Liberal Individualism In The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Case

Liberal individualism is a theory which emphases on the belief that an individual is significant and not the background, culture or family, but recognized by the aspects that make individuals who they are. The aspects that make an individual more unique and different to other individuals in society. Factors such as family, background or ethnicity are ignored by the Liberal individualist theory, but significantly focussed on by communitarianism. In Business ethics, Liberal Individualisms is a Rights based theory which focusses on the belief that to be able to have the right, an individual is able to determine actions of others by their choice. It provides the right of receiving a respectable or bad service. It can be argued that individuals have the rights to make reasonable claims on society or other individuals.

2.0 CASE STUDY

On April 20, 2010 the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, owned and operated by Transocean and drilling for BP in the Macondo Prospect oil field, during the final phases of drilling the exploratory well at Macondo, experienced an explosion and sank 50 miles off the
There are four principle ethical perspectives related to the case which have not been taken in consideration to avoid the catastrophe. The first one is duty which is concerned with people’s obligations to others. This duty could be often recognised as universal and natural. There were some obligations to environment and ecology that the parties in the case as BP, Transocean and Halliburton had to consider. Moreover there is the obligation of the organizations and the employees to the rest of society as consumers, other organizations and governments that could have been affected by an event like that. Relationship focuses on the attention that emerges in and through communication. The third one is utility which is referred to the outcomes or