November 1st , 2010

TRM 409.01 BUSINESS ETHICS Case Study: Slavery in the Chocolate Industry

Instructor: Perran Akan Student: Nee Roman Student ID: 2006104603

From the perspective of Utilitarianism, child slavery contributes the economics position of the country. As I know, the economic situation of the country is bad, they are one of the third world countries. What is more, cocoa beans prices decreased in the year 1996 - 2000. So, farmers want to reduce the cost of production with cutting the wages and using slavery. According to Utilitarianism, the right action or policy is the one that will produce the greatest net benefits or the lowest net costs. From that point, they reduce costs, and maximize their net benefits from child slavery. The major difficulty with Utilitarianism is that it is unable to deal with rights and justice. For instance, from the point of social justice, it is clear that child slavery is the result of unequal distribution of burdens. Utilitarianism only looks at the utility, not the distribution of it among the members of society. The important ignorance on ethics in Utilitarianism, bring the consideration of justice and rights. Justice looks at how the benefits and burdens distributed among the society. On the other hand, rights look at the individual entitlements to freedom of choice and well being. From the rights point of view, there are no clues about the legal rights of the children. I do not think that government has labor or child labor rights. Also, poor children deprived of the moral rights. They tortured, they are beaten and sometimes they even die or killed on the cocoa farms of the Ivory Coast and Ghana. Regardless of the legal system under which they live, every human being of every nationality have a right to not tortured, have a right to life. In terms of contractual rights, U.S. Senator Tom Harkin, U.S. Representative Eliot Engel, the members of the Chocolate Manufacturers Association and the World Cocoa Foundation, together with several human rights groups and the Ivory Coast government signed a Memorandum of Cooperation With this cooperation, in a way they work toward ending the use of child slaves in Ivory Cost. But I think this is not enough. This only provides child slaves not to work, but also they should have more rights to live in a better life. If we think the Kants categorical imperative, how would we feel if our children work as a slave in farms?(reversibility) Or what will we do if everybody does not care the child slavery in the world? (universalizability) From the point of justice and fairness, is it fair to use children in farms instead of adult employers? Is it fair to torture and kill young boys for to eat a piece of chocolate? If we think

that slavery is unjust, then we condemn a society that uses slavery even if slavery makes that society more productive. Unfortunately, as in our case, some countries which are with extreme deprivation and poverty, seem to hold injustice as justice for economical gains. I think 3 types of justice should apply in the case. Firstly, societys benefits and burdens should not be distributed on the children. They are in growing age; they should not do heavy work. Instead they should have education. According to retributive justice the farmers and families should be punished because of they use child as a slave. There should be compensation for the health expenses of slave children in terms of compensatory justice. Because they work in very heavy conditions and most of them lose their health. According to United Nations Childrens Fund findings in 1998, there is child slavery in Ivory Coast. After 2000, True Vision Tv company show the videos of child slavery in Ivory Coast Farms and then the societys attention is focused on the issue. I think after the societies attention, they started to care child slavery. Because of the customers are aware of the name of the companies and the work conditions in the area. Knowing the situation, every human being is morally responsible for their position. Ethic of care is an ethic that emphasizes caring for the concrete well being of those near to us. I think, chocolate manufacture companies should have a close relationship with their workers who are child slaves and must end child slavery and provide better working conditions for other labors. I do not think that virtue theory have any relevance to the case. Because using child as a labor, government officials accept bribery so from my point of view, there is no moral virtues in the case. In my opinion, there is no justice, rights and caring in the case. Unfortunately, obviously, the main issue is Utilitarianism. It a very critical point that in developed countries, every human being has a lot of rights, and in undeveloped countries people tradeoff their rights for the economical stability of the country. It is not fair. Of course, nations benefits should be taken into consideration but we should not ignore that we are human in the same country which is World.