Tag: business ethics

Can Ethical Decisions Be Life or Death Choices?

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Can Ethical Decisions Be Life or Death Choices?

ABC news reports that Consumer Reports, the magazine, has released a new study that reports the following:

The bad news from a new study is that two thirds of store-bought chicken was found to be contaminated with potentially harmful bacteria.

This is a clear situation where ethics and morality have a role to play. Okay, now, ask yourself, can you ethically sell chickens contaminated with bacteria? Let’s be clear about the consquences. We are talking about food poisoning. Let me quote from wikipedia:

However, foodborne illness can result in permanent health problems or even death, especially for people at high risk, including babies, young children, pregnant women (and their fetuses), elderly people, sick people and others with weak immune systems.

So, we are talking about dead people and serious illness for thousands of others and since food poisoning can mimic other diseases like the flu, the numbers reported are too low.

Now, back to our moral dilemma. The bacteria from your chicken will kill some people often the elderly or the very young. On the other hand, you are participating in busines worth billion of dollars a year. (Tyson sold 26 billion dollars worth of food in 2005.) If your competitors do not act to fix the problem, they can sell chicken for less than you. You will lose market share and thousands of people might lose their jobs.

Now, you might say, “James, you have to draw the line here, we are talking about people’s lives.” I agree that lives are at stake, but I can’t help but point out that it doesn’t look like anybody is drawing a line.

Should we wait for industry to act? A study two years ago showed 80 percent of all chicken contaminated with bacteria. We’ve gone from 80 percent to 2/3 of all chicken sold. Isn’t that movement in the right direction? Don’t you know that incremental change is the responsible way to accomplish these kinds of goals? If you were to impose radical changes on the industry, everyone in American would have to pay a lot more for chicken. Don’t you want even the poorest in this country to have access to meat and the nutritional benefits it brings?

So, we come down to the usual questions. What are you willing to do as an employee of such a company? Where do you draw the line? What’s worth losing your job for? What’s the “right” thing to do?

Futher, as a society, what social costs are we willing to incur for low levels of bacteria in chicken: loss of jobs, increases in foreign competition and a greater price at the supermarket? What’s the social value of cheap chicken?

My conclusion is the following.

Selling chicken which you know to be contaminated with bacteria when you have the technology to eliminate some or all the bacteria is murder. I’m sorry about all the jobs. I’m sorry about the lost profits and danger of competition from foreigners but I just get upset about dead people, a personal weakness of mine, perhaps.

Since, it does not appear any chicken selling company is willing to make the first move to eliminate bacteria and endanger its bottom line, the government will have to mandate new standards.

Now, I realize that given time the free market will solve this problem. After all companies that sell chicken that kill will undoubtedly lose market share. Or will they? Reported levels of 80% didn’t stop people from continuing to buy chicken. On the other hand, this information does not appear to be common knowledge. It appears that the free market doesn’t function well when the consumers do not all have the same information. If death from chicken were certain instead of sporadic it would be easier for the public to make a good decision but food poisoning takes as long as a week to manifest itself. It’s hard to figure out what you ate over a seven day period and of course you might think it’s the flu. What do you think? Could this be an example of the free market yielding illogical or tragic results? Does the free market unfettered by government interference solve all problems?

James Pilant

Ethics Continuously Created by Everyday Activities

On By southwerkIn ethics4 Comments

Ethics Continuously Created by Everyday Activities

Anna Peterson when asked what the most important message is contained within her new book: Everyday Ethics and Social Change: The Education of Desire

That ethics is not disconnected from ordinary activities. This means a couple of things. First, almost nothing we do is “value neutral.” We can’t separate out the times we are acting “morally,” and the rest of our lives. Second, it means that ethics are not something constructed or articulated in the abstract and then applied, in a top-down fashion, to concrete circumstances. Rather, ethics are created in and through ordinary practices. This means we ought to think more carefully, perhaps, about the ethics we enact (or don’t) on a daily basis. In the end, I think, movements for social change seek to transform everyday life so it becomes safer, less oppressive, and more joyful for more people (and other creatures). So it makes sense that the roots of a radical ethic for social change can be found in the best parts of our everyday lives.

