Business Ethics: Unsafe Product A product can be defective in a number of ways. If a product is marketed with inadequate instructions or warnings as to foreseeable risks, it has a marketing defect.

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Business Ethics: Unsafe Product

Business Ethics: Unsafe Product

A product can be defective in a number of ways. If a product is marketed with inadequate instructions or warnings as to foreseeable risks, it has a marketing defect. If a product is manufactured with a flaw, but the design and marketing of the product are fine, it is called a manufacturing defect. If a product is designed in such a way that it is foreseeable that injury could result, and if the risk of injury could have been reduced by an alternative design, then a product is said to be defective in its design. (‘Find law’ Available at [] accessed on 03/12/2005)

If a prescription drug, vehicle component, or other consumer product has caused an injury to the consumers, what happens when a product is carefully designed, manufactured and marketed, but is dangerous nonetheless. Must a manufacturer, distributor, or seller of the product bear responsibility? These unsafe products are ethical or unethical? In this essay, the author will try to use ethical theories critically to analyze this question. As such, this ethical issue regarding unsafe products is rather controversial.

In order to measure whether unsafe products is ethical or otherwise, 5 theories have been employed. They are traditional utilitarianism, unavoidably unsafe product, rule-utilitarianism, virtue ethics and safety and acceptable risks. These theories will facilitate the writer’s in-depth understanding and enable to look at the issue in various aspects and views of the context of this essay. Nonetheless, during the process of analysis the writer will look into the limitations of each of these theories.

Utilitarianism is reasonable for rational beings, who are able to foresee the consequences of their actions, to choose those actions that produce more good that those that produce less good, other things being equal. (De George, 1999, p56)

The moral standard of utilitarianism is: those actions are right that produce the greatest total amount of human well-being. (‘Moral Concepts and Theories’ Available at [] accessed on 03/12/2005)

A utilitarian analysis of a moral problem consists of three steps.

1. The utilitarian must determine the audience of the action or policy in question--those people who will be affected for good or ill.

2. The positive and negative effects of the alternative actions or policies must be determined.

3. The utilitarian must decide which course of action produces the greatest overall utility. (‘Moral Concepts and Theories’ Available at [] accessed on 03/12/2005)

According to Traditional Utilitarianism theory (Jeremy Bentham -1784-1832), the first principle states that “an action is right if it produces the most utility for all persons affected by the action (including the person performing the action)” (Velasquez, 1998, p 73). Hence, unsafe product dose not fulfill the requirement of first principle. This will be further explained below.

Refer to the appendix 2 of medical Product, the medic responsible for analysis of a defective laser product.

“A local television station recently investigated and aired a story involving a defective laser product sold by Alcon. These lasers failed to perform as represented and thousands of people received sub optimal results as a result of these defective products. People ended up with visual distortion (halos, glares, ghosting and poor night vision), which made it difficult to function. Because these patients often had good visual acuity (i.e. that could read the eye chart) many doctors told them there was nothing wrong.” (‘Trial lawyers’ Available at [] accessed on 23/11/2005)

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In view of traditional utilitarianism, the utility or usefulness of the product must outweigh its risk of danger. So, for example, if a drug cures a mild case of hiccups but causes death in half the people who use it, it may not qualify as unavoidably unsafe. It is worth noting that a product need not save lives to be considered useful. Products ranging from birth control medications to beauty products have been found to be sufficiently useful to warrant the risk associated with their use. (‘Find law’ Available at [] accessed on 03/12/2005)

Hence, above demonstrates that utility must ...

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