Good What's The Problem Essay Example

There are two scenarios. In one, a coworker asks me to become involved with an herbal health supplement home business. In the other, a coworker asks me to buy Girl Scout cookies. While these incidences may seem similar on the surface, they are very different, on further inspection. Selling herbal health supplements with a coworker is a breach of personal (and possibly ethical) conduct. Buying Girl Scout cookies is a benign action.
Herbal health supplements may or may not actually help the people who take them. These supplements often aren’t regulated the same as other types of over the counter medications, and even if they were, making health claims, when one is not a doctor, is unethical. It’s not mentioned where the herbal supplements come from. Unregulated supplements can actually be a health hazard. They could contain allergens or harmful ingredients. If the coworker selling the herbal supplements is making the supplements themselves, that can make the situation even more dangerous and unregulated.
Buying Girl Scout cookies is different from selling herbal supplements. The cookies don’t have any potentially dangerous ingredients, unless you consider the extra calories a danger to your waistline. Furthermore, buying Girl Scout cookies can actually be helpful because the money goes to an organization that’s good for the community.
Financial gain is the biggest difference between these two scenarios, and the reason for the ethical difference. In the herbal supplement scenario, the coworker and I would get money for possibly putting someone in harms way, or at least making unsubstantiated claims. In the Girl Scout scenario, only a charity organization makes a profit.