DDT and Ethics Essay

IntroductionPaul Muller, a Swiss chemist and Nobel Prize winner was the one who discovered the dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane which was found to be actually strong as a pesticide. In the 40s it was usaged in the agriculture sector to help kill crop-eating insects. From 1942 onwards it started world commercialized with big companies such as the Montrose Chemical Corporation at the frontline of this pioneering fruit. At setoff, the product proved to be quite a sensation drastic every last(predicate)y reducing the amount of malaria resulting in miserliness numerous lives. It also had a huge impact in agriculture with its effective wangle on pests. Later on there were reports of DDT creation harmful to the surroundings, people and animals. In fact, there was a book that was published by Rachel Carson entitlight-emitting diode Silent Spring that outlined the dangers of the DDT. A year later the book was published, President John F Kennedy gradeed a committee to investigate t he books veracity and it was found to be accurate and that dark toxic pesticides should be phased out as soon as possible. What followed was DDT being cast awayned from the public by government decree after conclusive research of how dangerous it is to the environment. The product was however still sold to otherwise countries outside of the US for some time before some of the countries themselves decided to ban it.The purpose of this report is to explore respectable issues and philosophies brought away by some of the worlds ethicists and philosophers in an effort to advocate for the ban of DDT. Violation of honourable Standards in manufacturing and exchange DDT Any manufacturing business should have a code of ethics that should me much than just a set of rules set for its employees. It should go beyond the organization and be a set of rules that protects all its stakeholders and most importantly they must be enforceable. The Montrose Chemical Corporation did violate some of the ethical standards in the manufacturing and selling of DDT to the public as the case may suggest. It is evident in the case that the DDT has brought about many problems such as toxicity to some animals, cancer and spoilage of breast milk. Therefore, the company can be held responsible for the damage this has caused because they should have worked out the dangers and have predicted the risks involved for everyones sake. According to Environmental Protection Agency, the Montrose Chemical Corp used heavy amounts of chlorobenzene as a raw material for making DDTand this substance is in its innate form is non-aqueous meaning it remained in the ground and mixed with the other raw materials that resulted in making the groundwater in the domain contaminated. Consequently, the surface soils around that area were found to be contaminated with DDT residues.This is something that the company should have considered and anticipated. Also, the company did not demonstrate in any way health c a t a timerns by specimen people about the dangers of usage purge after the publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. Human life as puff up as animals should be valued and the manufacturing of DDT resulted in damages as serious as cancer based on some reports. Things Montrose Chemical Corporation should have through with(p) differently As part of their social responsibility, instead of rushing into getting as much DDT out for sale as quick as possible, the company should have paused and conducted enough preliminary research to really outline the potential dangers of this substance in the environment and also find alternative shipway of fixing those problems without damaging the environment. Perhaps the company should have also provided training and education on usage so that consumers can take the cover precautions when exploitation for their benefit and for the benefit of the environment. Even after the risks started being talked about like in the book published by Rachel Carson, Montrose Chemical Corporation showed carelessness and no effort in trying to mitigate the problems caused by the result of their business existence.They could have at least provided financial aid for the damage caused by this product and to protect life and environment from the effects. That would have shown some sense account capacity. For example they could have helped develop fish out-of-the-way(prenominal)ms around the area to help with the population and restrain the ecosystem. Effective Corporate Social Responsibility is a fundamental ethical code and its initiatives should look at issues that affect its stakeholders in the long run. So maybe the company should have revisited their CSR objectives to really improve their planning on manufacturing and selling.The Stakeholder theory coined by Edward Freeman and others argue that instead of starting a business and looking at out into the world to see what ethical codes they need to be obligated to, they can begin in t he world itself they list out individuals and groups that will be affected by their operation and recognizes their right to participate in directing it. Also, the company could have been more transparent in their manufacturing operations. Thismight have prompted other researchers out there to point out DDTs disadvantages much sooner and do something about it. It had to take the governments decree to ban it in order for them to stop their activities and if that was not there they would have presumably gone on with their business.Environmental Protection Agencys EthicalityEven though DDT was not banned in other countries, it was still very unethical for the Montrose Chemical Company to go on selling this product to them. The Righteous moralist school of thought holds that multinational home standards are the right ones for companies to abide by in foreign countries. Ethical issues arise when environmental regulations