In this article I will look into Corporate Legal Responsibility taking into account Levinas’s notion of infinite responsibility, as well as his understanding of ethical language. My account of Levinas’s philosophy will show that it challenges – breaking down – deeply entrenched distinctions in the dominant strands of moral philosophy, within which the theory of individual responsibility is embedded, such as between:(1) duty to others on the one hand and supererogation on the other; (2) perfect duty to others on the (...) one hand and imperfect duties to others on the other; (3) insiders and outsiders; kith and kin on the one hand and strangers on the other; Levinas’s moral vision is an inclusive one which embraces all of humanity (at least of those present today) irrespective of historical, linguistic, cultural differences and diversities. In other words, each has responsibilities for and duties towards all others. Of course, one might say that there is nothing new about a universalising ethics – after all Kantianism, liberalism as well as utilitarianism are well known instances. However, more crucially, all these traditional moral philosophies uphold the theory of individual responsibility, which is rooted in the philosophy of individualism. Such a philosophy can make sense only of the concept of individual moral/legal agency but not corporate agency. Therefore, in this article I will attempt to show that the Levinasian vision is able to help us change our view with respect to corporate responsibility. (shrink)

Because our actions change, our responsibility is modified; because our responsibility is modified, we need to question the ethics of the action. Our action is situated right there between announcing a diagnosis, the theoretical and practical result of identification, the determining and naming of a fact and voicing the disease which is a human action where medical and technical expertise comes up against a life and its story. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a degenerative disease of (...) the motor neurons leading to paralysis. In the absence of any curative treatment, the natural course always results in death. Since 1989, progress in the management of this disease in France has been exponential, resulting in the creation of 17 expert centres throughout the country in 2003. Guidelines have been drawn up through consensus conferences and coordination meetings. For the delicate stage of the announcement, three requirements have been adopted: the quality of receptiveness of the medical practitioner and his team, their ability to listen and to adapt to the particularities of the patient in their care; their commitment with regard to legal obligations as to how and to whom to transmit information; and the need for a multidisciplined approach to be able to rapidly support the patient and his family. Questioning in the field of applied ethics has led us to examine whether having a benevolent and non-harmful attitude towards these patients, respecting their autonomy and legal rights are parameters required in this specialized practice. Through a transversal thematic analysis of the experiences of the medical practitioners at the Centres, we would like to explore a hypothesis of the remarkable epistemological progression of the neurologist in this form of care in the pure Hippocratic tradition. Through the compassionate experience of the other by these committed doctors and their teams, we will try to outline the view of anthropological phenomenology with regard to the ALS patient, their awareness of the future paralysis of the body that is being announced, their awareness of the temporality and will characteristic of the ALS patient and of his finality that they will be accompanying. (shrink)