Introduction
A draft memo has been handed to Rebecca Wright to be reviewed. She is an assistant to Jim Donnelly, the vice president of environmental affairs of Americhem. The document contains a complex and emotion-laden issue that the company has to make a decision on.
The document reveals that the company wants to set up a new chemical plant but the atmospheric pollutants, although mostly harmless, would produce a persistent haze; and one of the particles that would be release into the atmosphere is known to cause liver cancer in a very small portion of the people exposed. Rebecca is sure that this information if known to the public would cause uproar.
From an economic point of view, Jim in his memo put forward four cost benefit analysis cases pointing to the advantage and net benefits Americhem will gain in locating its new plant in a Third World country rather than in a First World Country, the United States. The result of the analysis is overwhelming as Rebecca questions the ethical principles that guided her boss in arriving at these four cost benefits scenarios.
Ethical Issues in the Case
o The company failing to inform the public of the harmful pollutant their plants give off which causes liver cancer
o The moral rights, justice and market obligations that were disregarded in the cost benefits analysis presented on the concept of value in economics
Discussions in relation to ethical theories
In addressing the concepts of duty / obligation, rights and justice
Utilitarianism –Teleological Theory
Duty & Social Responsibility in performing actions that result in the greatest possible balance of good and evil
Under utilitarianism, teleological theory states that pleasure is taken to be ultimately th ...