Frances, an executive with GMO Seed & Feed, Inc, has to decide whether to market a product that could offer substantial benefits but might also have potentially serious side effects for a small percentage of users. How should Frances decide whether to sell the product? How does the standard of ethics that is applied affect this answer?

Answer 1

When a corporate executive has to decide whether to market a product that might have undesirable side effects for a small percentage of users but that would be beneficial for most users, the decision turns on the benefit to the many versus the harm to the few. Of course, all possible precautions should be taken to protect the few. A more specific answer depends on which system of ethics is applied.
From a religious duty-based perspective, the answer might be absolute: do not sell the product because some would be harmed, sell the product only to those who would not be harmed, or sell the product with clear warnings of the possible harm. Similar conclusions might be reached through a philosophical, "categorical imperative," duty-based approach, which would consider the result if every corporation chose to sell the product. A principle-of-rights duty-based approach might likewise come to the same conclusions, reasoning that all persons have a right to life, for example, and that the corporation has an ethical duty to respect that right and act accordingly.
From a utilitarian perspective, under a cost-benefit analysis, if the product were sold, it could benefit the greatest number of persons-future and current employees, as well as shareholders, and most consumers. If there was "bad" publicity, and it was adverse enough to reduce sales, however, more persons could benefit from the decision not to market the product.
Under any of the different corporate social responsibility theories, the decision whether to market the product would acknowledge the firm's duty to act ethically and be accountable to society. There might be a balancing of the interests of competing stakeholder groups or a shouldering of the responsibility to behave in a socially beneficial way as a good corporate citizen. Of course, the firm would likely have to accept any legal liability that would arise from its sale of the product.?