Questions
Ethical egoism is an ethical theory which holds that agents should always act in their best self-interest. From the perspective of ethical egoism, the company executives are behaving ethically. They are putting their own interests and those of the shareholders and board members that appointed them ahead of those of the public by maximizing profit rather than focusing on reducing pollution.
The Kantian perspective in ethics is one which promotes the “categorical imperative” or “formula of universal acceptability”. According to this formula, the company executives are not behaving ethically. Were all water companies around the world, or even all company executives around the world, to maximize profit before pollution reduction over the long term, this would have disastrous consequences for themselves and the word population. Thus, according to a Kantian perspective, the executives are not behaving ethically.
Virtue ethics is an ethical theory that emphasizes the development and possession of virtues of character which result in the right behaviour. According to virtue ethics, the value of profit would have to be balanced against the value of pollution reduction in order to determine whether the actions of the executives are ethical. Insofar as there a tension between these two values, we can say that the maximization of profit does not always serve the good overall in conjunction with out other values such as pollution reduction. Thus, the executives would not be acting ethically according to virtue ethics.
Utilitarianism is a theory which holds that right action is action that maximizes the good of the most number of people. In the case of the executives, assessing whether their actions maximize the good for the most number of people depends on whether we evaluate their action in the short or the long term. In the short-term it may be argued that by maximizing profit they are contributing to the economy, which in turn maximizes the good of all by providing jobs and tax revenue. However, in the long-term damaging the environment will only maximize the good for the executives and not economic agents as a whole.
How ethical is the notion that fines can be considered as the price of doing business?
