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Hobby Lobby

Founded in 1972 by David and Barbara Green, Hobby Lobby is an industry leading retailer offering more than 70,000 arts, crafts, hobbies, home decor, holiday, and seasonal products. With its headquarters in Oklahoma City, Hobby Lobby operates over 600 stores across the nation. Believing in God, the company is operated in a manner consistent with biblical principles (hobbylobby.com, Hobby lobby’s Homepage). In June 2012, the Federal Government enforced a new order requiring all employers to offer health insurance to their employees including contraception. However, due to their Christian beliefs, Hobby Lobby refused to obey the law and filed a lawsuit against the Federal Government. In June of this year, the Supreme Court finally rejected the contraceptives mandate for corporation with religious owners and ever since Hobby Lobby is no longer required to provide contraceptive coverage for its employees. When applying the Utilitarian Theory, people should consider the consequence of any action and examine it outcome. Utilitarian theory states that an action is ethical only if no other available action creates greater total net utility. Happiness is the ultimate end and should be maximized while pain should be minimized. In the Hobby Lobby case, the company has taken the decision to not cover certain contraceptives without considering its employees well-being. Hobby Lobby is a Christian company and employs more than 16,000 people including many women. However, Hobby Lobby’s employees are not all Christian. Many of them are working there because they have to earn money and not because of their Christian beliefs. Before making any decision, it was important to find out how many employees would be affected. If Hobby Lobby’s had given the option to its employees to decide whether to cover or not the contraceptives, the company would have created happier employees. Instead, employees are obliged to pay themselves a substantial amount of money to have access to certain contraceptives. Consequently, more employees are suffering, and Hobby Lobby is not acting for the greatest happiness. Once again, people’s rights have not been taken into consideration by Hobby Lobby. Instead of considering the well-being of the majority, a selfish interest has been prioritized by the company. Therefore, Hobby Lobby is acting unethically and does not pass the utilitarian test.
Kantian Ethics states that “a maxim is universalizable if and only if you could effectively achieve your goal by acting on it in a world where everyone else was pursuing the same goal by acting similarly in similar circumstances.” Hobby Lobby is known by the government, their customers, employees and other retailers in the same industry to be religious oriented. Standing for their faith is not surprising. However, declining to pay for contraceptives is not universal among companies. To pass the Generalization test, every religious corporation must act the same way as Hobby Lobby does which is not paying for contraceptives. Others corporations or groups with religious affiliation are not refusing to pay their employees contraceptives’ coverage. In fact, a survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) in early June has found that a substantial majority of almost every major U.S. Christian group supports the idea that “publicly-held corporations and privately-owned corporations should be required to provide employees with healthcare plans that cover contraception and birth control at no cost” (Jenkins, 2014). Consequently, Hobby Lobby does not pass the Generalization test.
Virtue Ethics argues that people’s actions should be consistent with who they are. Hobby Lobby is a company with Christian religious beliefs, honoring and worshipping God. For example, the company is closed on Sundays so that employees and managers can either go to the church or spend time with their families. In fact, by refusing to cover certain contraceptives, Hobby Lobby is expressing their religious belief that life begins at contraception. Hobby Lobby is expressing their Honesty virtue. The company is honest and wants to show it by refusing openly to pay for medicine that they think stops a pregnancy. Hobby Lobby has displayed their honesty by being consistent with who they are; their actions showed that they prefer paying a daily penalty instead of paying for something conflictual with their values and faiths. Another virtue expressed by Hobby Lobby is Courage. The company courageously stand up to the Federal Government and refuse the mandate to deceive their Christian Beliefs. During several months the company has fought in courts with the lawsuit because of their desire for justice and rights. By doing so, Hobby Lobby is thinking being ethical. However, their Honesty virtue is questionable in a sense that they are not totally following their Christian belief. A document has revealed that “Hobby Lobby 401(k) employee retirement plan held more than $73 million in mutual funds with investments in companies that produce emergency contraceptive pills, intrauterine devices, and drugs commonly used in abortions” (Redden, 2014). In other words, Hobby Lobby is hypocritical due to refusing to pay for contraceptive coverage despite the fact that they are supporting companies that manufacturer abortion drugs. Clearly, Hobby Lobby is not ethical because their actions conflict with who they really are. In conclusion, Hobby Lobby is not acting ethically according to the Kantian, Utilitarian and Virtue Ethics and therefore violate each of them. Due to their Christian belief, Hobby Lobby is not allowing their employees to have the choice to decide for their fundamental rights. A structure where employers will contribute to employees’ health insurance and where employees would make decisions about how they want to use their benefits will respect the employees’ rights.

References

Hobbylobby.com, Hobby Lobby’s Homepage. (N.D). Retrieved from http://www.hobbylobby.com/home.cfm.
Jenkins, J. (June 30, 2014). Why The Hobby Lobby Decision Actually Hurts People Of Faith. Retrieved from http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/06/30/3453598/no-a-win-for-hobby-lobby-is-not-a-win-for-religion/.
Liptak, A. (June 30, 2014). Supreme Court Rejects Contraceptives Mandate for Some Corporations. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/01/us/hobby-lobby-case-supreme-court-contraception.html?_r=0.
Redden, M. (April 1, 2014). Hobby Lobby's Hypocrisy: The Company's Retirement Plan Invests in Contraception Manufacturers. Retrieved from http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/04/hobby-lobby-retirement-plan-invested-emergency-contraception-and-abortion-drug-makers.

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