This document contains several ethics case studies and discussion questions: 1. The first case discusses the marketing of an anonymous messaging app called Publius and asks whether it is ethical to market, whether its creators are responsible for criminal acts enabled by the app, and if governments should allow it. 2. The second case examines payments made by Lockheed to influence a contract with the Japanese government. It asks about the effects on the market, whether the payments were bribes or extortion, and the moral responsibility of those involved. 3. Other cases discuss the ethical obligations of companies setting different salaries based on gender, the legal and moral issues raised by Napster, and the use of homeless alcoholics as test

1. ARAVIND - 09901366442 – 09902787224
BUSINESS ETHICS
1. Analyze the ethics of marketing Publius using utilitarianism, rights, justice, and
caring. In your judgement, is it ethical to market Publius? Explain.
2. Are the creators of Publius in any way morally responsible for any criminal acts that
criminals are able to carry out and keep secret by relying on Publius? Is AT & T in any
way morally responsible for these? Explain your answers.
3. In your judgment, should governments allow the implementation of Publius? Why or
why not?
1. Fully explain the effects that payment like those which Lockheed made to the
Japanese have on the structure of a market.
2. In your view, were Lockheed’s payments to the various Japanese parties “bribes” or
“extortions” ? Explain your response fully.
3. In your judgment, did Mr. A. Carl Kotchian act rightly from a moral point of view ?
(Your answer should take into account the effects of the payments on the welfare of the
societies affected, on the right and duties of the various parties involved, and on the
distribution of benefits and burdens among the groups involved.) In your judgment, was
Mr. Kotchian morally responsible for his actions ? Was he, in the end, treated fairly ?
4. In its October 27, 1980, issue, Business Week argued that every corporation has a
corporate culture – that is, values that set a pattern for itsemployee’s activities, opinions
and actions and that are instilled in succeeding generations of employees (pp.148-60).
Describe, if you can, the corporate culture of Lockheed and relate that culture to Mr.
Kotchian’s actions. Describe some strategies for changing that culture in ways that
might make foreign payments less likely.
1. In your judgment, is it wrong, from an ethical point of view, for the auto companies to
submit plans for an automobile to China ? Explain your answer ?
2. Of the various approaches to environmental ethics outlined in this chapter, which
approach sheds most light on the ethical issues raised by this case ? Explain your
answer.

2. 3. Should the U.S. government intervene in any way in the negotiations between U.S.
auto companies and the Chinese government ? Explain.
1. In your judgment, do the managers of the Robert Hall store have any ethical
obligations to change their salary policies ? If you do not think they should change, then
explain why they have an obligation to change and describe the kinds of changes they
should make. Would it make any difference to your analysis if, instead of two
departments in the same store, it involved two different Robert Hall Stores, one for men
and one for women ? Would it make a difference if two stores (one for men and one for
women) owned by different companies were involved ? Explain each of your answers in
terms of the relevant ethical principles upon which you are relying.
2. Suppose that there were very few males applying for clerks’ jobs in Wilmington while
females were flooding the clerking job market. Would this competitive factor justify
paying males more than females ? Why ? Suppose that 95 percent of the women in
Wilmington who were applying for clerks’ jobs were single women with children who
were on welfare while 95 percent of the men were single with no families to support.
Would this need factor justify paying females more than males ? Why ? Suppose for the
sake of argument that men were better at selling than women; would this justify
different salaries ?
3. If you think the managers of the Robert Hall store should pay their male and female
clerks equal wages because they do “substantially the same work” then do you also think
that ideally each worker’s salary should be pegged to the work he or she individually
performs (such as by having each worker sell on commission) ? Why ? Would a
commission system be preferable from a utilitarian point of view considering the
substantial book keeping expenses it would involve ? From the point of view of justice ?
What does the phrase substantially the same mean to you ?
1. What are the legal issues involved in this case, and what are the moral issues ? How
are the two different kinds of issues different from each other, and how are they related
to each other ? Identify and distinguish the “systemic, corporate and individual issues”
involved in this case.
2. In your judgment, was it morally wrong for Shawn Fanning to develop and release his
technology to the world given its possible consequences ? Was it morally wrong for an
individual to use Napster’s website and software to copy for free the copy righted music
on another person’s hard drive ? If you believe it was wrong, then explain exactly why it
was wrong. If you believe it was not morally wrong, then how would you defend your
views against t he claim that such copying is stealing ? Assume that it was not I illegal
for an individual to copy music using Napster. Would there be anything immoral with
doing so ? Explain ?

3. 3. Assume that it is morally wrong for a person to use Napster’s website and software to
make a copy of copyrighted music. Who, then, would be morally responsible for this
person’s wrong doing ? Would only the person himself be morally responsible ? Was
Napster, the company, morally responsible ? Wash shawn Fanning morally
responsible ? Was any employee of Napster, the company, morally responsible ? Was
the operator of the server or that portion of the Internet that the person used morally
responsible ? What if the person did not know that the music was copyrighted or did not
think that it was illegal to copy copyrighted music ?
4. Do the music companies share any of the moral responsibility for what has
happened ? How do you think technology like Napster is likely to change the music
industry ? In your judgment, are these changes ethically good or ethically bad ?
1. Discuss this case from the perspective of utilitarianism, rights, justice and caring.
What insight does virtue theory shed on the ethics of the events described in this case ?
2. “ In a free enterprise society all adults should be allowed to make their own decisions
about how they choose to earn their living.” Discuss the statement in light of the Lily
case.
3. In your judgment, is the policy of using homeless alcoholics for test subjects morally
appropriate ? Explain the reasons for your judgment. What does your judgment imply
about the moral legitimacy of a free market in labor ?
4. How should the managers of Lily handle this issue ?
ARAVIND - 09901366442 – 09902787224