What is an ethical dilemma? An ethical dilemma occurs when there is a conflict between different sets of values. In the context of the Sandel book, this is often a conflict between one of the three categories that he believes most arguments of justice fall into--welfare, freedom or virtue. For the purposes of the assignments in this class, you will want to identify ethical dilemmas that follow the format of, "Should business person X do Y." There should be an agent--a decision-maker-and you should be able to identify what the categories of conflict are. Please read the story at the link below. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/14/business/takata-airbag-defect-lawsuit.html?_r=0 (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. Although this article explains that the state of Hawaii is suing Takata, the ethical dilemma that we create for this needs to relate to an ethical decision that a business person at Takata faced at some point in this situation. The story indicates that in 2004 Takata and Honda were made aware of the fact of a problem with the airbag. Although there were additional reports, Takata did not announce any recalls until four years later, in 2008, and then it was only for 4,000 vehicles. They did not make information about the defect available to the public. If you think about this from the perspective of upper level management at Takata, deciding whether or not to institute a global recall with several different car manufacturers is a nightmare. Car recalls are very costly for suppliers, manufacturers, and dealers. If a recall is not handled properly it can lead to very negative PR for companies. Several people who work at Takata would have been faced with the question: Should I order the company to institute a recall for all cars that meet certain requirements for the defective air bags? There are many business decisions that business people face that may be a choice between two good options--there may not be an ethical element. In this situation, there is an ethical component because there is a conflict between the safety of people (the defect resulted in some deaths and some people being severely and permanently injured) and the financial cost of the recall. Oftentimes in business-related ethical dilemmas, the conflict in values is going to relate to a company trying to save money or improve it's bottom line as it fires or lays off workers, lowers entry level wages, cuts benefits, switches to lower quality materials in its manufacturing, moves manufacturing overseas for lower wages, fewer or not benefits and lower environmental standards. These are typically the issues that you'll be looking for. In this instance the company chose to minimize the costs of a recall over customer safety. hi everyone: I'd like to explain a bit more about the weekly assignment where you turn in two stories with ethical dilemmas. For this assignment I would like you to find two stories in the media that show a situation where someone had to make an ethical decision. Because this is a business ethics class, the story and dilemma need to be business-related. Please do not use government-related questions or bioethics or animal testing or beginning/end of life issues. Please find something where a business person (or consumer) has to make a decision. For all future assignments, in order to get full credit for the assignment, your ethical dilemma must be in the form of "Should business person X do Y?" I want you to think through who all of the decision-makers are in a situation, what their role is and why they may have a conflict. Pease follow the original instructions for this assignment. I am pasting below two students' assignments from last week to give an example of how this should be done. If you have any questions, please email me. Example 1: For this one, the stories are very interesting. My only critique is that the ethical dilemma needs to be a specific agent, or person, rather than an entire company, because a person makes a final decision on something, not an entire company. http://fortune.com/2016/12/28/biggest-corporate-scandals-2016/ (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. In 2011, a vegan food producer called Hampton Creek was established in the San Francisco Bay area. While it had in the past battled with the FDA and other food companies regarding the health claims around Hampton Creek products, in September 2016 it was discovered that the company wasn't just misleading customers, it was misleading investors as well. A Bloomberg investigation revealed that the company had been artificially inflating their sales numbers by having employees and contractors buy huge amounts of the company's products- this is a problem because this paints an inaccurate picture of the company's financial health, something investors make decisions based on. In addition, Hampton Creek misled investors regarding the environmental sustainability of the products they producethese claims were also disproven by the Bloomberg investigation. The ethical dilemma in this case is: should Hampton Creek have misled investors to artificially inflate stock price, or should the company have acted honestly and accepted a lower stock price? http://fortune.com/2015/12/27/biggest-corporate-scandals-2015/ (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. In 2016, it came to light that Volkswagen had misled customers and government agencies alike on the emissions their vehicles produced. In millions of diesel cars, Volkswagen installed software with the intention of misleading emissions testers from the EPA, making them believe these diesel cars were more eco-friendly than they in fact were. Given that this revelation lost the company twenty billion in market capitalization and they were hit with billions of dollars in fees from the government, it's probable that the company would have been better off if it spent more time on developing vehicles with lower emissions rather than coming up with crafty ways to dupe people. The ethical dilemma in this example is: Should Volkswagen have released these cars on the market knowing they misled millions of people for the sake of saving money, or should they have held off on releasing these cars until the emissions were as low as the company claimed? Example 2: Same correction on this with regard to the agent and the ethical dilemma. 1) http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34324772 (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. Summary- Volkswagen has been found to be cheating on their emissions test in the United States. Volkswagen had been selling cars that had a "defeat device" in the diesel engines that could detect when the cars were being tested and it would change the performance of the car. Volkswagen has admitted that around 11 million cars worldwide have the "defeat device". It has been found that the engines have released nitrogen oxide pollutants up to 40 times what is allowed in the U.S. Ethical Dilemma- Should Volkswagen sell diesel cars with a "defeat device" in order for people to pass emissions tests? 2) http://www.cbsnews.com/news/epipen-price-hike-controversy-mylan-ceo-heatherbresch-speaks-out/ (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. Summary- The price on EpiPen's has risen by over 500 percent over seven years. Since it is a life saving device for allergies, many people do not have a choice whether they want to buy it or not. From 2009 to 2016 the price has gone from $103.50 to more than $608.61. The EpiPen's, according to Mylan, have risen because they wanted to make it more accessible. Ethical Dilemma- Should Mylan keep raising the price of the EpiPen in order to make them more accessible to their customers?
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