in host nations are far much inferior to the ones in the home natio n. At that point, all the dangerous effects of this product were proven and known yet they still carried on selling to people across the world. The reason it was banned in America was because of the hazardous effects it had overtime affecting people, animal life and the environment as a whole. With this information conclusive and very well documented, the company should have ceased manufacture and selling of this product not just in America but to all the other countries that were getting this product. Instead they knowingly continued manufacturing and selling, disregarding completely the dangers that other people are going to face.It is also important to mention that even if the company did not know about the studies that revealed all the effects of DDT, they had a duty to be aware of it to avoid the carelessness that they ended up demonstrate resulting in the harming of people, animals and the environment. They cannot simply ignore the dangers the people, animals and the environm ent are being put in even if it is beyond their borders. The Environmental Protection Agency had no selection but to ban the whole operation because the DDT had been proven to having caused damage to the environment and harm people and animals as well. Even though this probably meant many people losing their jobs, the ultimate damage that the companys operation would have brought about would have been far more overwhelming. If they hadnt done that, naturally the company, being a business might have gone on with the selling of DDT and thats a possibility that is not worth the risk.After all, at that point, they had not shown any signs of stopping anyway because in the ten years between the Silent Spring publication by RachelCarson and when the EPA officially banned the use of DDT, business continued as usual in other countries continents such as Africa, Asia and Europe. Also, according to the EPA official website, the quick success of DDT as a pesticide and broad use in the United St ates and other countries resulted in many of the insect pest species mutating and developing a resistance to DDT and so decision new ways of dealing with the problems would be whats next. In a nutshell, the EPA would have to be answerable to the damage caused in the environment and so this was the right step.Mullers pillage discussionMullers award for his work on DDT should not be taken away from him because first and foremost, Muller had demonstrated a high level of understanding in chemistry and he did it in an honest way. For that alone he deserved the award because it is something remarkable in the field of Chemistry. In fact, his product helped solve many problems in Agriculture and even health care and so this is only more of a reason to celebrate his great work. He cannot be held responsible in any way for the misfortune DDT has brought about. His intention was good in that he was trying to find a way to protect human life from insect borne diseases. Many other advantages fo llowed such as pest control in the agriculture sector. It was only when this product started being heavily commercialized did the problems of land pollution, toxicity and cancer came about.How the discovery was used cannot be blamed on Muller. Prior to DDTs commercialization, Mueller did express his concerns about the inherent nature of DDT of how stable it is, meaning it would not be able to decompose harmlessly in the environment so from that, people should have been more careful at how they manufacture and sell DDT. Also, Muller did not take part in its commercialization that led to the environments deterioration. Therefore taking Mullers award away from him would only be unfair and outrageous.Saving lives versus environment riskThe ability to save lives is not worth the risk the environment has to be put in. From the case, it may seem that DDT is worth it as it helped control pests and saved a lot of lives but this is only a short termed and a smaller issue compared to the enti re ecosystem in the long run. The utilitarian and the Kantian philosophy brought forth by David Hume and Jeremy Bentham argues that the moral worth of actions or practices is determined by theconsequences.If the effects are desirable then the actions are worth it. The continual disposal of DDT cumulatively resulted in cases such as cancer, contamination of soil and water toxicity in milk and egg shells in birds not properly organise for birth. This in the long run disturbs the ecosystem which is essential for all life forms. The cancer only means more deaths and toxicity in milk could as well have the same result, poor health at the very least. Preserving the environment provides a more sustainable future for life and its maintenance.ConclusionIn offend of all the credits that DDT probably deserves, the damage that the environment as a whole cumulatively ends up having makes further operations ethically unacceptable and not worth it. As a company with such activities, they have t he responsibility to look after its stakeholders and the environment at large. Montrose Chemical Corporation was very careless about how they handled their manufacturing and selling of DDT and it ended up costing damage not only in the US but even in countries outside of the US. More research should have been done to anticipate this and more acts of accountability should have been shown to help mitigate the situation. By placing emphasis on ethical issues at every point in their manufacturing process, the company will ultimately do more good in the long run. A theory that was once proposed by Thomas Hobbes called the theory of social atomism states that individuals always act for their own selfish interests, and in the pristine state of man, there are no rights. This kind of attitude must be suppressed if there has to be any progress in protecting interests of stakeholders.