wo questions to discuss: 1) What should you do? 2) Why would you do that? using 1) Kant’s categorical imperative, or 2) Mill’s Utilitarianism?
You have just been appointed as the Finance Director for South East Asia of a large multinational bank (the Bank of Northeastern States), based in the United States and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. You have been posted to a recent acquisition of a Stock Market listed manufacturing plant, Peninsula Transport located in a small township some 40 kilometres outside the capital city of Indonesia. Your instructions are to asset strip the acquired company then close it down within one year. Two weeks into your appointment and having just arrived in Jakarta you are given a company provided apartment and have spent several days unpacking and settling in with your family. Today is your first day at work and Mr Mohamed, the incumbent CEO a man who has inherited the company from his father informs you that he knows exactly why you are in Indonesia and begs you not to close his company. As the day progresses, you begin to realise that before the $ 100 million acquisition, the factory had been a wholly owned family business that had served the community for more than four decades and employed just under half the town’s available workforce of three thousand people. Indeed, there were many families, some with three generations in current employment with the company. In addition, you also realise that many small and medium local enterprises support the factory and that to close it will devastate the entire community. The CEO claims that he and his family are victims of a conspiracy to close the factory and sell the land to build real estate on it. He shows you a newspaper report from several years ago that clearly depicts the land surrounding the town being earmarked for development under the government’s plans for the future of the area. This involves building several thousand residential units and expanding the township into a commuter suburb serving the capital city. Mr Mohamed informs you that he has rejected several offers from the government and has successfully fought them in the courts and obtained ‘heritage status’ protection to overturn a local government order for compulsory purchase of the land from his family who have owned it for several generations. The local CEO also informs you that he has evidence of bribes and gifts being made by the Bank of Northeastern States to local politicians, as well as substantial donations to National People’s Party, a political party who are the incumbent government. It is very clear that there is a trail of corruption leading all the way back to your employers in Boston. That night you call your CEO at Northeastern Bank to inform him and are shocked when he responds with threats against you and your family that if you don’t do as instructed you will be arrested and thrown in jail by local police. The next morning before you leave for work, you are paid a clandestine visit by a senior police officer and he also informs you in a veiled threat that your situation in Indonesia leaves you and your family very vulnerable. At this point, you realise that you have been lied to by the Board of Northeastern States Bank and that they are partners in a web of corruption worth tens of millions of US Dollars involving local Indonesian politicians and local police. You find yourself in a dilemma. If you follow through with your instructions you understand that you will be responsible for the social consequences of closing the factory and will be just as guilty as those who are involved in the conspiracy. If you don’t you will be fired and face an uncertain future in which you and your family, having already been threatened, leaves you in no doubt of the consequences of being arrested and detained in a foreign country where you have no rights
Two questions to discuss: 1) What should you do? 2) Why would you do that?
using 1) Kant’s categorical imperative, or 2) Mill’s Utilitarianism?
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