Please remember that this is a philosophy assignment. In your other classes, it might be okay to mindlessly parrot other people's opinions, but in philosophy you are required to think critically.
Please also remember that this is a moral philosophy
paper in which you are required to apply what you are learning about morality,
which is that morality is a real, independent thing, and
does not depend of people's feelings about what's right and
wrong. For instance, doing unjustified harm to innocent people is morally
wrong, no matter what anybody's personal "morals" might say
about the subject. Stealing, and breaking promises are also things that,
in most circumstances should be considered morally
wrong. Thus the question here is whether or not it is morally
okay for people to lie just as long as it is done for profit.
When I started college, and began reading articles that opposed each other, I had a strong tendency to agree with whichever article I was reading at the time. In order to start thinking critically, I had to understand that two opposing writers couldn't both be right. At least one of them had to be wrong, and it was my job to examine each side's arguments in order to figure out which one of them was using bad reasoning. With this in mind, I began to be able to puzzle out people's arguments, and to begin to be able to figure out when a writer was making a bad argument.
Following this I began to look more critically at the single unopposed articles I was reading, and began finding logical flaws in some of them, eventually accepting some claims as true, and rejecting others as false based on what I could figure out about the logical strength of the articles I was reading.
This critical approach is what I want you to apply to Carr's arguments. Don't just say he's right because what he says feels right to you. Do the work required by the prompt, and figure out whether or not his arguments really do logically support his claims.
To put a finer point on this, papers that give no evidence of critical
thought may receive as few as zero points.
(Red material added 03/22/22.)
Some students simply read Carr's article, say to themselves "sounds right to me" and then write a paper based on that uncritical assumption that Carr is right about everything. This is called mindlessness, and it is very bad. Do not do things this way. Instead logically critique the writer's argument that lying in business is morally okay.
Again, this is a moral philosophy paper. The issue is whether or not business lying is morally okay, NOT whether or not business lying is profitable. (Added 03/27/22.)
Aaaaaaaand, again, this is a moral philosophy paper. The question is whether or not business lying is morally okay, NOT whether or not business lying conforms to social norms, and NOT whether or not business lying conforms to business norms. (Added 10/04/22.)
THEY
KNEW AND FAILED TO…True stories of corporations that knew their
products were dangerous, sometimes deadly (New link added 4/9/23)
Maker
of Heart Device Kept Flaw From Doctors
FDA
hidden database included 37,000 reports of problems with Medtronic
defibrillator wires
Heart-Valve
Implants Recalled After Deaths
Playtex
Super-absorbent Tampons
Second
Chance Body Armor Bulletproof Vests
New links added 4/7/23
Or: Peloton
injured and killed people.
Or https://www.decof.com/documents/dangerous-products.pdf
Or: https://suddarthandkoor.com/famous-product-recalls/
Or: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/10/business/fisher-price-rocker-recall.html
For each of the dangerous products listed on one of those links, you
might ask ,was it, or would it have been morally okay
for the company to have lied about the safety of thes products.
Remember, your task is to 1. dig into the article, 2. find the writer's argument for his claim, 3. describe, 4. analyze and 5. critique that argument.
