Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
Business Ethics
Corporate Values
Love Canal Scandal
The Love Canal situation dealt with a chemical company that buried there toxic chemical waste and then sold the land that was contaminated. The Hooker Chemical and Plastics, Co. bought a canal that was unfinished because the owner went bankrupt before he got to finish it. Hooker then filled a large area, a 3,200 ft. section of the canal with chemical waste. It wasn't Hooker alone who dumped in this area. In the same period, several other chemical companies as well as The City of Niagara Falls also were also adding to the waste. Hooker claims to have chosen this site for hazardous waste due to the clay composition in the subsoil and the fact that not many people lived nearby....
The company reported to have buried approximately 21,800 tons of chemical waste in the canal.
The company later sold the land for a dollar to the Niagara Falls School Board. However, despite the one dollar sales price, there was a clause in the contract that let the company out of any liability that it might have in regards to any environmental damage. The liability was then transferred to the school board and eventually people started getting ill from the waste leeching into the local ground water. Although the Hooker Chemical Company was no longer legally liable for any damages, the company certainly acting as a scoundrel. The school board was most likely the least responsible party for the environmental damages yet they were stuck with…
Ford Pinto
On August 10, 1978 a group composed of three young women, two were eighteen and one was sixteen, were the subject of a rear end automobile accident by another vehicle while driving in a 1973 Ford Pinto. Other similar reports of the cars combustion upon an accident also began to emerge. However, Ford understood the cause of the problem well before any of the accidents occurred. Ford had actually conducted a cost benefit analysis that factored items such as the cost of fixing the fuel system problem on existing cars compared to the estimated legal costs associated with the lawsuits that were directed at Ford due to the unneeded loss of human life. Even though the part was not very expensive, Ford decided that it would still be cheaper to provide compensation through legal settlements than it would be to conduct a product recall to fix the systems.
Ford's actions were definitely unethical in many regards. Even it would have been cheaper for the company to provide compensation to the families would have been cheaper than fixing the problem, the company was still unethical. When considering the costs of human life, protecting lives should certainly come before profits. Not only was the Ford company unethical, but they were also bad at judging the costs. They were forced to pay heavily in settlements, but the total damage was far worse. The company's brand lost a significant amount of value among many consumers which cost them business for years.
Capitalism does force us sometimes to make decisions in a context narrower than we need in order to make them morally, socially, environmentally (Rolston, 1988, p. 324). Rolston points to several cases of corporate myopia that was changed as customers and potential customers made their views known and demonstrated that hurting customers would harm shareholders as well. He points to the DDT scare in the early 1960s which led to