I have strongly professed such beliefs in my teachings on ethics. I strongly believe that the moral stance we have in place is the main factor in what we decided when the ethical dilemma arrives. It is obvious to me, that we create our ethics continuously, and the destruction of our ethical framework takes place in small daily increments. This is why traditional business ethics teaching has little effect. What the more foolish call the “real world” eats it up. The real world is the kind of person you are as opposed to the crawling maggot the world would prefer you become.

James Pilant

Too Many Business Ethical Failures

On By southwerkIn Capitalism

!!@@#dddddd444hmlbr35Too Many Business Ethical Failures

When I was eighteen I remember watching an interview with Art Buchwald, the great political humorist. He was asked if he had difficulty finding material to write about each week. He laughed and said that during the Watergate scandal his columns wrote themselves. He said writing under the Ford administration was much tougher. There wasn’t a scandal a day.

When I want to write about a business failing what I believe are its duties, it takes about a minute of internet searching. A particularly juicy one takes about five minutes. There is far more than I can write about. This ought to please me in some small way but it doesnt. This is a tidal wave of misconduct.

I teach Business Ethics. Have I got a chance against a tidal wave of misconduct? When confronted by a stubborn business culture that refuses to follow the dictates of conscience, religion or the public interest, do I just drown? What’s my answer?

You fight. What’s right is right and that you may very well not prevail is not the first consideration. The first consideration is whether or not you are doing what is right in the eyes of God and man. So, I fight.

James Pilant

Islam’s Business Teachings

On By southwerkIn Capitalism1 Comment

hmlbr09Islam’s Business Teachings

There are many negative stereotypes about Islam in the United States. Many foolishly belief that Islam is the same everywhere. Like Christianity, Islam has many branches.

I want to call your attention, gentle reader, to the ethical teachings of Islam in regard to business practices. Islam has particular teachings about the ethics of business. It provides guidance to its members in the business community.

Quoting from a Washington Post article:

But Islam has its own detailed system of business ethics, including a ban on interest-bearing loans and stocks and aversions to debt, hording and overvaluing. And it is becoming more of an issue as Muslims’ affluence and interest in business grows — something visible in classes such as the Fairfax Institute’s and in the appearance of Islam-friendly mutual funds and establishment of Islamic finance programs at universities such as Rice in Houston and James Madison in Harrisonburg, Va.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/06/AR2006050600747.html

Consumers Losing Faith in Business

On By southwerkIn Uncategorized

The article itself from BNET is a little self paroding talking about Business as the engine of recovery that people ought to look up to and respect but worries that it will take time to regain that respect. You think! This is what happens when business ethics disappear in the search for greater profits. This is what happens when the next quarter’s profits are the only measure of success and not what kind of people we are.

For many people talking about business ethics is just a brief joke, something whose existence is as likely as the Easter bunny. We can do better. No longer can business ethics be taught as a search for ways to avoid public relations problems but a search for what is good and right in all men in all ages.

From the article: Pay is part of the problem but the discontent goes wider. Four out of five people don’t trust business leaders to put the needs of staff or shareholders above their personal interests, according to Edelman’s Trust Barometer. A similar proportion think business ethics have deteriorated.

For years the workers and middle class have been the targets of bad legislation and exploitation by increased costs from banks, internet providers, and health insurance. A vulture culture devoted to worshiping the predator is not conducive to business ethics. It is conducive to lip service and a superficial appearance of compliance with the values of society. This is a great country with an amazing history of accomplishment. We can do better.

http://blogs.bnet.co.uk/sterling-performance/2009/10/29/why-nobody-trusts-business-anymore/