed...
Read MoreAbout Wade Rowland
Ranked among Canada’s leading literary journalists, Wade Davies Rowland has written more than a dozen books on subjects ranging from television journalism, organized crime, and international environmental law to his current concerns, which include communications technology, the philosophy of science, and technology and human values. Full author bio.