Business Ethics- A Case Study Of Mac

Animal Testing in Cosmetics Industry- with regards to Ethics Introduction Animals have been studied since ancient Greece, and today, they are used in lab research for drugs, cosmetics and household products. Animal testing has generated a lot of debates, some people argues that animal testing is necessary since benefit for human being is the most important reason of animal testing, even though it brings an amount of harmful and discomfort to those animals being tested. In the other hand, some opponent s argues that animal testing is useless because those animals have their own rights, if the research is definitely causing animals irritant reactions and body injuries, what exactly the right do human have to make those animals suffer such painful procedure?

To discuss further, to what extent does animal testing out weight than any injury that made to those animals? As we know, animal testing is mainly used in drug testing, cosmetic testing and household product testing. The importance of drug and medication test is important for no doubt, the issue of animal testing in medication seldom brings as much debates as animal test in cosmetics and household product does. This question probably could be deducted to following reason. Most people would feel that the benefit of medication testing does benefit for the entire human world. Indeed, creations of vaccine, antibiotic and medications have already save lives around the world. However, for people who against animal testing, research for cosmetics and household products seem not to be that importance as medication test is. Purpose to become prettier is not that persuasive as purpose to save human lives is.

Recent years, issue of animal testing has been highly valued, especially in Europe, in 2013, EU has already banned animal testing officially. Those big cosmetics corporations such as P&G, Johnson's and L`Oréal are gradually shut down their labs for animal testing and announce that they are not going to do animal testing again. While those behave companies like Body shop and Mac, they against animal testing way before they doing business, so as the released of this regulation, animal issue is paid highly attention again by people, those ethical companies are benefit from it as well. Just when the animal testing about to have a happy ending, China, the biggest market in this world, decided to remain its regulation to launch animal testing to cosmetics industry. This law has changed a lot, for those companies that refused doing animal testing for their products, they have to reconsider the whole situation whether or not going to China market, and which ethics standard they should believe. This difficult problem complex the decision making for managers. It seems that the diversion of this ethical issue has already caused damages to those companies, no matter which decision they made.

Is Animal testing necessary for cosmetics? This topic has generated a lot of debates for years, some people argues that in order to maximize the benefit for entire human beings, it is worth to sacrifice some animals while some opponent argue that besides the rule of mother nature, human has no right to sacrifice the lives of animal to benefit itself. From philosophical perspectives, there are some different points of view that could provide some explanation about animal right.

Kant "Act as to treat humanity, both in your own person, and in the person of every other, always at the same time as an end, never simply as a means." (Kant, 1991) Basically speaking, Kant means that individual should respect people by not using them in the way they would not consent to since people are autonomous. In order to have autonomy one must have free will which means self-consciousness and the capacity to be guided by reason. However, animals are not autonomous according to Kant's believe. "Animals are not self-conscious and are there merely as a means to an end. The end is man."(Kant, 1991) Thus, Kant suggests that we have no direct duties to animals. That is, we have no duty to respect or foster the ends of animals. "If any acts of animals are analogous to human acts and spring from the same principles, we have duties towards the animals because thus we cultivate the corresponding duties towards human beings."(Kant, 1991) Though Kant knew that animals would feel pain, however, from his perspective, it is not enough for animal to become the "end" as human. To sum up, Kant suggests that "Our duties towards animals are merely indirect duties towards humanity." It is due to only rational beings can be end. This, however, presents a large problem for Kantians.

Regan Regan regards himself as an advocate of animal rights, and he suggests that the animal rights movement is committed to a number of goals, including: the total abolition of the use of animals in science; the total dissolution of commercial animal agriculture; the total elimination of commerce and sport hunting and trapping. (Regan, 1983) He argues that the whole system is so wrong that made human choose what human want to believe and ignore phenomenon that against believe. Take cosmetics animal testing for example, toxicity tests of cosmetics on animals violates animals' rights, but important medical research - cancer research, for example - does not. The fundamental wrong is the system that allows us to view animals as our resources, here for us - to be eaten, or surgically manipulated, or exploited for sport or money.(Regan, 1983) In sum, the central argument of Regan's philosophical thinking is the concept of similarities between human beings and animals. As he said," I use the expression "subjects-of-a-life" to refer to them. "

From the perspective of utilitarianism, if animal testing provided happiness in the end and reduced pain toward to world then animal testing is the right thing to do, and when this point of view extend to the question that is the happiness of those people be cured greater than the discomfort of animals that be tested in the lab? It seem that such question would be extended again and again since it also brought up another question, that is, The question is not, can they reason? Nor can they talk? But, can they suffer? (Bentham,1996) To examine animal testing from a utilitarian point of view, the first thing we should consider is whether or not an animal can feel pain, or suffer. From Miller's view, he would seem to argue that the happiness of someone who has been cured by the medicine that created by the result of animal testing would be longer lasting. (Friedman, 1962 )As for Jeremy Bentham, he was purely focus on the amount of pleasure produced. Opponent of animal testing could argue that they could not experience pleasure when they aware that the medication progress is based on the injury and death of animals. All in all, after calculated the happiness and the suffering between each instance, people could always find a standpoint to explain their acts since utilitarianism depends on the amount of happiness and discomfort that individual perceived.

