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PHI 445 Week 1 Discussion,PHI445 Week 1 Discussion
Utilitarianism, Deontology, and Virtue Ethics: Case Study: Starbucks
Recently, Starbucks was confronted with a racial bias incident. Starbuck
chairman Howard Schultz stated “Trying to, as a white person, fully
understand as much as possible the fact that a person of color never quite
feels comfortable in a public space in America, and hearing it from them,
because it’s not something we think about, how can we be better people?”
Schultz said, “How can we be better citizens? What else can we do to try and
advance a feeling of equality in the country?” Starbucks used utilitarianism
as a means to resolve the ethical dilemma. Starbucks closed 8,000 stores to
provide race bias training. Publically announcing the training and closing
stores to provide the training was a cost benefit and consequence of the
issue. Closing the stores was a cost benefit because in today’s social climate,
having a negative image towards race, can cause a company to go out of
business. Starbucks quickly recognized the ethical problem then swiftly
attempted to resolve it.
Utilitarianism is the belief that “an action is morally right if the
consequences of that action are more favorable than unfavorable to
everyone” (Fieser, 2015, section 1.3). Per the text “Cost benefit is the
distinguishing feature of utilitarianism.” and “when determining the morality
of any given action, we should list all of the good and bad consequences
that would result, determine which side is weightier, and judge the action to
be right if the good outweighs the bad” (Feiser, 2015, section 1.3). Simply
stated, utilitarianism characteristics are cost benefit and consequences.
Virtue theory ethics “is the view virtue ethics is the “view that morality is
grounded in the virtuous character traits that people acquire” (Feiser, 2015,
section 1.3). A characteristic of virtue theory ethics is, if one has a virtuous
mentality, then ones behavior will also be virtuous. There are three habitual
responses of virtue ethics also known as vices, overindulgence, insensibility
and temperance. Overindulgence is selfexplanatory and insensibility is the
opposite extreme and temperance is the middle; moderation.
Aristotle stated finding the perfect middle ground is not an easy task, but it is
something that decent people must find (Feiser, 2015).
Deontological theory or “Duty Theory” “is the position that moral standards
are grounded in instinctive rational obligations or duties we all have”
(Feiser, 2015, section 1.3). The belief is we are all born embedded with
basic moral principles or guidelines and we use these to judge the morality
of people’s actions. Two characteristics of deontological theory are we have
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