McDonald's Ethical Behavior, or Not?

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McDonalds is one of the largest food chains globally and in the U.S. It has one of the most recognized symbols with the golden arches. There are more than 34,000 local McDonalds around the world and they serve approximately 69 million people in 118 countries every single day. They also spend about two billion dollars on advertisements each year. The ethical issue that I want to address in this essay is whether or not McDonalds is ethical for advertising and selling obese and unhealthy foods to its customers. I believe it is important to explore this organization because McDonalds is one of the largest and most well-known food chains around the world. It is important to know that an organization as successful and large as them is also ethical with their approach. If a corporation as successful and profitable as McDonalds can be ethical with their selling and advertising schemes then just about any other organization or corporation striving towards that same goal can be too.
To start out, I decided to give a quick interview two different people about their opinion on McDonalds and their ethical behavior. Both of these two people come from different backgrounds, have different interests, and have a different life than one another. The first person I asked was named Dan. Dan eats fast food frequently and he also consumes and eats McDonalds at least once a week. The second person I asked was someone who was very health conscious and his name is Mike. Mike person rarely eats at McDonalds and estimated that he buys and eats from there about every three months.
The first question that I had asked them was, “What are your thoughts on McDonalds?”
Dan’s answer was, “McDonalds is a great place to go to when I need to get food in a hurry ...

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...mendation for McDonalds in their approach is to be more objective with their food items. For example, McDonalds should not only show the nutritional value for their healthy items but all of their items in their entire menu. This would help McDonalds as consumers will not possibly be misled from their information from the advertisements. McDonalds does not lie about the information of their products through advertisements or in their nutritional menu but they show selective information in the ads because they understand it is the best thing to do to maximize profit. It would increase their ethical behavior as they would be more virtuous by doing so. They are not following virtue ethics very closely by only disclosing nutritional information towards their healthiest items in advertisements but ignoring it and not discussing it in their more obese and fattening items.

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