Unocal

Unocal is an oil company that was faced with an ethical dilemma. The owners and managers of this company wanted to invest money in Yadana project, and then got enormous profit. They knew that the government of the country, where this project was took place, violated the human rights of the local people. Unocal had evidence of these actions, but they decided to invest money in this project. To determine if their actions were ethical or not, we need to look at this problem from four different perspectives: utilitarian, rights, justice, and ethics of care.

According to Velasquez, utilitarianism is “a general term for any view that holds that actions and polices should be evaluated on the basis of the benefits and costs they will impose on society” (Velasquez, 2012, p.78). To determine how company should have behaved in this situation according to utilitarianism, the managers needed to complete four actions:

1. Considered all alternatives (invest money or not);

2. For each alternative action they needed to estimate direct and indirect benefits and costs that the action would produce for every person affected by the action;

3. For each action they needed to subtract the cost from the benefits to determine the net utility of each action;

4. The action that produced the greatest sum total of utility must be chosen.

The benefits of Unocal’s actions included improvements in education, improved health care, new transportation infrastructure and small business opportunities, and improved the economy of Thailand. The harm from their actions included forced labor, relocation of local people without any compensation, torture, murder, and rape. Unocal believed that they provided more benefits than harm to the Burmese people. So, from this...

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...ustice, rights, and ethics of care points of view. Just from the utilitarian perspective, the company acted reasonably and ethically. It shows that Unocal should reconsider their actions and start to care about other people, not only their profit. They showed that their actions helped Burmese people in general (improvements in education, health care, new transportation infrastructure and small business opportunities). But it still did not help people who were murdered, forced to work, and relocated without any compensation. Since Unocal decided to invest money in Yadana Field project, they must provide safe working and living conditions for local people.

Works Cited

1. Velasquez, M. G. (2012). Business Ethics: concepts and cases. Boston, MA. Pearson.

2. Dictionary. (n. d.). Justice. Retrieved April 29, 2014, from

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/justice.