PHI445

PHI445 Week 1 Discussion Utilitarianism, Deontology, and Virtue Ethics: Case Study: Starbucks Recently, Starbucks was confronted with a racial bias incident. Starbuck chairman Howard Schultz stated “Trying to, as a white person, fully understand as much as possible the fact that a person of color never quite feels comfortable in a public space in America, and hearing it from them, because it’s not something we think about, how can we be better people?” Schultz said, “How can we be better citizens? What else can we do to try and advance a feeling of equality in the country?” Starbucks used utilitarianism as a means to resolve the ethical dilemma. Starbucks closed 8,000 stores to provide race bias training. Publically announcing the training and closing stores to provide the training was a cost benefit and consequence of the issue. Closing the stores was a cost benefit because in today’s social climate, having a negative image towards race, can cause a company to go out of business. Starbucks quickly recognized the ethical problem then swiftly attempted to resolve it. Utilitarianism is the belief that “an action is morally right if the consequences of that action are more favorable than unfavorable to everyone” (Fieser, 2015, section 1.3). Per the text “Cost benefit is the distinguishing feature of utilitarianism.” and “when determining the morality of any given action, we should list all of the good and bad consequences that would result, determine which side is weightier, and judge the action to be right if the good outweighs the bad” (Feiser, 2015, section 1.3). Simply stated, utilitarianism characteristics are cost benefit and consequences. Virtue theory ethics “is the view virtue ethics is the “view that morality is grounded in the virtuous character traits that people acquire” (Feiser, 2015, section 1.3). A characteristic of virtue theory ethics is, if one has a virtuous mentality, then ones behavior will also be virtuous. There are three habitual responses of virtue ethics also known as vices, overindulgence, insensibility and temperance. Overindulgence is self-explanatory and insensibility is the opposite extreme and temperance is the middle; moderation. Aristotle stated finding the perfect middle ground is not an easy task, but it is something that decent people must find (Feiser, 2015). Deontological theory or “Duty Theory” “is the position that moral standards are grounded in instinctive rational obligations or duties we all have” (Feiser, 2015, section 1.3). The belief is we are all born embedded with basic moral principles or guidelines and we use these to judge the morality of people’s actions. Two characteristics of deontological theory are we have a vast catalog of moral rules such as the Ten Commandments and the golden rule of do unto others as you would have them do unto you. References: Siegel, R. (2018) Here’s what to expect from today’s Starbucks racial bias training. The Washington Post. Retrieved from Frieser, J. (2015). Introduction to business ethics [Electronic version]. Retrieved from