1-1.3: Merck and Moral Reasoning

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Do curso por University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Global Impact: Business Ethics

30 ratings

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Global Impact: Business Ethics

30 ratings

Curso 6 de 7 em Specialization Global Challenges in Business

Global business ethics is the study and analysis of how ethics and global business are connected. How we should treat each other and our organizations in global and local contexts is the topic of this course. Business ethics and corporate responsibility are inherent in global commerce. Commerce is about markets, and markets entail exchanges between people and groups of people. So commerce is about human relationships, and indeed, it could not be otherwise. One of the important challenges in global business is working out the extent of these obligations in the interrelationships between businesses and the particular local cultures in which that business operates. The ethical issues arising from these engagements, the kinds of values-based considerations out of which an organization negotiates with local concerns, and how an organization can be both an enabler of economic value-added while respecting cultural differences will be topics of this course. Upon successful completion of this course you will be able to: • Become morally sensitive to ethical dilemmas in global commerce • Identify ethical issues in global business • Master stakeholder analysis • Address issues from more than one point of view • Use a well-reasoned process by which to arrive at ethically-defensible decisions • Evaluate good and weak arguments • Defend your conclusions This course is part of the iMBA offered by the University of Illinois, a flexible, fully-accredited online MBA at an incredibly competitive price. For more information, please see the Resource page in this course and onlinemba.illinois.edu.

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Course Orientation & Module 1 Is Ethics Part of Business?

You will become familiar with the course, your classmates, and our learning environment. The orientation will also help you obtain the technical skills required for the course. Identify what we mean by ethics and moral reasoning. Learn about the “do the right thing” approach, utilitarianism, and theories of justice. Understand why these theories are important for moral reasoning and for commerce. Be familiar with the framework for moral reasoning. Apply this framework in a case analysis.

1-1.1: Case Study: Merck and River Blindness7:57

1-1.2: Ethical Theories and Their Contributions to Decision-Making16:22

1-1.3: Merck and Moral Reasoning3:42

1-1.4: Merck's Decision2:22

Conheça os instrutores

Patricia Werhane
Visiting Professor
Department of Business Administration

In this lesson we will apply three of the theories of moral

reasoning to the dilemma in the Merck case.

[MUSIC]

In this part of the module, we're going to return to the Merck case and

talk about moral reasoning, and how that helped Merck think through this case.

First of all, what are the facts?

Well, we know the facts.

These are cultures, here's a picture of part one culture, and how they live and

how these people live, and how poor they are.

And then we note, we've learned the ethical issues already, right?

Developing the drug is expensive,

might not work, might harm people, might be bad publicity if somebody is harmed.

It would be terrible, if you can imagine.

Not developing the drug, again, bad publicity.

Someone finds out and they will.

There are no secrets from the media, as you know.

Low morale of these researchers who were pretty sure this is going to work, and

missed opportunity to help 30 to 100 million people.

That's a lot of people.

Giving rise to the other organization, Merck would lose his patent.

They're probably not, they're not going to do that.

Let's be sure.

Frankly, they're not.

They didn't do that.

So should they do this?

Should they use funds for other drugs, or

should they encourage another company to take on this project?

What rights are at stake here, and what is the most fair?

Intuitively, it would appear that developing the drug

is the right thing to do.

But from a cost/benefit analysis, you're really not so

sure because there are plenty of other people.

I don't know how many people have cancer, but at least 100 million people, globally.

Probably more.

We can look that up.

How many people have HIV?

Well, we know in Africa, 30 million people alone are infected with that HIV, and

that's only one continent.

So there's just lots and

lots of places where Merck could help people and actually be profitable as well.

And then of course, the problem of testing.

There's always a problem of testing a drug.

Terrible, because it doesn't always turn out right.

And in fact, a lot of the times it doesn't turn out right, and so

you have to go on and do something else.

So there's the issue of negative publicity and then the moral of the researchers.

That turns out to be really important for Merck because in a pharmaceutical company,

the most important people are your researchers.

If you don't have good researchers and they're not developing new drugs,

because since it takes forever, ten to 20 years, you're out of business, obviously.

You've got to have great researchers and

you've got to have some drugs in the pipeline or you will be, company no more.

Now Merck has lasted over 100 years.

And one of the reasons they've lasted is that researchers love to work there.

They really like that company, and that makes a huge difference in competition.

Now, if Merck develops or either way, develops or

doesn't develop this drug, it sets a precedent.

Because Merck is one of the admired company.

So it sets a precedent for

the other companies, are they going to do this or not do it?

And then of course, what would a virtuous company do?

You'd probably say, they develop it, right?

And then, of course, we have the vision of the founder, and

that's always sort of in the background, in the heads of everyone at Merck.

They don't really forget.

So, here we back again to where we are.

What kinds of arguments do we develop for the decision?

[MUSIC]

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