Deontological Ethics - Essay Example

Ethics is defined as the branch of philosophy dealing with the rules of conduct (Webster’s II, 235). In the business world ethics is an essential element of successful corporations. The stakeholders of the enterprises expect companies to follow corporate responsibility which is the development of code of conducts and management systems to comply with regulatory bodies (Oecd). In the business world there have been many cases of companies which refuse to accept corporate responsibility as the business standard and acted in very unethical manners. A case that occurred in the mid 1980’s which raise public awareness about corporate ethics was the Bhopal scandal. The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze the unethical behavior that occurred in Bhopal, India and to apply an ethical analysis from three different ethical views which are utilitarianism, deontological ethics and virtue ethics. The company initially involved in the Bhopal scandal was Union Carbide. Union Carbide is a chemical and polymers multinational company with a 90 year history that employs 3,800 people and whose global net sales for the fiscal year 2006 were $1776 million (Unioncarbide). The company in 1984 had a gas leakage in the city of Bhopal, India which caused the death of thousands of residents, contaminated the natural resources of the areas and caused injuries to hundreds of thousands of Indian people. The catastrophe is considered the biggest corporate accident in the 20th century. In 2001 Dow Chemicals purchased Union Carbide and is currently administering it as its subsidiary. Dow Chemicals is the 2nd largest chemical manufacturer in the world which in 2006 obtained net sales of $49,124 million (Dow). On the evening of December 2, 1984 the Union Carbide chemical plant located in Bhopal, India had a gas leakage of nearly 27 tons on the lethal gas methylisocyanate (Corporatenarc). The safety measures which were suppose to prevent this type of disaster all failed since the company did not audit the system to ensure they were operational. The death toll was approximately an 8,000 person count and nearly half a million residents in the area were exposed to the toxic gases from the Union Carbide plant. The human suffering was horrible and the event caused a total contamination of the natural resources of the area including the water supply. The company did not take responsibility for its actions and failed to perform the necessary clean up to minimize the damage to the environment cause by their mistake. The disaster of 1984 caused long term medical damage to the population including the wide spread of diseases such as cancer, blindness, breathing difficulties, birth defects, brain damage and gynecological disorders (Bhopal). The ethical implication of Union Carbide actions and subsequent position of its current owner Dow Chemicals are an atrocity. In the aftermath of the catastrophe Union Carbide did not help the victims of the gas leakage and hid the facts from the public instead taking a proactive approach of helping the innocent people that were hurt during this event. The root of the problem and the initial ethical violation in this case was the company’s disregard for public safety. The company was facing a financial crisis in its Indian operation and decided to cutback on basic safety protocols to reduce the company expenses. The company went as far as eliminating the required safety protocols to safe money putting the population in danger if a leakage occurred and it did. The company continued to violate human rights and public safety once the accident occurred. During the first hours after the incident the company did not alert the public of what was occurring in the atmosphere and when asked by the press or public officials they went as far as totally denying a gas leakage had occurred. They were supposed to sound an alarm when the problem happened to alert the public which they did not do. The company’s unethical and immoral behavior continued after it was obvious the damage they had caused. Union Carbide withheld information about the real effects the chemicals would have on the population and the medical dangers all the exposed people were under, which included a lot if long term damages to the their health in the form of diseases that would manifest themselves later on in life as a direct result to the expose of these dangerous chemicals. Union Carbide did not clean up the area they intoxicated polluting the eco-system including the valuable water supply. Another unethical issue in this case was the possibility of governmental corruption in the entire process. The government allowed the case to be settled out of court for a measly $470 million dollars with an immunity clause to protect them from further legal prosecution. Some economists estimate that the figure of the settlement is the equivalent of $500 per victim for ruining the health of hundreds of thousands of people and killing nearly 8,000 humans (Bhopal). The lack ethics displayed in Bhopal continued in the 21st century when Dow Chemicals purchased the Union Carbide with claims that they are not responsible for any of the previous action of the company. The official statement once they acquired Union Carbide said “While Dow has no responsibility for Bhopal…..”