To you, does morality apply in business?

[Elegiac]

My father owns a water bottling company and yeah, should not be a thing that exists but hey, capitalism

"Let's take this thing which is absolutely necessary for biological life to even exist and make a profit off it all the while filling the world with untold amounts of waste doing so."

Sounds about right. This is why I laugh when people tell me capitalism is an efficient system; the fact the "market" prefers bottled water to public water despite the latter being significantly cheaper per capita and more environmentally friendly.

[Elegiac]

Which is EASILY proven false by taking ethical criteria and having an external body force action that goes against said ethical criteria.

That...doesn't make it a conundrum.

It means the external body is behaving unethically. Lol.

[uuuhname]

"Let's take this thing which is absolutely necessary for biological life to even exist and make a profit off it all the while filling the world with untold amounts of waste doing so."

Sounds about right. This is why I laugh when people tell me capitalism is an efficient system; the fact the "market" prefers bottled water to public water despite the latter being significantly cheaper per capita and more environmentally friendly.

man when I go to Costco and see the pallets and pallets of plastic bottles people buy it makes me want to yell "GET A FILTTER FOR GOD SAKES" at least spare us the landfills worth of plastics being tossed out.

[Endus]

You've made the statement "ethical conundrums don't exist".

Which is EASILY proven false by taking ethical criteria and having an external body force action that goes against said ethical criteria.

This isn't a conundrum. If your actions are forced, you never had the option to do what you would have preferred. And you're not the one making the choice; whatever body is forcing you is. Say, you wanted to ship medicine to Cuba, back when it was still under strict embargo, because you had an ethical desire to help those in need and your company was producing plenty of medication. The USA's embargo legally prevents you doing so. That's not a "conundrum", you just can't legally do the thing you want to do.

When you are presented examples of this, you simply add in your own criteria to make the conundrum disappear.

Your examples have been SUPER vague, and the "criteria" I add are just obvious corollaries. Say, the community that needed medicine, and there was no bridge to the community. I'm running a medical company in this hypothetical, how am I supposed to build a bridge?

Soooo, i feel like I've successfully proven that your statement is wrong and that ethical conundrums do exist.

Not one of your examples has contained an ethical conundrum. And I haven't meaningfully changed any of them. The only one that comes close is the medical doctor choosing which patient to save, and there I answered it directly first, before suggesting an alternative variation where there would be a meaningful choice. Which still had a clear ethical answer. Because they always do.

And having felt sufficiently successful at doing this, I'm out, without feeling further need to address any more of your points of contest, which will no doubt be variations of the same thing.

Isn't this like the third time you've claimed you're done failing to prove your point?

[Endus]

man when I go to Costco and see the pallets and pallets of plastic bottles people buy it makes me want to yell "GET A FILTTER FOR GOD SAKES" at least spare us the landfills worth of plastics being tossed out.

There's cases like Flint where bottled water is the only reasonable option; boiling or cheap Brita-type filters won't get rid of things like heavy metals (lead, in Flint's case specifically, isn't removed by the types of filters Brita uses).

When traveling, I'll buy bottled water too; some places have truly shitty tap waters.

Outside of that? Yeah, bottled water is a bit silly.

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Why does the market prefer bottled water?

Have a good think about this and you'll end up answering your own question.

Marketing.

And that's basically it. Most cities' tap water is as good or better than most bottled waters. Hell, a lot of bottled waters are just tap water.

[Elegiac]

Why does the market prefer bottled water?

Marketing.

Capitalism doesn't fulfill needs. It creates endless new needs to justify itself.

[uuuhname]

There's cases like Flint where bottled water is the only reasonable option; boiling or cheap Brita-type filters won't get rid of things like heavy metals (lead, in Flint's case specifically, isn't removed by the types of filters Brita uses).

When traveling, I'll buy bottled water too; some places have truly shitty tap waters.

Outside of that? Yeah, bottled water is a bit silly.

I was thinking about scenarios like Flint and that is a tremendous failure of maintaining and updating infrastructure on the state's part.

[Elegiac]

I was thinking about scenarios like Flint and that is a tremendous failure of maintaining and updating infrastructure on the state's part.

Which itself is the result of decades of lobbying from companies seeking to dismantle public infrastructure and force people to use privatized services where they can be charged a premium that has nothing to do with the service itself.

Also known as rent-seeking.

[Endus]

I was thinking about scenarios like Flint and that is a tremendous failure of maintaining and updating infrastructure on the state's part.

And whose ethical failures were responsible, in Flint?

Not the bottled water companies'.

[uuuhname]

Which itself is the result of decades of lobbying from companies seeking to dismantle public infrastructure and force people to use privatized services where they can be charged a premium that has nothing to do with the service itself.

Also known as rent-seeking.

which is another thing. public utilities have no place in the hands of private companies. from water, electricity to heck, even oil.

[Shadowferal]

...this thread dedicated to the top mgmt of Blizzard/Activision...

[DSmithz]

This is probably the most common take of businesspeople which is one of the reasons why ethics need to get built into the law. Assume businesses will default to the least common denominator because if one doesn't, another will.

Indeed.. I totally agree with you

[Soon-TM]

Of course there are no morals when it comes to business. You can 100% legit evict an old couple from their mortgaged house, you can 100% deny non-emergency medical attention if the patient can't possibly pay the bills, you can 100% throw a bunch of workers into the unemployment pit because you went your merry way outsourcing the everliving !@#$ out of your company. The only morality of a company is to profit, which is enshrined by the pertinent legislation.

[Magnagarde]

Principles of good business often overlap with ethical standards of a certain degree. It is assumed that customers reckognize these and tend to gravitate towards those who meet certain criteria. This is the reason why so many corporations are virtue signalling harder than ever.

[Sargrovar]

"This is a business baby"

[AlexPav]

There are no moral values in business. This is especially true of corporations. They are just machines that consume money and can't get enough. I trade on Amazon. Do you know what amazon removal fees are? Amazon takes a 15-18% tax on the seller. That said, I run into technical problems when I can't issue a refund or cancel a transaction and I still have to pay the fee even though the transaction didn't happen!

[Queen of Hamsters]

Yes, I would run my business the way Ducati does their factory.

Most business don't, they chase profits at the expense of human beings. But the fact that so many among big business are doing "Pride Month", "Autism awareness month" etc shows that there's actually money in being perceived as a morally strong, ethically sound business.

Of course, none of them flag for any social justice causes in countries where it's frowned upon, such as Saudi Arabia, so... In my eyes the corporations doing it where it's OK and not E V E R Y W H E R E, are morally bankrupt.

[Calfredd]

There are no moral values in business. This is especially true of corporations. They are just machines that consume money and can't get enough. I trade on Amazon. Do you know what amazon removal fees are? Amazon takes a 15-18% tax on the seller. That said, I run into technical problems when I can't issue a refund or cancel a transaction and I still have to pay the fee even though the transaction didn't happen!

Trying to advertise your crap again?

[Grym]

To me, no.

However it must be legal.

As long as what you do is legal then everything goes.

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Morality isn't just some switch you turn off and on depending on your activity

And this sentiment that 'morals don't belong in business' just showcases how brainwashed we've all become. Hell the fact that we want to call corporations a person says it all I believe. Maybe worship capitalism a little less and morality a little more and we might be a little better off as a country/world.

Don’t think that is possible anymore, and if people even wanted that.

I also agree with moral not required for business, and I don’t even feel that it needs to or should, I am fine with the way things are.

So people may not want to change.

[Jessicka]

Integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching.

The scenario you describe is one way sociopaths and psychopaths often end up in lofty positions, often beyond their actual ability.