Another issue is that for those companies which carry out animal testing, the motivation is to reduce the risk for their consumers or is for profit oriented? If companies implement animal testing just to make their consumer believe their products are persuasive and safe, and boost the sales then, the motivation is very unjustifiable. For example, some household product and cosmetics products like detergent and foundation are not necessary for eyeball test, however, those companies still do such extra eyeball test in order to have a reason to put the animal testing proofed sticker on their products, and make lots of advertisements and commercial propaganda to disseminate consumers how trustful their products would be. Of course, there still are some good companies that they do animal testing truly based on good will, but it is a big gray area between good will and bad will and it is too hard for us to tell. Such issue has made scientists to rethink profoundly that if there are other ways to substitute animal testing? The answer is yes. Take eyeball test for example, the traditional method is called Draize which is devised by Dr. John Draize in 1944. Draize test is mainly used in rabbits, researchers first made rabbits be fixed in an equipment, and then rub products that are being tested into rabbits' eyes, the whole experiment would last for 3 to 7 days, during these days, no matter how discomfort and irritant those rabbits are, their injury eyes won't be treated. Luckily, scientists have already found other ways to do the eyeball tests, they found out that plant tissue have highly similarity with human eyeball cells, also, plant test have several advantages that animal testing does not have which are low cost, more precisely results and time-saving.

Why not change? Since plant testing has those advantages, why those companies still use animal testing? This question could be interpreted into following factors.

Cost Even though plant testing is much cheaper than animal testing since the cost of feeding animals but the cost here refers to the cost of shut down the lab and the cost of layoff employers that used to work in the lab. Also, the cost here refers to the cost of change the composition of company's original product. It is due to the new testing method has been testified that it can precisely observe the reaction when product is dropped on the tissue, therefore, in order to pass the new testing methods, companies may need to change some composition of their products and invest more capital in R&D.

Consumer issue - ARE WE HYPOCRITICLE? Another reason that companies refused to change animal testing to other methods is consumer issue that is they all afraid that consumers might not think their products are trustworthy anymore. Indeed, for consumers, they might know that animal testing is very cruelty, and they might also be aware that there are other testing methods could take place of animal testing, however, consumers are forgetful, once they are doing the real purchasing thing, for example, a female customer is buying a foundation in store, she knows that the average time for her to wear foundation per day is roughly 10 hours, therefore, she must choose the product that would not cause any irritation to her skin. Having such thought, she sees there are two different brand of foundation on the shelf, one of them has a label says that this product has been tested by plant, and it is 100 percent safe. Will she but this product without any doubt? Indeed, consumers don't have enough information and knowledge to identify the pro's and con's between animal and plant testing, plus, it is almost impossible for companies to invest money to produce commercial campaign to educate consumers about those knowledge, therefore, such bad cycle made consumers become accessary of unethical companies. Consumers may feel sorry and sad for those animals that have been tested cruelty, but they may still purchase products that have been animal tested. Such consumer behavior has spoiled many unethical companies, for example, P&G once said to media about its commend for animal testing, " We will never stop doing animal testing, because our customers has already support us by their consumption."

We, as consumers, have already involved in this ethical issue, and we need to ask ourselves that are we being hypocritical?

How Cosmetics corporations deal with ANIMAL TESTING After discuss the fuse of the whole story, next, this essay will focus on the issue in cosmetic industry. For now, after decades of emerging, skin care and cosmetics industry are basically dominated by three biggest corporations which are L`Oréal , P&G and Estee Lauder. All of the big three corporations has numerous sub-brand under the parent company. Each individual brand has its own corporate motto, no matter the reason that brand become part of the family brand is whether by acquisition or by strategy of parent company. Take MAC cosmetics for example, the famous one of its mission statement is that it refuses to adopt animal testing methods, and uses natural ingredient only. However, in 1998, Estee Lauder merged MAC, ever since then, people who concerns for animal testing have been watched for the next step of MAC, it is because that Estee Lauder was notorious for its animal testing and this feature happened to against the principle of MAC when it original operated. Similar situation also happened when L`Oréal bought The Body Shop. The Body Shop is the ethical company that always on the good company list of PETA while L`Oréal is contrary on the list of unethical company for a long time. When merge completed, the principle of mission statement should follow the new parent company or should stick to its original ones? Such issues have been bothered cosmetics industry for a long time. In order to clarify such dilemma situation, cosmetics companies usually follow the Utilitarian approach, and, normally, after profit analysis, corporations would choose the way that produces the most happiness to them which is the decision that would generate the greatest amount of money.

