Personal Ethics and Marketing

Business Ethics Janet should not really have a moral dilemma here -- she already knows she can't take the job. The dilemma is presented in a couple of ways. The first is the argument that Janet needs employment, and this job can give her the employment that she needs, and she must weigh this against her own convictions. In fact, that is not quite accurate in terms of framing. First, there are strict laws regarding the marketing of tobacco products to youth.

The FDA is tasked with developing and enforcing these laws, as of 2009 in the Tobacco Control Act (NIH, 2015), and that includes a minimum legal age of 18 for the purchase of tobacco products, and a variety of restrictions on the promotion of tobacco products, including smokeless tobacco, to youth (NIH, 2015). If the company is marketing to 12-year-olds, then it is violating both the letter and spirit of the law.

There is no ethical middle ground with respect to the debate between one's financial welfare and breaking the law in our society, and any such action that is considered illegal is also considered unethical at the societal level, not just for Janet individually. For the sake of argument, perhaps this company has changed its practices since she studied them and now complies with all federal and state laws surrounding the marketing of tobacco products. Janet still has her own moral convictions on the issue, and those stem from general welfare.

Naturally, consequentialist calculus says that she cannot contribute to selling something that mostly just causes harm, for her own personal gain. The positive outcomes for many of not taking the job outweigh whatever gain that she might enjoy personally from this employment. There are a couple of other issues raised in this scenario. First, Janet is not facing an either-or situation. Taking this job and enjoying career and financial success are by no means mutually exclusive.

The way the argument is framed -- that Janet is essentially choosing between her ethics and her financial and career well-being, is a false dilemma. In fact, she has many other options for her career besides this particular offer; that this is the only offer today does not change the fact that she has many other choices in the form of future offers, or other arrangements that will deliver positive outcomes. Another issue raised here is the idea that if Janet does not do this work, somebody else will.

In other words, it is an attempt to argue that she should not take into consideration the consequences of her actions because those consequences will occur anyway. This logic can be extended to its nihilistic conclusion that we are all going to die, so all attempts at productive behavior are futile. The outcome of someone else taking the job, however, is not relevant to Janet's decision. The dilemma with which Janet is faced relates to the conflict between her own personal ethics and her own personal needs.

Knowing that the harm will be done is not relevant, because the issue is about her role in that harm. This is a fallacy known as the appeal to consequences, focusing on the negative consequences to distract from the fact that this dilemma is entirely about Janet. Janet has zero power to stop the tobacco industry from marketing -- that outcome was never going to be a possibility. That the company will.