Flint Water Crisis: An Ethical Analysis of Responsibility
This paper examines the Flint, Michigan water crisis through three distinct ethical frameworks: Kantian deontology, utilitarianism, and ethical egoism. Beginning with a summary of the 2014 decision to divert Flint's water supply to the contaminated Flint River, the paper traces the resulting health consequences for the city's 100,000 residents, including deaths, Legionnaires' Disease, and a range of other medical conditions. Each ethical framework is applied to evaluate the conduct of city and state governments, as well as corporate actors such as Nestlé and General Motors. The analysis concludes that all three perspectives support the position that Flint residents are entitled to clean drinking water and that the government's failure to provide it constitutes a serious ethical violation.
- Introduction and Case Summary: 2014 water diversion sparks Flint contamination crisis
- Kantian Ethics and Government Duty: Government's moral duty to restore clean water
- Utilitarian Perspective on Public Harm: Widespread harm to 100,000 residents evaluated
- Ethical Egoism: Corporate and Civic Interests: Nestlé and GM prioritize self-interest over public good
- Conclusion: All three frameworks support residents' right to clean water
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper applies three clearly defined ethical frameworks systematically, giving each its own section and using consistent structure throughout.
- It grounds abstract ethical theory in a concrete, real-world case, making the analysis accessible and persuasive.
- The conclusion synthesizes all three perspectives into a unified argument, reinforcing the central claim without simply repeating each section.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates the technique of comparative ethical analysis — evaluating the same scenario through multiple moral frameworks to build a multi-dimensional argument. Rather than selecting one "correct" framework, the writer shows that Kantian, utilitarian, and egoism perspectives all converge on the same conclusion, which strengthens the overall position through convergent moral reasoning.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a factual case summary establishing the context, then moves through three framework-specific sections (Kantian, utilitarian, egoism), each roughly equal in length. The conclusion revisits all three in brief, tying them together. This "framework sandwich" structure — facts first, multiple theoretical lenses in the middle, synthesis at the end — is a standard and effective model for applied ethics essays at the undergraduate level.
Introduction and Case Summary
Once the hub of General Motors, Flint, Michigan is now a city in disarray due to contaminated drinking water. Despite dozens of class-action and individual lawsuits, the crisis has yet to be fully resolved. The city of Flint and the State of Michigan are both responsible for the use of lead piping in the town's infrastructure, which is the direct cause of the lead contamination. Research definitively shows that lead contamination causes innumerable, irreversible, and often fatal health problems. The Kantian, utilitarian, and egoism ethical perspectives all support the conclusion that Flint residents deserve justice.
In 2014, the city of Flint diverted the town's water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River. The EPA and independent organizations such as Virginia Tech tested the Flint River water and found "dangerous levels of lead" at points of contact, including in residents' homes ("Flint Water Crisis Fast Facts," 2017, p. 1). Although the water diversion was designed to save the city $5 million, it will ultimately cost many millions more to fix — a decision that has already caused twelve deaths and countless other health problems (Ravve, 2017). Lawsuits have been filed, and criminal charges against fifteen state and city officials have also been brought forward (Ravve, 2017). The Flint water crisis represents egregious ethical failures from multiple points of view.
Kantian Ethics and Government Duty
Deontological, or Kantian, ethics are based on the duty to uphold basic, universal moral codes. Those codes include straightforward principles such as refraining from harming others, respecting others, and helping others in need. From the Kantian ethical perspective, the government has a clear and absolute obligation to restore Flint's drinking water immediately. The city and state governments have not acted in accordance with their ethical duties, given both the initial diversion of Flint's water supply to a contaminated river ("Flint Water Crisis Fast Facts," 2017) and their failure to take sufficient action to mitigate the resulting crisis (Ravve, 2017; Moore, n.d.).
Kantian ethics does not permit weighing harm against financial savings. The decision to cut costs by switching the water source, regardless of the consequences to residents, represents a fundamental violation of the categorical imperative — the principle that one must act only according to rules that could be universally applied. No ethical framework would endorse a universal policy of knowingly exposing an entire city's population to toxic water.
Utilitarian Perspective on Public Harm
Utilitarianism is based on the principle of maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain, or creating the greatest good for the greatest number of people. It is a consequentialist perspective. Utilitarian analysis roundly condemns the Flint crisis, given that the city's approximately 100,000 residents lack access to clean drinking water and have been exposed to contaminants proven to cause serious health problems (Ravve, 2017). Reported and confirmed health consequences since the 2014 diversion of the water supply range from fetal deaths, skin rashes, and hair loss (Glenzain, 2017) to shortness of breath (Ravve, 2017) to Legionnaires' Disease (Moore, n.d.).
The utilitarian calculus is unambiguous: the suffering inflicted on tens of thousands of people vastly outweighs any financial savings the water diversion produced. A utilitarian assessment would require immediate, comprehensive remediation of the water supply as the only morally acceptable course of action, since doing so would reduce overall suffering and restore well-being to the greatest number of people.
Conclusion
From Kantian, utilitarian, and egoism points of view, the Flint water crisis is a tragedy. The only clear beneficiary of the crisis appears to be the Nestlé Company, which stands to profit from selling bottled water to residents. However, even ethical egoism illustrates why individual residents of Flint have a right to clean water, and why the government's neglect of the contaminated water problem represents a gross infringement on human rights. Clean drinking water serves the utilitarian interests of the common good, and providing it to all people represents an ethical duty from the Kantian point of view as well. Across all three frameworks, the conclusion is the same: the residents of Flint deserve justice and access to safe drinking water.
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