Ethical Considerations of Nestle's Marketing Term Paper

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Posing as medical professionals does not provide the greatest amount of good, as it led mothers away from the superior practice of breastfeeding, by deception. The primary good this caused was to Nestle and its stakeholders. Giving new mothers samples and providing no or low-cost supplies to health institutions, however, was not ethically wrong. These mothers and institutions received the benefit of free and low-cost supplies. It was then their choice to utilize these supplies.

And, lastly, the inadequate warning labels on the infant formula certainly did not provide the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people. In fact, it could be easily argued that it caused harm to the greatest number of people.

Once again, the only good this act served was directed at the stakeholders of Nestle. By not providing adequate warnings, mothers in developing nations, with less than modern kitchen facilities, thought it was safe to prepare and store the formula, encouraging them to use it, when a warning would have led many to reconsider its use.

Rawlsian Original Position and Nestle's Marketing Tactics:

In Rawls' Original Position, agents of the interests of individuals choose the principles under which their individuals will fare best.

These agents do not have knowledge of facts about their individuals, that would be morally irrelevant to the decision. This veil of ignorance includes information such as sex, age, and religion. With this information a non-issue, this eliminates negotiation between distinct individuals.

This would leave the agents, according to Rawls, to make their decision based upon two principals of justice. These include affirming the equality of basic liberties and the removal of social inequalities, unless removing them would make the situation worse.

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Nestle's marketing tactics do not negatively affect an individuals basic liberties, per say.

Therefore, in this light, it's not unethical for Nestle to have utilized representatives dressed as medical professionals. nor, with this consideration, is it unethical to give free samples to mothers or supplies to health institutions, as it doesn't affect anyone's basic liberties, with the veil of ignorance. It could even be argued that with this veil, inadequate warning labels do not interfere with liberties. These tactics, however, do promote social injustice, negatively affecting those with limited information regarding the superiority of breastfeeding the most, and therefore are immoral.

For this reason, I would not want these tactics to be used in a society I was a part of. I would not want the social disparity increase, even if I wasn't negatively affected directly by the increase in social injustice, because social injustice negatively affects society in general. This further confirms the immorality of the tactics that were used.

Conclusion:

In the end, Nestle utilized several marketing tactics that are immoral in the light of Kant, Act Utilitarianism and Rawls theories of determining ethical behavior.

The marketing tactics should not be made universal, the would not be acceptable as reversible, and these tactics treat people as a mere means to an end. Act Utilitarianism would find these tactics as not providing the greatest good to the greatest number of people, with the exception of providing free samples to mothers and free to low-cost supplies to medical institutions. and, lastly, Rawls too would find them morally unacceptable, but only as they promote social injustice with those being worst-off being damaged the most.

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