Investigation on the Gulf oil spill revealed that technological malformation at the British Petroleum Company is a causative factor of the spillage. It has been claimed that 3.2 million barrels of oil had been spilled into the Gulf via the leaks on the underground by the time this discovery was made (Rushe, 213). Moreover, claims have been made that despite the company’s unawareness of the technological glitches, morally they were obligated to anticipate such failures and assess the impact on environmental damage (Goldenberg, 2010). The detrimental effect of the oil spills on aquatic life has been widespread on the Gulf environment not to mention the magnitude of the pollution and the aftermath of the 2010 disaster explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon (Resnik, 2016).The oil spill by the BP was morally wrong according to the article laying emphasis that oil spills are unethical acts with regards to corporate responsibility. The article further demonstrate the highest level of negligence by the corporation (Hart, 2011). This paper aims to offer a strong objection to the notion that deontology theory is not in support of BP’s actions, as the firm had the duty to observe the overall moral responsibility by making sure that the environment it was running its operations was free from any form of contamination.
According to Kant’s Deontology theory a person’s actions and intentions to fulfill a duty is judged regardless of the consequences (Korsgaard, 2014). Irrespective of the consequences, one’s action is morally relevant if they had moral intentions based on Kant’s theory (Korsgaard, 2014). Based on this theory, emphasis is not laid on the aftermath of an action since they have no moral relevance, instead morality is attached to one’s action (Liska, 2013). Deontology also focuses on a person’s “duty” to aim at an action, not an end as the sole purpose of that action (Korsgaard, 2014). The benchmark of reference according to Kant’s deontological theory is to “treat others as ends, not as mere means to an end.” In essence, when consideration is to be made pertaining to the morality of one’s action, then people have a duty to treat other persons as both means and an end. Therefore, the focus is not just to reach an end.
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The actions of British Petroleum Company would be split according to Kant’s theory of Deontology as to whether they are moral or not. Basing it on the aforementioned theory where emphasis is laid on intentions in the determination of morality, then the actions of BP would not be entirely immoral. The issue would then be torn asunder, that is, oil spillage and the cleaning-up attempts to arrive at the determination of morality. Foremost, the drilling rig was not intended to explode in the manner it happened causing the oil well to burst. The aftermath of this action would not be considered relevant given that according to Kant’s theory consequences are considered irrelevant (Korsgaard, 2014). Thus, the consideration that the action is immoral would not suffice. Nevertheless, considering it moral would not also be sufficient since no ethical or good intentions were attached to the action. Owing to the fact that there was no ethical intention to spill oil into the Gulf, Kant’s theory would perhaps not consider BP’s action as immoral or moral. Secondly, the attempts by BP’s leadership to clean-up following the devastation (Michel et al., 2013) are moral actions according to Kant. By championing cleaning-up attempts, BP had good and ethical intentions to restore both their faults and reputation (Muralidharan, Dillistone & Shin, 2011). Despite the consequences of their faults, in which they were unaware of (Goldenberg, 2011), clean-up attempts would be considered moral since good intentions were demonstrated by the BP. Moreover, BP spent eighty six days to curb oil spillage into Gulf. Kant would even extend it by alluding to their philanthropic efforts as moral since the BP’s intended to “do good” through such charity actions. Dispersant had be sprayed by BP as initial attempts into the ocean using ships, helicopters and planes and ships (Peres et al., 2016) to dilute and disperse the oil. These intentions were meant to restore the damaged caused by the accidents.
On the contrary, Mill’s Utilitarianism would instead consider the BP’s action as immoral. Oil spills into the Gulf minimized utility as far as the victims are concerned and this is the opposite of the theory fronted by Mill (Su, 2013). Commercial enterprises especially dealing in fishing and tourism and coastal beaches were devastated by oil spill. In addition to the health implications, millions of dollars was lost in terms of revenue (Smith, Smith & Ashcroft, 2011). In the entire Gulf, aquatic life was devastated by oil spill under the water. Moreover, a long-term effect would be felt owing to the underwater spills on the wildlife. Notably, more harm was caused compared to good, thus the utilitarian theory would consider BP’s actions as immoral (Su, 2013). In essence, only adverse implications were evident from the spills with no provision of utility. Notably, BP had no prior preparation to curb oil leakages and no contingency measures were in place to control and contain the accidents of such magnitude (Michel et al., 2013). Furthermore, fingers would be pointed at them for not having gathered enough details regarding their operating environment so as to mitigate oil spillage at the sea bed. By these one would quickly judge them as immoral.
Following a complete appraisal of the two theories, the ethical issues emanating from the actions of BP as alluded to in the article is best resolved by the Kant’s Deontology theory. The ethical concerns raised in the article would best be explained by the deontology theory since it attaches more attention on intentions in the determination of whether an action is moral or not. Clearly, no immoral intentions were demonstrated by BP; they never planned to cause such an enormous explosion in fact they even had technological interventions to curb oil spillage (Goldenberg, 2010). Evidently, there were no intention to spill the oil in the first place. Consequently, leakages and drilling rig explosion according to Kant are not deemed immoral but acts unplanned for, accidents. In spite of the fact that consequences were immoral, Kant do not consider morality by pegging it on the consequences; morality is determined by basing it on the intentions of an action (Korsgaard, 2014). Agreeably, there were no intention to cause harm, thus the leakages should be labelled as accidents not immoral acts. Furthermore, the clean-up attempts made by BP would be considered morally relevant by Kant since they were good intentions geared towards “doing good” to the locals. These attempts were specifically meant to fix the faults that resulted in the accident and redeem the company’s reputation. Notably, If clean-up attempts were merely for restoring the company’s image, then Kant would consider it as a means towards a particular end, thus immoral by extension. Nevertheless, the company seemed concerned by the devastation that followed the accident at the Gulf and such concerns spearheaded cleaning attempts. Kant consider such actions to have positive intentions hence morally relevant.
Therefore, by just stating in the article that the actions of the company were immoral given the immoral consequences would be irrational according to Kant’s Deontology theory. Moreover, the situation would have not been fully evaluated given that focus is not paid on the intentions behind such actions and Kant theory remains a better option to appraise this case. Consequently, the notion that BP’s action are not supported by deontology theory would not hold much water according to the perspectives highlighted in this paper especially with regards to Kant’s perspective.
References
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