Paul Babcock Gave the Following Advice to Standard Oil Company

question 124

Essay

Paul Babcock gave the following advice to Standard Oil Company executives who were going to testify before Congress about the business practices of Standard Oil, "Parry every question with answers which, while perfectly truthful, are evasive of bottom facts." Apply ethical analysis to the advice and the statement.

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Definitions:

Interactionist Theories

Approaches that emphasize how individuals and society interact, shaping personal identity and social structures through this interplay.

Language Development

The process by which children come to understand and communicate language during early childhood.

Functional Fixedness

A bias in cognition that confines a person to employ an object exclusively in its customary use, obstructing the process of generating creative solutions.

Mental Sets

Mental sets refer to the tendency to approach situations in a certain way because that method worked in the past, potentially preventing us from seeing alternative solutions.