The Amazon and Facebook Firms Business Ethics

Introduction

Amazon and Facebook are giants and are among the brightest representatives of their industries. However, both of them do not possess a perfect reputation within many frameworks. Numerous problems have been reported by newspapers, scholars, and mass media, shedding light on the companies insignificant business practices. Such a state of affairs makes the comparison of these corporations in the ethical dimension relevant. The discussion below aims to discover which company is ethically worse by appealing to the theories of duty-based, virtue, and consequentialist ethics Amazon or Facebook.

Issues of Amazon

Amazon is a notorious tax evader and the focus of a worldwide movement to boycott. The worlds largest online retailer generates enormous sales yet pays a small amount of corporate tax. It does this by funneling funds via its Luxembourg holding company, a known tax haven. Amazon has been criticized for much more than simply tax evasion (Winkie, 2022). It was reported that Amazon seems to have no decent wage strategy and that their supplier code makes no mention that pay is sufficient to fulfill employees fundamental necessities.

In June 2018, a Seattle Times investigation revealed the bad treatment of certain Chinese Amazon employees (Ethical Consumer, 2022). It characterized how the Hengyang institution utilizes short-term and contract employees in a manner that violates Chinese law; workplace time spent having to wait to clock in is not recompensed; work overload of up to 100 hours per month surpasses legal boundaries.

Then, Amazons environmental disclosure obtains a very low grade (Peters, 2021). When the agencies searched for Amazons guidelines on toxic chemicals utilized in the manufacturing of clothing brands, they were unable to locate any details, despite the fact that the production of clothing frequently results in the discharge of countless hazardous materials that adversely affect the environment.

Amazon was urged for a boycott in 2012 due to its tax dodging. Amazon, the worlds largest online retailer, produced £2.9 billion in UK sales in 2011 but only paid £1.8 million in corporate tax (Ethical Consumer, 2022). At that time, the proper amount should have exceeded £8 million based on the full level of corporate tax. Thus, lawmakers attacked their dishonest accounting techniques. At a time when public services in the United Kingdom were being curtailed, and family budgets were under growing pressure, Ethical Consumer (2022) believed it was unjust that large corporations such as Amazon were not paying their fair share. Because nothing has changed, our seven-year Amazon boycott continues.

Issues of Facebook

Facebook tackles questions concerning the acquisition and utilization of the huge user data it receives. Privacy and user control over the data submitted to Facebook are the key concerns of Facebook users. Facebook addresses the problem of how to monetize user data without infringing on their privacy (Nicholls, 2021). When adopting new, invasive software, the company and its management failed to tackle the privacy concerns of its customers. Facebook is a free website that users pay for by providing data about their lives, relationships, interests, and hobbies.

It should be underlined that Facebook does not appear to be able to have a successful business model without breaching users privacy. Facebook spends the same amount on advertising and reaching individuals as it does to create advertising income. There are no charges connected with joining or utilizing Facebook; it appears that they merely threw in a few advertisements and hoped that its prominence would attract people. Evidently, Facebooks business model is primarily dependent on advertising (Lauer, 2021). In order to customize its adverts, Facebook must collect more user data, so indirectly jeopardizing individual privacy. Facebook has major challenges in preventing the violation of user privacy.

Yet, there are a number of significant positive signs about Facebooks stance. It is one of the worlds largest and quickest-growing social networking services. Facebook attracts customers who want a more organized social networking environment due to its straightforward and ordered layout. It provides a unique opportunity for marketers to contact highly targeted individuals based on their demographic information and strict criteria (Steinhorst, 2021). Due to the websites information gathering and vibrant social networking environment, Facebook offers a wealth of chances. Its leadership position in the social networking industry leads to its capacity to acquire more customers.

Ethical Theories

Consequentialist Ethics

The consequentialist principle states that the morality of an action is determined by the value of its effects. Consequently, the aims justify the methods, and each action is evaluated based on its outcomes rather than its fundamental worth. Utility Principle: What is our objective? Happiness? Pleasure? For Bentham, life was all about maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain (Sinnott-Armstrong, 2019). Hence, an action is correct if it creates more pleasure than pain or avoids pain, while an action is incorrect if it produces more pain than pleasure or eliminates pleasure.

The advantages are that it eliminates mystery from the domain of ethics. The theory promotes altruism as a lifestyle, thereby enhancing the lives of others. It also provides a non-complicated unified device that is broadly applicable. On the other hand, it lacks any moral element, as well as cannot determine the quantification problem. Then, outrageous and horrific actions could be justified, as how much good outweighs evil is not defined as well. Moreover, it fails to recognize any individual rights that cannot be infringed.

