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[quote=TheManWithAUsername][Can you clip the giant quotes, please? I can give you a short tutorial if you want.]

[quote=anonymous]I freely concede that, at a certain point, a director's consideration of social impact could rise to the level of a breach of one of these duties. I remain unconvinced that these duties actually extend to the proposition that a director must ignore all social or moral considerations if that would allow the corporation to make an additional nickel in profit.[/quote]
I think you’ve framed our disagreement well. Note that I understand that as a practical matter no one is going to sue over that nickel, and that if they did the judge would be annoyed enough to summarily toss it. I do contend that it would be a technical violation.

[quote=anonymous]It's one think to say you have a duty of loyalty and care to your shareholders; it's quite another to say that duty imposes an affirmative obligation to screw others over to the maximum extent possible in order to profit the constituency to which you owe those duties.[/quote]
That’s phrased in the most inflammatory way, obviously. The duty is to maximize profit (with discretion over short vs. long terms), regardless of all other interests other than complying with the law.

[quote=anonymous] The latter does not necessarily follow from the former, and absent a citation to some authority actually standing for that proposition, I remain quite skeptical. Again, I'm not saying directors have carte blanche to disregard the economic interests of their shareholders, which I agree is their principal duty; merely that it is tempered by reason in ways you don't seem to acknowledge.[/quote]
Since the nickel profit case will never be brought, I’ll never have that cite at the extreme. But I don’t see why it’s on me to give a cite when it’s a logical conclusion from basic principles.

We agree that the directors have the duty to the shareholder. I assume that you agree that they have no legal duty to be moral other than that expressed in other aspects of the law.

I say that therefore no balancing is allowed, because in balancing the director would be sacrificing the interests of one to whom s/he owes a duty for those of someone to whom s/he owes no duty. That would be violation of a legal duty with no legal reason. Do you see a flaw there?

You say that they can weigh morality and reason* against the duty. Do you have any cite for that? If there’s nothing supporting that kind of balancing, then I consider the basic principle to be universal, therefore  applicable even at the extremes.

*I assume you meant “reason” here in the sense of “moral reason.”
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