Skip to content

ACCA Strategic Professional · Strategic Business Leader · Professionalism, ethical codes and the public interest

Marlow Pharma plans to close a plant. The board compares the job losses with the savings that will protect 4,000 jobs elsewhere and lower medicine prices for many patients, and decides to close because this gives the greatest overall benefit to the greatest number of stakeholders. Which ethical approach is the board applying?

The board is applying utilitarianism, a consequentialist approach. It judges the closure by the overall outcome, choosing the option that delivers the greatest benefit to the greatest number of stakeholders, even though some workers lose out. Duty-based approaches would focus on rules and rights instead.

  1. APluralist approach based on stakeholder voting rights
  2. BUtilitarianism, a form of consequentialismCorrect
  3. CKantian categorical imperative
  4. DVirtue ethics

Explanation

Utilitarianism judges actions by whether they produce the greatest good for the greatest number. The board weighs outcomes across stakeholders and picks the option with the best net benefit. A Kantian approach would instead ask whether the act could be a universal rule and treat people as ends, not means.

Did you get it right without looking?

One question tells you little. A timed set on Professionalism, ethical codes and the public interest shows your real accuracy, how long you take and where you lose marks.

Practise Professionalism, ethical codes and the public interestFree diagnostic mock

More Professionalism, ethical codes and the public interest questions