Virtue Ethics

Virtue ethics seeks to make the human a better person and implant in him/her virtuous attributes. Nevertheless, it is of little use when confronted with an ethical issue since it provides no recommendations on how to proceed. If moral reasoning is supposed to assist in resolving ethical issues, what if ones reason is incorrect or immoral? Virtue ethics motivates human moral development; it focuses on the individual and becoming a better individual, with a greater emphasis on individuality and moral reasoning growth (Hursthouse, 2022). However, there is no final solution to the question regarding what virtues are since they change with time. There is no unique and final solution to moral difficulties, and it is difficult to discern a persons motivations.

Duty-Based Ethics

Duty-based ethics is a moral theory in which the traditional ethical concept of good and wrong is based on a set of rules to follow rather than the repercussions of such a choice. It is a notion based on the responsibility or duty of a person to treat everyone else with respect. Since duty-based ethics focuses on acts rather than results when defining morality, a decision to take no action remains a moral option (BBC, n.d). With this mentality, one is not focused on the result but on the trip, they take to reach their objective.

Unfortunately, from a deontological standpoint, the definition of good and wrong relies on the abilities and perceptions of the persons concerned. According to deontological ethics, one is to always do the proper thing, regardless of the circumstances. Then, according to the moral principle underlying deontological ethics, every individual has a responsibility to always act morally. One must concentrate on the acts made rather than the outcomes obtained.

Supplementary Theories

In order to provide more perspectives, it seems reasonable to apply a number of supplementary ethical theories in addition to the fundamental ones above. Particularly, ethical egoism is the belief that individuals should seek their own self-interest and that no one is obligated to promote the interests of others. Hence, it may be viewed as a normative or prescriptive paradigm since it focuses on how individuals ought to act. Ethical egoism is not a widely accepted moral theory (Westacott, 2019). This is because it contradicts fundamental ethical notions held by the majority of individuals. Two objections appear particularly strong. When an issue with conflicting interests develops, ethical egoism has no remedies to give. Then, ethical egoism contradicts the impartiality concept. Many moral philosophers, as well as many other individuals, assume that people should not discriminate against others for unjustified reasons such as race, religion, gender, sexual preference, or ethnicity. Yet according to ethical egoism, one should not even attempt to be impartial.

Right ethics are the ethics most crucial to human rights. According to this philosophy, human rights are the highest standard and must be upheld. Human rights and legal rights are fundamentally distinct. Instances of human rights include freedom of expression, freedom of speech, and the right to privacy. Rights-based ethics is comparable to duties-based ethics. In both contexts, certain ethical principles give direction for ones actions, and those values must be followed regardless of the consequences. Nevertheless, unlike responsibilities, rights-based ethics focus their weight on defining ones options. The difficulty here is more about defining precisely where and when one is free to do as one likes and then selecting where one must stop to allow others to be free. Nevertheless, concentrating ethics of rights on the individual provides little room for consensus over how people may coexist. Then, when two or more of these clear and understandable rights dispute, they are said to be in conflict. Under such situations, it is difficult to determine which rights to others.

Ethical Theories Application

Given the analysis above, consequentialist ethics appeal to the outcomes or results of ones particular actions the extent to which they lead to good or evil. In the business field, this is reflected in a positive or negative impact on society as a whole, the planet, and the customers/employees of a company. The explored issues suggest that Amazon has problems in the dimension of service delivery, working environment, and ecology. Facebook, in turn, seems to have troubles only in the field of service delivery particularly in the aspect of privacy.

However, it might be assumed that for the consequentialist approach, it is essential that the effects of a companys actions could have direct and material results. Facebook fulfills the customers needs of communication, expression, and interaction with the world on the Web. The quality of services seems to be high, and privacy breaches are not likely to harm society considerably. Such breaches are done to improve the quality of services and may be revealed to a particular institution only when the severity of a users possible action may harm people significantly. Amazon, in turn, has a direct negative multidimensional impact, which has adverse effects on the world. Hence, from the consequentialist perspective, Facebook is better than Amazon.

While appealing to virtue ethics within the business sphere especially when there is a discussion on big players like Amazon and Facebook it is essential to determine virtues that can be inherent to them. In other words, there is a necessity to formulate virtues in a way they could be applied to the mentioned companies. It might be assumed that there are two crucial dimensions in which virtues may be defined for Amazon and Facebook. First, it is a companys inner policy, that is, its attitude and treatment toward employees. Second, it is a firms relationship with customers, that is, the way it delivers products and services.

Within the first dimension, a corporation is to be socially responsible in terms of caring about staff, possessing significant remuneration and incentives system, and having healthy working conditions. Amazon seems less virtuous than Facebook in this vein, given the cases explored above. On the other hand, within the second dimension, virtue would be transparency in terms of how products/services are delivered. Amazons reputation in this regard is far from perfect, but it seems not to deceive its issues within the scope given and visibly tries to address them by advancing policies. Facebook, in turn, tends to act in disguise while breaching privacy and collecting users data. Particular cases show that the company addresses such problems only when they are public allies revealed by a third party, but it does not work on them systematically the policy is not likely to change (Newcomb, 2018). Thus, from this perspective, Facebook is worse.