Another issue for skin care and cosmetics companies is how those bad companies become good companies? European Union has banned animal testing since 11th March, 2013. This move has made so many cosmetics companies give up animal testing for good, those cosmetics which used to do animal testing started to issue public statement to inform consumers that they no longer launch animal testing. It started to seen as a wonderful ending for animal issue in Europe. However, some media has found out that the ugly truth about this good news is that those companies outsourced animal testing work to Asia, or, those companies asked their suppliers to make sure their resources tested by animals. Thought, some companies that have been named and shamed by this scandal announced that they did not know their suppliers were doing animal testing before informed by media, indeed, it is also a big grey area, nevertheless, it brought out another ethical issue that is, could those companies be out of responsibility by telling people they were unwitting this truth?

Paradox of Ethical responsibility In 17 century, seminary thought that the moral responsibility should base on the knowledge that people aware before, if one argues that he did not know his act could be seen as a crime then there is no reason to tell he is guilty. This rule is accorded to the principle of Probabilism. Today, many individual or companies still use this concept to protect themselves from legal liability. Jansenism used to accuse Seminary for condoning faults. It has been a difficult issue for legal workers. How to separate the responsibility between self-definition of innocence and truth? Case of conscience should not be used for shirking responsibility. However, such paradox is hard to be solved as long as human beings are selfish.

EAST V.S. WEST By law, China has a totally opposite regulation from Europe After having some initial understanding about the paradox between animal testing and cosmetics industry, this essay would discuss the situation in China next. Facing animal issue, China has a different attitude about animal testing, that is, according to the law in China, all human cosmetics sold in China must first be tested on animal. Unlike European Union that banned animal testing for good, the purpose of China issued such regulation is to protect their citizen from injury, but just like this essay mentioned above, there are other substitute methods can test the product to ensure the security. Still, China government strictly carries out this law. This diversification between western and eastern regulation has made corporations between a hard and rock position. Confusion here is why there is such big difference in ethical issue?

Universal law could probably provide some basic view point for this issue, there are several ethical standards that could apply across geographical boundary while there are some ethics codes totally different from country to country. According to ISCT (Integrative Social Contract Theory), it provides some space for different views of ethical values to coexist. ISCT is basically a midway on the spectrum of moral belief, it allows substantial moral free space for nations and other economic communities to shape their distinctive concept of economic fairness but it draw lines at the flagrant neglect of core human values.( Donald and Dunfee, 1999) Also, Donald and Dunfee mentioned that even though moral standard differ from countries but it is still possible united the diversification as long as people in that community agreed. Thus, it seems that western and eastern governments have different attitude toward animal testing, as time passes, business activities and merged of moral standards, it eventually would figure out a physical way to solve this issue.

FACING MONEY, Yes or No? The biggest problem that ails cosmetics companies now is whether to go for China market. To make this decision, cosmetics companies need to consider so many conditions such as betrayal feelings from costumers of Europe and America, market share, and profit. Especially for those companies that refused to launch animal testing before European Union banned it, the reason they against animal testing is based on their original principle of corporation,

YES? Shareholder Theory Social responsibility of business is to increase its profit. (Friedman, 1962) Friedman's theory is based on the perspective from economics. Shareholder theory opposed to let employers take the social responsibility of corporation since if they are bound to take the responsibility of the result, every decision they make would directly or indirectly cause damage for shareholders. Hence, in this case, although animal testing would make their customers of Europe feel betrayal, however, considering the China market would provide numerous profits for cosmetics corporations, shareholder theory would definitely suggest cosmetics corporations to go for China.

NO? Normative ethics Normative ethics are guidelines that help business to make decisions that fit the moral standard, especially for international businesses.

Stakeholder Theory Differ from the perspective of shareholder theory, stakeholder theory suggest that the corporation should " having to do good to do well' rather than " having to do well to do good." Consider the each part of the corporation and each individual that involve in the business activity, companies should not march to China market. Although dropping out from the biggest market of the world seems very pity for corporations, however, as long as doing the right thing, corporations should stick to it and take social responsibility seriously.

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