Summary
A panel on "corporate decision making allowing room for religious values" is presented. Mark A. Sargent, Dean, Villanova University School of Law, said he is on the side of the argument which maintains that there should be a place for people to incorporate their religious values into the way they make decisions in corporations. But he would argue that as an empirical matter, there is very little room for religious values in the way corporate managers or corporate lawyers make their decisions. Steven H. Resnicoff, Professor, DePaul University College of Law, said what people need is for secular society to recognize the importance of encouraging more ethical conduct. Secular law needs to enact statutes that impose those specific standards on which people, as a community, can agree, as well as to statutes to allow individuals the flexibility to follow their religious scruples in their professional lives and to protect them when they do so.
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Extract
Panel One: Does Corporate Decision Making Allow Room for Religious Values?
PANELISTS:
Steven H. ResnicoffProfessor, DePaul University College of LawMark A. SargentDean, Villanova University School of LawW. Bradley WendelProfessor, Washington & Lee University School of LawPROF. PEARCE: Thank you, Dean Treanor.I will just briefly add my welcome as well, and my thanks to my colleague Amy Uelmen, who really has done an amazing job in putting together this program, which I believe is the first of many where we will be exploring the questions that we are going to start with today on religious values and corporate decision-making.For our first panel, "Does Corporate Decision-Making Allow Room for Religious Values?," which is in many ways going to set the tone and lay the table for conversations that will continue throughout the day, we are privileged to have three really excellent speakers: Mark Sargent, the Dean of Villanova University School of Law; Brad Wendel, Professor at Washington & Lee School of Law; and Steve Resnicoff, Professor at DePaul College of Law.The way we are going to proceed - we have about fifty minutes allotted for this panel - is we have asked each of the panelists to speak for no more than ten minutes. In that way, we hope to open up the last twenty minutes for interaction with you and interaction among the panelists themselves.We would like to start with Dean Sargent.DEAN SARGENT: With ten minutes, this is going to be kind of breathless.The focus of this conversation is going to be: should religious values play a role in corporate decision-making or in the way individuals within corporations make their decisions? But it also asks: is there a place, as a practical, empirical matter, for religious values in corporate decision-making?I am on the side of the argument which maintains that there should be a place for people to incorporate their religious values into the way they make decisions in corporations. But I would argue that as an empirical matter, there is very little room for religious values in the way corporate managers or corporate lawyers make their decisions.I have approached this question through some work I have been doing on the moral complicity of corporate lawyers in the corporate scandals of the last few years. I am trying to figure out why is it that lawyers demonstrated so many different kinds of complicity in activity that was both illegal and immoral?This led me to a focus on the moral origins of corporate wrongdoing itself; t...See the full content of this document
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