Ethics Assignment: Kantian Theory and Case Study Analysis, Analysis

This assignment delves into Immanuel Kant's deontological ethical theory, exploring its principles and applications through five diverse case studies. The student examines how Kant's emphasis on duty and universal moral rules can be applied to real-world scenarios, including the Challenger disaster, the business practices of WalMart, the Enron scandal, the hacking incident at Harvard, and the Parable of the Sadhu. The analysis considers the morality of actions based on Kantian principles, evaluating whether individuals and organizations acted in accordance with their duties and universal moral standards, irrespective of the consequences. The essay highlights the strengths and limitations of Kantian ethics in providing a framework for ethical decision-making across various contexts.

RUNNING HEAD: Ethics 0
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................1
Ethical Theory............................................................................................................................1
Application to Case studies........................................................................................................2
Challenger Disaster................................................................................................................2
Study on WalMart..................................................................................................................3
Enron Scandal........................................................................................................................4
Hacking into Harvard.............................................................................................................5
Parable of a Sadhu..................................................................................................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7
Bibliography...............................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
In this assignment the student discusses the ethical theory of deontology propounded
by one of the greatest philosopher Immanuel Kant. The student has also listed out five
different case studies to analyse and study the theory of Immanuel Kant with reference to its
application each case and how the theory explains morality by applying reason in each case
by defining what is good and bad.
Ethical Theory
Kant’s moral ethics theory focuses on duties which he describes as ‘right’, those
actions that we ought to do and ‘wrong’- those action that we ought not to do. This is called
as deontology (Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals. 263). It is a duty based theory where the
actions performed are based on duty and the consequences of those actions are not considered
that is why it is also called as non-consequentialist theory and also criticised by other
philosophers. From the perspective of this theory if a person has to decide what is good or
bad he has to decide it from the universal set of moral rules like killing a man is bad, stealing
is bad, giving food to poor is good etc (Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of
Morals 237).Kant discards an action based on specific desire to be moral and fair. For an
action to be regarded as morally correct it must be universally applicable to all humans. Thus
as per this theory a rational action is one which is accepted universally as the right action
(Schonecker 280).
Kant also describes that the intentions of man performing an action also plays a role
in determining a morally good or a bad action but in case of a duty. As the theory is a duty
based theory so what a duty bound person does is a morally right thing to do, irrespective of
its consequences (R. a. Johnson). So if by doing a right action if a person is causing harm to

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others he is morally doing the right thing and if doing a wrong thing brings happiness to
people then also the action is considered as morally wrong. This also forms one of the biggest
criticisms of this theory that it is not result based theory.
Application to Case studies
Challenger Disaster
NASA’s Challenger Space Shuttle exploded within few seconds of its launch killing 7
people and the accident was witnessed by millions as it was broadcasted live. This is
considered as one of the biggest disasters which happened due to technical failure about
which the employer, Morton Thiokol was well aware of, but incapacity to make a rational
decision at the time led to such disaster (BBC). Few employees even opposed the launch as
they were highly critical of the situation but their voices were ignored and the rocket was
permitted to launch despite that (McKenna 18).
The disaster could have been avoided had the officials paid heed to the Thiokol
engineers. However after applying the theory of deontology it becomes pertinent to question
were the engineers morally correct? And did they perform their duty? (Reb 191) As per the
theory a person ought to do what is universally acceptable as morally right. In this scenario
the engineers were sceptical of the take-off and their duty was to act on what was right that is
not letting the rocket take off till they were sure that it was safe to fly it. So the engineers did
not perform their duty as they should have and thus were not morally correct in their action.
Informing the higher authority was only one part of their duty the other part being making
sure that shuttle did not fly without proper scrutiny. Not only was it the moral duty of the
engineers but also the officials of NASA and Thiokol both had moral obligation to remove
any doubts regarding the safety of the shuttle and lives of the people in shuttle. The action
performed by them seemed more connected to individual desire of flying the shuttle rather

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than the universal rule to consider the safety of the ones in it. Thus it was a morally incorrect
decision.
Study on WalMart
Wal-Mart is one of the America’s biggest leading multinational retailer organisation
with over 2 million workers and 8,500 stores worldwide. It has been reported that 82 percent
of Americans every once in a year purchase an item from WalMart (Dónal P. O’Mathúna 56).
Therefore the company has a huge marketplace and a large sales as it offers one of the best
prices to its consumers as it stands to be a retail giant and manages cost efficiencies by
pressurising its suppliers to reduce the cost and by paying low wages to its workers (David
67). On the one hand it is cost effective and beneficial to its customers and on the other hand
it poses highly competitive market for the other low cost operating shops, it pays it workers
lowest wages as compared to its huge structure (T 487).
The moral action of WalMart can be understood by application of deontology theory
of Kant. The principle of Humanity formulation explains that the action of WalMart is
immoral and unethical towards its employees and the other shops operating at low costs. Kant
explains by humanity formulations that action towards people should not be used as a means
to a goal but an end in themselves. Thus when WalMart is using its employees and suppliers
only as a means to achieve bigger targets it is using them merely as a means and failing to
treat them as an end in themselves. Therefore the action itself is not rational and morally
permissible. Since Kant views an organisation as a community in itself where individuals are
not exploited thus it would not be out of place to say here that WalMart has failed the Kantian
moral community norms.

