Legal V. Moral

I read an in the Washington Post yesterday and was appalled at the following comment by Weatherford Corporate Group Vice President Mark Stanley
First the Article: Use of Potentially Harmful Chemicals Kept Secret Under Law
Now the Quote:
Mark Stanley, group vice president for Weatherford's pumping and chemical services, said in a statement that the company made public all the information legally required.

"It is always in our company's best interest to provide information to the best of our ability," he said.

Really Mr. Stanley? Always? Seems kind of odd then that you didn't provide the information to the best of your ability WHEN ANOTHER HUMAN BEING WAS DYING.

Let me try to make my point here without any further histrionics. The gap between legal and moral exemplified by the above disgrace is ever widening and is supported by shortsighted business interests and even shorter sighted politicians. It makes both entities look pretty bad in the eyes of any thinking individual.

My impulse is to urge the Mark Stanley's of the world to take a drink of their own poison, but a more reasoned approach is to urge them to put themselves in the place of the nurse in the story, or imagine it was one of their loved ones in her place and then do what they would do were that the case. Anyone capable of making the statement Mr. Stanley made with a straight face may be too far over into the vampyre realm to be swayed by any argument I can make but a normal individual with actual human feelings and perhaps some semblance of a moral compass might heed these words and do the right thing.

So to you out there in the world of secret chemicals, come back to us, and do not only what is best for your business, but what is right for your fellow human beings, not only what is legal under the flawed guidance of politicians barren of gray matter, but what is morally consistent with civilized behaviour.


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