It seems rational to state that in the business field, the formulated virtue of transparency is more important, and social responsibility has a defined sense. The primary aim in business under virtue ethics is to satisfy customers in the best way possible (the most virtuous one). After this, there are other aspects starting from environmentally friendly practices and ending with healthy working conditions. Hence, in the framework of virtue ethics, Facebook is worse than Amazon.

It should be re-stated that duty-based ethics suggest that one should act according to particular responsibilities that is considered appropriate keeping aloof from possible results. This is significantly visible from the perspective of corporate social responsibility. Given the studied cases, Amazon is much worse than Facebook if its appeals to the number of ways in which the former act irresponsibly. However, the extent to which Facebooks privacy issue is worse or better in this context should be discussed.

It might be stated that the responsibilities of delivering high-quality services and satisfying customer needs overweight the ones of ensuring privacy. The data is collected for Facebooks business needs increasing profits, understanding client interests, and projecting the industrial environment. All of these are required so that the services could be of the highest quality, which users of Facebook indeed feel, and which is the primary aim and responsibility in the business dimension. Hence, in terms of duty-based ethics, Facebook is better than Amazon.

Here, it seems reasonable to turn to the supplementary theories that may give more perspectives. First, egoism will be applied; according to the theory, a company is to act in favor of its interests and needs. In this regard, Amazon responds to the unsatisfied public by adapting and changing its policies. Facebook, in turn, despite its attempts to settle loud conflicts, does not tend to shift its policies considerably. It continues to gather users private data in order to enhance its incomes and stability, which is evident from continuously arising issues of the same character. Hence, in the egoism framework, Facebook is better than Amazon. The opposite case is with ethics of rights. Facebook tends to breach the fundamental right of privacy constantly, while Amazon genuinely tries to avoid such breaches and improve its performance in this regard.

To conclude this section and the paper, it is necessary to define which company is ethically worse Facebook or Amazon. It might be assumed that the business field refers, in the first turn, to the practical dimension. This implies that the aspects of high-quality services, employee/customer satisfaction, and corporate social responsibility are among the primary indicators to consider. It seems that consequentialist and duty-based ethics along with egoism to an exact degree refer to these aspects apparently, while virtue ethics and ethic of rights do not consider them crucial. Hence, given that it was found that Facebook is better than Amazon within the scope of consequentialist and duty-based ethics, Amazon is ethically worse.

Reflection Paper

The research was dedicated to the exploration of the following theme: which company is ethically worse Facebook or Amazon? There was a necessity to apply a number of ethical theories so that the discussion could be evidence-based and complex. This reflection paper will explore the experiences of the author during the studys conduct.

The initial aspect that had to be addressed was the discovery of issues that Amazon and Facebook have faced. A multidimensional analysis was done so that the necessary foundation for ethics applications could be provided. Numerous sources were explored, which advanced the authors skills in terms of academic research and approach toward reliable sources. It was found that both Amazon and Facebook have had many issues that cause social reproach.

Then, referring to the mentioned findings, it was necessary to apply particular ethical theories. The following ones were chosen duty-based, consequentialist, and virtue ethics. Such a choice was founded on the fact that these theories are fundamental in the ethical framework. Supplementary theories of egoism and ethic of rights provided more perspectives. After their essentials and limitations were provided, Amazon and Facebook were analyzed through the prism of the mentioned concepts. This is a significant theoretical background that will help the author to conduct ethical analysis through different perspectives to achieve a great extent of the findings reliability.

The application of the theories to Amazon and Facebook allowed the suggestion that the former is ethically worse than the latter. Such a conclusion is founded on the fact that in terms of duty-based and consequentialist ethics, as well as egoism, Facebook is better than Amazon. However, in the framework of virtue ethics and ethics of rights, Amazon appeared to be better than Facebook. Fact that duty-based and consequentialist ethics are more practically orientated which is crucial for the business sphere it was assumed that Facebook was more significant within the scope given. Such an analysis developed the authors skills of critical evaluation and reflection, which is essential for the academic dimension.

Conclusion

To conclude, the above reflections are dedicated to the research that was conducted to define which company is ethically worse Amazon or Facebook. It was stated that the study developed the authors skills of critical reflection and academic research, as well as enriched their knowledge within the scope of ethics, which will be important for further studies of a similar kind. In the future, an investigation may be provided with a focus on giant corporations from the same industry such as Apple and Samsung so that application of theories could be more complex and diverse, given the necessity to compare policies directly and specifically. This approach would also imply the application of a few more theories in order to ensure that the ethical aspect could be discovered in a thorough and coherent manner.