(Corporatenarc). Apparently Dow Chemicals is forgetting the basic business principle that in the acquisition of any enterprise the buyer acquires all corporate assets and liabilities. Union Carbide has a huge social liability to the people of Bhopal and as the new owners Dow Chemicals legally inherited that debt. Dow is acting unethically and irresponsibly, but what is worst about Dow is that this company wants to take advantage of the damage caused by Union Carbide to charge the people of India to purify the water supply damage caused by a subsidiary they own. According to the utilitarianism ethical perspective an action is label as right or wrong depending on its consequences and this particular is considered right if it brings the best outcomes of the choices available (Csus). From this ethical perspective the events that occurred in 1984 at Bhopal and its aftermath are absolutely wrong. The consequences were devastating and the possible choices Union Carbide had were numerous to bring a certain level of decency and ethics into the tragedy, but Union Carbide absolutely failed to meet the minimum standard for the utilitarianism perspective to possible consider their actions as correct ones. Dow Chemicals a self-proclaim socially responsible company is also wrong from the Utilitarianism perspective, but the jury is still out on them in this case. They are wrong because they inherited a social debt which they deny that regardless of the illegal and corrupt out of settlement still exists since the whole world knows that Union Carbide caused damages that not even a trillion dollars would be enough compensation for the human suffering and environmental destruction in the area. Dow is playing the innocent role even though they realize that in order to comply with their corporate responsibility of being the new owners they have to make a significant social investment of double digit billions of dollars to clean up the areas and help the surviving victims of the disaster. The jury is still out on Dow Chemicals because their final decision on how they are going to handle the situation has not manifested itself yet. Deontological ethics contends that goodness resides in the ability to recognize and keep moral obligation such that the actual consequences of the action are a secondary concern (Maricopa). From this perspective the actions of Union Carbide were wrong as well. One of the biggest flaws of the company was never recognizing its moral obligation to help out the victims and their particular despicable action of holding information when it occurred is the best indicator of not recognizing their moral obligation of helping out the community. Despite the horrendous consequences of the company’s action if Union Carbide had recognized their mistake and had invested in the community as much as possible and made a conscious effort to clean up the area over time then according to deontological ethics the Union Carbide would not have been morally wrong despite the devastating effects of the accident. Virtue ethics does not focus as much on which particular rules a person should follow and places a high level of value on traits such as kindness and generosity (Cline). Union Carbide failed to meet the criteria of following ethical standards in the Bhopal scandal. The company displayed absolutely no generosity nor kindness, instead they acted like a greedy evil corporation. The path the company followed would have been irrelevant to determine if they were morally correct according to this theory, the important element in this case to give a morally good determination according to this theory would have been the amount of financial resources the company invested to help in the aftermath of the event. The company did not invest anything to help out the victims, thus the verdict according to this theory is that Union Carbide acted in an unethical manner. The Bhopal tragedy in 1984 raised public awareness and led to the creation of a lot of new safety regulation worldwide. The company that caused all the damages got away clean even though they have acted in an extremely unethical manner since the accident occurred. Hopefully an event such as what occurred in Bhopal will never happen again and in the future companies take a strong ethical stance whenever any type of controversy affects the general public. Works Cited Bhopal. The Bhopal Medical Appeal. 9 September 2007. Cline, A. 2007. About.com. The New York Times Company. 9 September 2007. Corporate Narc. “Dow Medical Scandal”. 9 September 2007 Csus. “Utilitarianism”. 9 September 2007. Dow. 2007. Dow Chemicals Inc. 9 September 2007. Maricopa. “Deontological Ethics”. 9 September 2007 Oecd. June 2007. Organization for Economic Organization and Development. 9 September 2007 Union Carbide. 2007. Union Carbide Corporation . 9 September 2007 Webster’s II. 1984. New Riverside Dictionary. Read More