Everyday Ethics

First and foremost, thanks to all of you who have waited patiently while I have put this website on hold in order to deal with some personal matters.  In the past month I have become a parent, moved from Colorado to Ohio, and started a PhD program.  Needless to say, I’ve been busy.  But as life begins to settle down, it’s time to get back to the business of everyday ethics.  After all, it’s not as though ethical questions just disappeared while I’ve been away.

In fact, a very interesting ethical problem emerged last week in the form of a landmark judgment against Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company.  For the fourth time this decade, Pfizer was found guilty of encouraging the off-label prescribing of one of its products, in this case the arthritis pain medication Bextra.

While off-label prescribing is a common medical practice, it’s illegal for pharmaceutical companies to encourage it, market products for it, or educate doctors about it.  Pfizer did all of these things, mostly in the form of all-expenses paid educational conferences at lavish resorts with attractive amenities, all paid for by the company.  The judgment against Pfizer was massive:  $2.3 billion, plus ten years of government oversight regarding their marketing procedures.

One U.S. attorney cited a problematic group norm as part of the explanation for Pfizer’s continuous violations.  Pfizer, according to this attorney, is plagued by a pervasive belief that penalties are a part of doing business.  In other words, the financial payoffs of marketing off-label uses are worth the threat of punishment.  Pfizer’s employees seemingly subscribe to a kind of group relativism.  According to their group norms, Pfizer’s risks, to themselves and others, are justified by the profits that these risks produce.

I must give credit to my students at Bowling Green for pointing out that Pfizer’s group relativism doesn’t necessarily commit us to the view that their risk-taking is morally justified when it produces profit, even if we adopt group relativism ourselves.  For one thing, Pfizer’s risks affect people that don’t subscribe to Pfizer’s social norms.  Even if Pfizer thinks their actions are morally acceptable, that doesn’t mean the non-Pfizerites of greater society can’t disagree.

Further, as my students pointed out, the norm that says profit justifies harm isn’t the only norm that Pfizer subscribes to.  As a for-profit company, Pfizer has a duty to meet the needs of their shareholders, namely providing them with reasonable financial dividends.  At some point, Pfizer’s propensity for collecting hefty fines will interfere with this duty.

What does this tell us about group relativism?  One of the criticisms of group relativism is that it doesn’t allow for criticisms of a group’s moral rules by people who are not members of that group.  Pfizer’s norms are theirs, our norms are ours.  But my students have demonstrated that it is possible to criticize another group’s norms without rejecting group relativism as a theory.  None of the criticisms my students raised rely on any appeal to an objective moral theory, or even a theory other than group relativism.

This also tells us a few things about everyday ethics.  First, even individuals with minimal training are capable of sophisticated philosophical analysis, provided they think critically about relevant concepts.  Further, this example demonstrates the usefulness of using everyday examples as a vehicle for investigating and evaluating ethical theories.  By applying theories to real cases, we can better understand what those theories are and are not committed to.

About the Author

Elijah Weber is a graduate student at Bowling Green State University. He holds a Master's degree in philosophy from Colorado State University, and Bachelor’s degrees in sociology and philosophy from Chapman Univerity. He currently lives in Bowling Green, Ohio with his wife Laura, his newborn son Brandon, and his feline life-partner Monte.