MAN3065 Discussion 1
An organization’s legal rules and regulations are a guide on ethical decision making, but the laws are not always sufficient to fulfill one’s ethical responsibilities. What is considered normal from a legal standpoint may not be a norm from an ethical standpoint. Society’s norms tend to change over time as well. There are many examples of Injustices done in the past that were legal and considered the norm at the time that are morally reprehensible. As the times changed, laws and regulations were put in place to stop these injustices and punish the businesses and individuals that do not comply. When considering cases in which an organization has done something legally right, but ethically wrong the first thing that comes to mind is the pharmaceutical industry. We can use the price of insulin as an example. According to YaleNews, there are over thirty million people in the United States that have diabetes and more than seven million of these individuals require daily insulin use (Locklear, 2022). There are three separate companies that control 90 percent of the global insulin market. These companies have patent protection that prevents other companies from manufacturing and providing generic medications. In a study published by RAND researchers, it was found that the price of insulin in the United States is typically 5 to 10 times higher than in other countries (Mulcahy et al., 2020). For example, a vial of insulin in Canada was $12 as of January 2021, but in the United States that same vial will cost roughly $99 (Mulcahy et al., 2020). The pharmaceutical companies are legally able to charge these prices, but it is ethically wrong. A situation that is legally wrong, but ethically right could be government whistleblowers. A notable example would be Daniel Ellsberg who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in 1971. This act proved that the Johnson Administration lied to Congress and the American people on multiple occasions regarding the Vietnam War. Daniel Ellsberg was a former military analyst and was charged with
espionage, conspiracy, and theft of government property. The charges were later dismissed, and the release of the Pentagon Papers affirmed the First Amendment right to free press against prior restraint by the government in a landmark decision by the Supreme Court Case New York Times Co. v. United States (Oyez, n.d.). Daniel Ellsberg made a difficult decision that was illegal at the time, but ethically right. References
Locklear, M. (2022, July 5). Insulin is an extreme financial burden for over 14% of Americans who use it
. Retrieved from YaleNews: https://news.yale.edu/2022/07/05/insulin-extreme-financial-burden-
over-14-americans-who-use-it
Mulcahy, A. W., Schwan, D., & Edenfield, N. (2020). Comparing Insulin Prices in the United States to Other Countries. RAND Health Care
, 33.
Oyez. (n.d.). New York Times Company v. United States
. Retrieved from Oyez: https://www.oyez.org/cases/1970/1873
