Ethical Argument: Smoking in the Workplace
In 1994, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) defined second- hand tobacco smoke as a potential workplace hazard, estimating that as many as 14,000 workers die each year from the effects of exposure to passive tobacco smoke. The National Cancer
Institute endorsed much higher estimates, according to which as many as 65,000 Americans die each year from heart disease and lung cancer caused by inhaling secondhand smoke (Washington Post, 2004). Since then, many states have instituted legislation prohibiting smoking in the workplace and the FAA has imposed an outright smoking ban on commercial aircraft, which many smokers view as an infringement of their rights.
Argument:
Certainly, smokers have the same rights to be comfortable at work as non-smokers, but it is simply not possible to accommodate the respective preferences of smokers and non-smokers to their equal satisfaction. In the absence of a perfect compromise, one must balance the relative harm(s) associated with both points-of-view and then err on the safe side wherever possible, in order to do the greatest good for the most people affected one way or the other.
In the case of smoking, the right to avoid constant exposure to a toxic agent (and proven carcinogen) outweighs the comparative imposition of the inconvenience of smoking prohibition in the workplace. Smoking advocates challenge the accuracy of the medical evidence of disease actually caused by secondhand smoke as though they have a presumed right to smoke at work unless and until it is proven to cause disease, in fact. Tobacco smoke is universally and conclusively understood to cause heart disease, emphysema and cancer of the lungs and throat.
So, if any presumption is justified by the uncontroverted medical facts of the matter, it is the presumption…
