Philip Morris company is a cigarette company that got started in 1847 (Boyd, 2012). The company was the sixth biggest tobacco factory in the United States by 1960, but following their advertising campaigns, it proliferated to be the biggest in the United States by 1983 (Boyd, 2012). Over the years, the firm grew into other businesses, and today, it is still the best in the market, having around half of the cigarette market share (Boyd, 2012).
The ethical issues surrounding Philip Morris Company got solely based on the fact that the success of the company and its products is at the expense of their consumers’ health. Although the company seems to be meeting their consumers’ needs, in the long run, it is doing more damage than the gain to their customers. Additionally, most of the consumers are addicted to the product and are therefore at the mercy of the company, as they cannot stop willingly. According to Boyd, the business in 1992 started to target younger people who would be more vulnerable to persuasion, to have brand development. This also provides an ethical dilemma between trying to grow the business and maintaining the expected ethical standards.
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As early as the 1960s, the harmful effects of tobacco had started surfacing, with it getting linked to lung cancer (Boyd, 2012). Over the years, information about the health effects of smoking has gotten spread widely and almost everyone, therefore, understands the associated risks. Despite the knowledge of the risks associated with smoking, people continue to smoke. One possible reason for this may be that some smokers are addicted to smoking, and therefore, they cannot even if they want to. Another explanation for continued smoking may be that people do not fully understand the potential effects of cigarette smoking on their health.
Philip Morris Company has tried to handle the ethical implications related to tobacco, despite selling a harmful product. For example, the company has spent money on prevention of youth smoking, including starting the “Think. Don’t Smoke” campaign (Boyd, 2012). Its website has a lot of information about the effects of using cigarettes, and the institution supported tobacco by the help FDA (Boyd, 2012). These acts show that the company is fully aware of the effects of their products. From my point of view, these attempts make them more unethical by selling what they have proven to be dangerous, rather than making them seem ethical.
A business that manufactures potentially harmful products can still be able to instill ethics in its marketing department. However, this can only get done to an extent. One way through which a business can try to teach ethics is by ensuring that the products never get misrepresented to customers (The Hartford, 2019). This would include reporting all the potential adverse effects that would arise from using the product in the company’s advertisements and sales. Factoring in the addiction of most smokers; however, revealing the harmful effects of cigarette smoking may seem only to make the business seem ethical while in actuality, it is not.
A second way of maintaining an ethical culture is to offer maximum customer value at the lowest reasonable cost (The Hartford, 2019). It is any business’ moral obligation to ensure that its products get evenly and reasonably priced. This is to ensure that the customers do not get exploited even as the industry seeks to profit from its sales.
In conclusion, however much Philip Morris and other similar companies try to stay ethical in their business operations, they can never be entirely ethical since these businesses are always carrying out activities that are detrimental to their customers’ well-being. Their ultimate moral responsibility would be to close down the companies, which seem impossible. Therefore, the task falls on the government and individuals to regulate the usage of these harmful products.
References
Boyd, R., (2012, November 15). Philip Morris: An Ethical Anomaly. Retrieved from https://bizgovsoc4.wordpress.com/2012/11/14/philip-morris-an-ethical-anomaly/
The Hartford. (2019). Maintaining Ethical Standards. Retrieved from https://www.thehartford.com/business-playbook/in-depth/sales-ethical-standards
