Question

Book: Business Ethics by William H. Shaw "Case 5.2 Drug Dilemmas" Given the nature of their product, do pharmaceutical companies have ethical responsibilities that corporations do not in terms of case situation? Explain and justify your response.

Answer 1

Ans: It is difficult to say whether or not pharmaceutical companies have different ethical responsibilities due to the nature of their products. A narrow sense of corporate social responsibility would say that, overall, the companies were responsible to their stockholders and to make a profit. A broader definition would argue that, by testing in countries and communities overseas, the companies have entered in an implicit contract with the society and must reciprocate within the community. Because of the potential benefits of their products, pharmaceutical companies are held to higher ethical standards and do have ethical responsibilities that other corporations don’t have. It is important to realize that, for example, the companies are already selling or giving away drugs in the least developed countries. Because this is done more from societal pressures and not a sense of duty, it can be concluded that large U.S. drug companies are not good corporate citizens. The categorical imperative requires that human dignity and reciprocity are both upheld. However, neither of these aspects of the imperative is being fulfilled by large companies’ overseas testing practices. Once the tests are completed, many of the companies do not sell their drugs in the testing countries. If they do, few can afford them. U.S. drug companies are defining corporate social responsibility in the narrow sense and, through overseas practices, are not truly being good corporate citizens.