Business 600 - Business Ethics Reflection

Hello,

On the subject of Business ethics, the capitalists and socialists are always finding a balance between generating the maximum revenue and making our society a better place . One general example of this conflict of interest is pollution by car. During the early 90s when gasoline is cheap, Several US automakers produced huge quantities of Sport Utility Vehicles which not only consumes a lot of gasolin but also has an extremely high emission rate. Although these cars were hot sellers due to their size and cargo space, the huge amount of CO2 emission produced by these cars will pollute our air way more than those of the smaller and more efficient cars. U.S. automakers are faced with the dellima of spending time and money into developing more high energy efficient and low emmission generating vehiacles or just keep producing those pollution monsters. However by doing so, they will need to put a lot more cost into Research and Development department which will then decrease their profit. Is the action taken by the U.S. Automakers unethical? From the book, by the principle of Role relativism, the automaker's role is to create an automobile that will improve the convenience for its customers. However, does this conflicts with their social role, which as members of the community they should provide cars that is cleaner for the environment? How about the Cultural Relativism? Does other countries have the right to judge our American style of living? Later on we find out that if the US automakers could invest more time and money in making their engines more efficient and cleaner, they may have a chance of averting themselves from the financial crisis they faced in 2000s. In several cases, the determination of an "ethical" decision may be obscure. However, as time passes by and the consequences starts to unravel, the ethical decision will then become apparent, and hopefully it still will not be too late for us to steer back to the correct course of action. I honestly believe, ethics and profits will ultimately go hand in hand. Being able to determine which is an ethical decision and be able to follow through will ultimately result in a long term gain for everyone. On the contrary, a company should never lose their integrity for a short term gain, and this statement applies to all businesses.