Speaking Out About Malt Case Study

Speaking Out about Malt Case Study

As the associate vice president for plant management at Whitewater Brewing Company, Mary Davis believes that the marketing of those cheap high-alcohol malt liquor is immoral and unethical, because these potentially harmful products may cause many problems in urban communities. Rafter, a malt liquor brewed by Whitewater Brewing Company, is bottled in a 40-ounce size like many other similar products, which are popular with inner-city teenagers. 40s have leaded to many teenage quick drinkers by whom 40s are called “liquid crack” and “date rape brew.” Some brewers don’t even put their company name on the label in order to avoid the indication of being manufactured by a respectable company.

According to his categorical imperative, morally actions are defined as those can be made into a maxim that would be applied universally without contradictions, meaning that if the act cannot be accepted for all rational humans then the action is not moral.

Using Kant's theory to distinguish right from wrong, we could conclude that the decisions of Whitewater Brewing Company’s board are immoral by applying the test of universal law. On one hand, if there is a maxim that all brewers would produce cheap high-alcohol malt drinks which teenagers can easily get and affordable. The CEO Ralph Jenkins himself and the families of the company board would resist those products because their children are under the same risk of adolescent alcohol abuse. On the other hand, in order to maximize profit, capitalism is often criticized for the ignorance of its responsibilities toward the human society and environment. In this case, Mr. Jenkins had written Davis a memo on the board’s behalf instructing her not to comment publicly about malt liquor before clearing her remarks with him (337). Davis felt threatened because she had to either conform to the memo or resign. If everyone were threatened for expressing their opinion on any potentially immoral actions in the...