To what extent do the provisions of the civil and criminal law ensure Essay

To what extent do the provisions of the civil and criminal law ensure that corporate bodies are held responsible for their harmful acts and omissions - Essay Example In doing so, the paper evaluates the degree to which the provisions of the civil and criminal law in the UK guarantee that corporate bodies can be held responsible for their harmful acts and omissions. Assigning responsibility for harm comes out as an important problem in both morality and law. The assertion that one is responsible for harm means that the individual can be blamed, punished, or required to pay compensation. In moral contexts (but not in all legal ones), an individual is responsible for a harm provided that the harm has a causal consequence of something that the individual has or omitted to do (Ashworth 2009, p.5). Legal exceptions to this general rule encompass corporations held liable for the harms inflicted by the companies’ employees or board of directors. Thus, companies, just like individuals, can be held responsible not only for the harmful consequence of their actions, but also for the harmful outcomes of their omissions (Fisse and Braithwaite 1993, p.2). Assigning professional responsibility for harm in instances of negligence frequently hinges on what is reasonable to expect from the members of any given profession. The liability of a company derives from the principle that comprehensive imposition of the criminal law against corporate offenders, where appropriate, delivers a deterrent effect, safeguards the public, and entrenches and reinforces ethical business practices. The prosecution of a company should not be identified as a replacement for the prosecution of criminally liable individuals such as officers, directors, employees, or shareholders (Wells 2001, p.160). The prosecution of such individuals avails a powerful deterrent against future corporate wrongdoing. Similarly, the consideration of prosecution of individuals should also feature deliberation of probable liability of the company where the

What is social justice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

What is social justice - Essay Example These states, events and processes include our actions, beliefs and thinking (Gao, 96). The relation between an event A and another event B poses a philosophical problem when there is something between A and B that makes the relationship between them problematic. The mind and body have many features that are said to be responsible for our sense of problem because they interact causally. Rene Descartes held a long tradition in philosophy that the mind is a non-bodily entity (Gao 98). He described the mind as a soul or mental substance. When the mind is said to be a mental substance, it is not implied to be made up of a non-physical material. The term substance, in a traditional philosophical use, refers to a substance as an entity. The mental substances in the mind and body are non-material or non-physical objects that exist independently of a physical object like the body of a person (Cahn, 117). But how do such objects relate to physical objects? Determinism is the philosophical view that all events have a cause. It posits that all mental and physical states of affairs are the result of their causes and in a way have a scientific law. Determinism comes with various implications. For example, it does not believe in free will, miracles or chance about the occurrence of various phenomena. Determinists argue that the future event or past event can be calculated (Gao 106). A special form of determinism believes that some mental processes might not be caused even though physical processes are caused. According to them, choices involve mental processes, thus have no actual effects in the extreme world. For example, when one watches a movie twice, he/she doe not hope for a different outcome, but do so in the interest in the event. One of the scholars that held the determinist view was Isaac Newton. Newton challenged the phenomenon around him when he ventured into discovering the cause a fruit from the top of a tree. His determination to question the its