Business Ethics and the Merck & Co., Inc. Case Study

Susan Gustafson Business Ethics Mark Matthews, Ph.D. February 10, 2004 Applying Ethics to the Merck Case The purpose of my essay is to show whether the business decisions made by the management team of Merck pharmaceutical are ethical. Using corporate assets for charitable purposes, the company manufactures and distributes a drug called Mectizan at no charge to impoverished nations and their inhabitants. I will expound on three ethical theories and then analyze the Merck case according …

…as saying their decisions were ethical, as his decision would be based on formulating an absolute rule regarding the situation, a rule that all rational parties would agree to. Merck, according to a majority vote of the three ethical theories studied, is acting ethically regarding their Mectizan policy. All work cited from class text first essay no footnotes needed. Ethical Theory and Business Tom L. Beauchamp and Norman E. Bowie 7th Edition, Pearson Prentice Hall 2004