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 per-centage of users. How should Frances de-cide 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 unde-sirable side ef-fects 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 pos-sible pre-cautions should be taken to protect the few. A more specific answer depends on which sys-tem of ethics is applied.
From a religious duty-based perspective, the answer might be abso-lute: do not sell the product because some would be harmed, sell the prod-uct 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 prod-uct. A principle-of-rights duty-based approach might likewise come to the same conclusions, reasoning that all persons have a right to life, for exam-ple, 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 cur-rent employees, as well as shareholders, and most consumers. If there was "bad" publicity, and it was adverse enough to re-duce sales, however, more persons could benefit from the decision not to market the product.

Under any of the different corporate social responsibil-ity 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 shoul-dering 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.