Ch. 3 - Ethics & Social Responsibility

Is Samsung following the normative ethics theory?

Normative ethics is defined as the study of how one should act in a humanistic way. it is a branch of philosophical ethics that investigates the study of questions that arise when measuring how one should act.

Over the past couple of years samsung has given much effort to practicing good ethical standards and following ethical laws. However in 2012 allegations arose about samsung defying ethical laws in china. According to Freidmans theory of individualism a companies only obligation is to maximize profits for their shareholders and owners. Samsung did in fact maximize profit by hiring children under the age of 16, abusing their time including the older employees and not giving them the proper time off. According to child labor laws factories are prohibited to hire any children under the age of 16. In the eyes of individualist these actions has proved ethical because they maximized profit and made their shareholders and owners happy. On the other hand these actions are unethical in the eyes of utilitarians.

Utilitarianism is another element of the normative ethics that is lead by the idea that the proper course of action is to maximize utilization for share holders, owners and employee's.



















Reference:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/26/samsung-labor-china_n_2190246.html