Assessment2: Moral Reasoning Assignment (30%)

Length: 800 words

Instructions:

The aim of

this exercise isto help you become familiar with the techniques of moral reasoning and to encourage you to think critically about moral
issues. Remember to support your particular moral judgments aboutthese cases with reasons. You should aim to justify your particular moral
judgments using relevant moral principles and moral reasons. These principles may be very general, like the principle of utilitdy

(‘maximize happiness’), or common deontological principles concerned wit loyalty, promise eeping, or prohi iting killing an harming,
etc. You will find examples of all these kinds of principles in the lectures and the readings. Aim to achieve a consistent fit between your
moral beliefs, principles and particular judgments.

Make sure you answer every part of each question. Rememberto provide sufficient

detail in Section C to give a clear indication of your overall position with regards to these cases and the principles you endorse. This is

a short answer assignment. You do not need to answerthe questions in the form of an essay. Please include a bibliography with the two main
sources from the question and any additional sources you reference directly.

1A[£)sw/verALL the questions from sections A, B and C (questions

Section A

Read the following news item and answer the questions:

GlaxoSmithKline to pay $3bn in US drug fraud

scandal”

http:/A/vww.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18673220

1.What are the main ethical issues raised by GlaxoSmithKline’s decision

to promote and market drugs for unapproved uses? Do you think that such practices are morally permissible or unethical? Provide detailed
reasonsto support your conclusions.

2. Do you think it was morally acceptable for GlaxoSmithKline notto release relevant research data

and to make unsupported safety claims for one of its diabetes drugs?

Is there a moral difference between merelyfailing to provide relevant

information and actively making false claims about the safety of a drug? WhyNVhy not?

3. GSK’s activities were found to be illegal. Would

it make a difference to your assessment ofthe case if such activities were not against the law? WhyNVhy not?

Section B

Watch or read the

transcript ofthe following program and answerthe questions:

Globesity: Fat’s New

Frontier.

http:/A/vww.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2012/s3547707.htm

4. Do large food and beverage companies have any moral obligation or

responsibility to considerthe consequences for public health of marketing and distributing certain kinds of food and drink products?
WhyNVhy not? Answerthis question using examples from the documentary to support your conclusions.

5. The program describes a range of

marketing techniques used by food and beverage companies in different countries: the marketing of soft drinksto schools in Mexico; the door
to door selling of snack foods fortified with micronutrients and marketed to low income families in Brazil; a snack food boatthat visits
small villages along the Amazon to promote and sell food and drinks. Do you find any ofthese marketing techniques morally problematic?
Explain in each case,why orwhy not.

Section C

6. Compare your responses to the two cases. Do you applythe same principles and

standards of conductto pharmaceutical companies as you do to food and beverage companies? What are the morally relevant
differences/similarities between the two cases?

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