[Magdalen] Just a thought

[Roger Stokes]

On 25/09/2015 21:23, Bob Rea wrote:
> A moral gap between individual and collective/corporate?
>   What would your momma say if you offered peanut butter
> with salmonella to your siblings and they died?
> And what would she say if you cheated on tests like
> Volkswagen did?
> There are obvious outs for the collective; war is ethically
> defensible for most people.
> Why do we not have the same moral ideas for
> corporate/collective conduct as we do for our individual
> conduct?

The main issue for me with the VW deception is that it seems to have 
involved a number of people, technical sophistication and a deliberate 
intent to obfuscate.  I now have to be careful in what I say as I 
understand that the US Justice Department is considering criminal 
proceedings and other jurisdictions are considering their own 
investigations.  Naturally I would not wish to prejudice those proceedings.

My legal knowledge is at a relatively low (pre-college) level but for 
most offences there is the need to prove both the /actus reus/ (criminal 
act) and the /mans rea/ (criminal mind).  Some offences are defined as 
absolute offences where there is no need to prove criminal intention but 
they are the minority.  Generally the criminal inyemnt has to be 
established.

Using the example you cite, assuming you had no means of knowing that 
the peanut butter was infected then it would be virtually impossible to 
prove the criminal intent to infect your sublings. The case should not 
even get to court.

 From what I have read of the VW case there was a deliberate intent to 
deceive and circumvent the regulations.  No matter which individual 
employees were involved I would expect the company to have vicarious 
liability for their actions and so be held accountable.

Another aspect of this was brought to my attention this evening, what 
might be called collateral damage affecting innocent individuals.  I was 
with somebody who has a car with one of the implicated engines.  In the 
UK cars over three years old have to be tested annually for certain 
things, including emissions.  If they fail the test then basically they 
cannot be used until the defect is rectified.  Removing the misleading 
software will give a true reading, which could result in his car failing 
the test.  How is he to be compensated for this?

Roger