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Enron Scandal
Enron the biggest energy firm of the 21st century formed after the merger of Houston
Natural Gas Co and Inter North Inc in 1985 but suffered a quick downfall. As a result of
which shares also fell from $90.75 to $0.67 in 2002 (Benston 111). The downfall was a result
of greed and selfish motives of management and the top leadership of the company which
manipulated the stock market through insider trading and feeding wrong information, about
the poorly maintained funds of the company, to public and its employees for continued
investments in the organisation (Külpe 29). The management did not disclose about the losses
suffered by the company and kept showing a superficial figure for their own wrong motives.
The Kantian theory as discussed above considers an organisation as a moral
community in itself which does not exploit the individuals which in this case Enron was
exploiting not only its employees but also public at large by withholding the necessary
information about its company’s status. These actions are contradictory to categorical
imperative principles which treats every man as an interconnected being as an end in
themselves sharing the same laws and not as a mean to achieve any higher goal. Enron
violated the moral rational rule of treating individuals on the same pedestrian. The ethical
action here was to be determined by how it affected the rights and correlative duties of those
involved since a deontological theory creates negative rights on the holder of duty to not to
violate the rights of another person (xchanges). Thus by concealing its poor liquid capital it
violated the rights of the individuals who invested in the company, its stakeholders and also
ousted its duties to comply with its moral obligations of protecting the rights of its
stakeholders.

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Hacking into Harvard
Harvard is considered to be one of the top institutes for a student who desires to get a
highly paid job. A few desirous candidates who had applied to Harvard’s MBA programmes
fell prey to a hackers message on Businessweek Online message board which promised them
to gain information about whether their application for the particular programme was
accepted or rejected, all they had to do was enter their credentials. Nearly 190 students
checked the status of their applications through that post. However, Harvard was not happy to
learn about the developments and it cancelled the admission of all the 190 students who
logged in through that post to check their application status. The students felt devastated by
the decision of Harvard whereas Harvard was firm on its stand to teach the students a lesson
that moral ethics is one of the top most priority in business.
The step taken by Harvard is supported by the Kantian theory of deontology. The
Universal formulation principle in Deontology approves an action taken for committing to
universal moral values and it considers the action done for specific individual desires as
immoral. For instance in this case the students logged on to the site by keeping aside their
moral values and catering to their individual desires of finding out if they were selected or not
(McKenna 22). Harvard applies the universal set of ethical rule that it would have been
morally incorrect for the university to select the students as that would have taught them that
it is permissible to lay rest to one’s moral and ethical code for their desires (Shaw 02). Thus
as per Kantian theory the step taken by Harvard is morally right and that taken by the
students was morally wrong as they ought not to have done that. The students had a duty to
maintain the dignity of the university and by hacking in to check their applications statues
they violated that dignity.

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Parable of a Sadhu
Bowen Mc Coy, director of Morgan Stanley and his party while climbing expedition
to the Himalaya found a pilgrim who was dying of cold at about 15,000 feet. The Indian holy
man was shivering and as it seemed he was suffering from hypothermia as he was almost
naked. The man who brought him down to us left the sadhu at our feet and went back to
continue with his expedition. Our team members clothed him from head to foot but he was
not able to walk. So Bowen climbed down to seek help from the other teammates who were
marching ahead with horse. But they denied and all the team members helped the sadhu by
giving food and clothes but none of them could help him walk down. None of the team mates
took responsibility to make him climb down and reach safely.
Applying Kantian theory of deontology in the present scenario the team members did
cater to their duty but only partially. As Kant suggests that individuals or organisations
should apply the same set of rules onto themselves as they apply to others (Schonecker 273).
And in this situation it was the moral duty of the members to see to it that the person whom
they found in a bad condition was being helped. Though by not helping the sadhu climb
down and reach safely to the reaching point none of the team members committed a moral
wrong (R. N. Johnson 91). For example Kant explains that if a kid is drowning in the water
and an adult just watches the kid drowning, raises no alarm and does not even help the kid,
here the adult has not done anything wrong by not saving the kid but a right to life imposes a
right to not be killed and here the adult had a duty to save the child from drowning. Likewise
the team members had a duty to provide sufficient means and help the sadhu reach down
safely. Though morally the team members did not do anything wrong.

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Conclusion
Though Kantian theory defines human actions by defining them into good and bad,
moral and immoral and to apply universal set of rules at all places where the issue of morality
has to be decided and if the principle of universalization cannot be applied in any situation
then such action must not be pursued. These principles are fundamentally rational and
reasonable but they also fall short where the consequences of these actions ensue. Since duty
based acts are absolute and do not concentrate on results thus the results can sometimes be
more harmful and dangerous to the society. These rules cannot be also be applied where
duties themselves are in conflict.

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Journal of Accounting and Public Policy (2002): 105-127.
David, Zimbra. “Assessing public opinions through Web 2.0: a case study on Wal-Mart.”
ICIS (2009): 67.
Dónal P. O’Mathúna, Vilius Dranseika, Bert Gordijn. Disasters: Core Concepts and Ethical
Theories. Springer, 2018.
Johnson, Robert and Adam Cureton. Kants Moral Philosophy. 2004. 07 April 2020
<https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/>.
Johnson, Robert N. Self-improvement: An essay in Kantian ethics. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2011.
Kant, Immanuel. Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals. Good Press, 2019.
—. “The Metaphysics of Morals.” In Practical Philosophy (1797): 353.
Külpe, Oswald. Introduction to philosophy; a handbook for students of psychology, logic,
ethics, aesthetics and general philosophy,. NewYork: Macmillan, 1895.
McKenna, D. The Multi-Dimensional Character of Wisdom. London: Palgrave Macmillan,
2013.
Reb, J., Atkins, P. W. B. Mindfulness in Organizations: Foundations. Cambridge University
Press, 2015.

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Schonecker, Dieter. Immanuel Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals: A
Commentary. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015.
Shaw. “RELEVANCE OF KANT’S ETHICS TOWARDS A JUSTIFIABLEBUSINESS
AND TRADE PRACTICES: ENVISAGING A HUMANITARIAN SOCIETY.”
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