One should not be misled by what may appear to be an indeterminancy within the scientific process. Adversarial science is now well known. It occurs when scientific experts who possess seemingly equivalent professional credentials give diametrically opposing opinions about some matter in dispute. In fact, the canons of science encourage such competitive error-finding disputes as a way of establishing and clarifying truth. These scientific disputes nearly always occur at the leading edge of scientific research, where concern over normative implications of the research findings is highest. Tobacco companies have taken advantage of this scientific loophole to argue that the research results are too indeterminate to conclude that habitual smoking is harmful. Researchers on both sides of this controversy are drawn into its normative implications and are made a part of the normative debate, whether they wish it or not. Their work is the normative debate. They debate because there is evaluative significance in the relationship between smoking and health.
2.
MitroffIan I., The Subjective Side of Science: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Psychology of the Apollo Moon Scientists (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1974).
3.
For the distinction between corporate social responsibility (CSR1) and corporate social responsiveness (CSR2), see AckermanRobert W.BauerRaymond A., Corporate Social Responsiveness: The Modern Dilemma (Reston, VA: Reston, 1976); and FrederickWilliam C., “From CSR1 to CSR2: The Maturing of Business-and-Society Thought,” Working Paper 279, Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh, 1978.
4.
SethiS. Prakash, The Unstable Ground: Corporate Policy in a Dynamic Society (Los Angeles, CA: Melville, 1974).
5.
During this period, the key theoretical work dealing with business and public policy was by PrestonLee E.PostJames E., Private Management and Public Policy: The Principle of Public Responsibility (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1975). Two earlier influential books were by BauerRaymond A.de Sola PoolIthielDexterLewis A., American Business and Public Policy: The Politics of Foreign Trade (Chicago, IL: Aldine, 1963, 1973); and by EpsteinEdwin M., The Corporation in American Politics (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1969).
6.
In Essentials of Public Policy for Management (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1985), Rogene Buchholz has acknowledged the importance of relating ethics to public policy. “For business to participate meaningfully in the resolution of public policy issues, it must learn ethical language and concepts and deal explicitly with the ethical and moral dimensions of these arguments… . What can emerge from ethical discourse and ethical analysis is a set of ethical principles that will guide management involvement in the public policy process—principles that relate to both the ends and means of involvement.” See especially pages 266–269.
7.
A recent illustration of how one segment of this Christian tradition can be used to judge existing business practices and national economic policies is the United States Catholic bishops' pastoral letter, Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy. Beyond the Christian perspective are other religious doctrines—Islam fundamentalism, for one example—that have targeted what is sometimes called “Satanic capitalism.”
8.
A recent Business Week editorial makes the same point. “Opinion polls consistently show that most people think U.S. business is being run by trimmers and crooks. Yet the vast majority of business executives never come close to breaking the law. Led by top executives and directors, these had better find a way to resuscitate the social sanctions that once operated within their companies and the business community at large as a brake on corporate wrongdoing…essentially, there are enough laws on the books already. What is lacking is social reinforcement by a business community willing to make clear its condemnation of members who violate these laws…. The business community must start to project a more rigorous ethic.” Business Week, July 29, 1985, p. 84.
