Speaking Out about Malt Case Study
As the associate vice president for plant management at Whitewater Brewing Company, Mary Davis believes that the marketing of those cheap high-alcohol malt liquor is immoral and unethical, because these potentially harmful products may cause many problems in urban communities. Rafter, a malt liquor brewed by Whitewater Brewing Company, is bottled in a 40-ounce size like many other similar products, which are popular with inner-city teenagers. 40s have leaded to many teenage quick drinkers by whom 40s are called “liquid crack” and “date rape brew.” Some brewers don’t even put their company name on the label in order to avoid the indication of being manufactured by a respectable company.
According to his categorical imperative, morally actions are defined as those can be made into a maxim that would be applied universally without contradictions, meaning that if the act cannot be accepted for all rational humans then the action is not moral.
Using Kant's theory to distinguish right from wrong, we could conclude that the decisions of Whitewater Brewing Company’s board are immoral by applying the test of universal law. On one hand, if there is a maxim that all brewers would produce cheap high-alcohol malt drinks which teenagers can easily get and affordable. The CEO Ralph Jenkins himself and the families of the company board would resist those products because their children are under the same risk of adolescent alcohol abuse. On the other hand, in order to maximize profit, capitalism is often criticized for the ignorance of its responsibilities toward the human society and environment. In this case, Mr. Jenkins had written Davis a memo on the board’s behalf instructing her not to comment publicly about malt liquor before clearing her remarks with him (337). Davis felt threatened because she had to either conform to the memo or resign. If everyone were threatened for expressing their opinion on any potentially immoral actions in the world, less and less people would speak out the flaws of our society. The development of our world will be slowed down and finally become worse. It would turn out to be a lose-lose situation for both the society and companies because we need the power of different voices to reform and improve the world. So in Kant’s view, the company's business practice would be considered immoral.
According to Kant's Deontology, our nature is rational, we should always treat other rational creatures as ends in themselves and never as only means to our ends. We should always respect humanity in others and in ourselves and treat everyone else the way they themselves would want to be treated. In this case, the executives believed that Mrs. Davis’s findings would damage the company’s profit because this market targeting at teenagers in urban community has a great monetary value. For example, Gallo doesn’t even put its name on the label of its malt liquor. It indicates that Gallo knows its business practice of this kind of alcohol is not respected. They were actually treating people merely as a means, not as ends in themselves because they thought the money worth more than teenager's health.
In addition, from a Rawlsian perspective, Rawls’s first principle argues that each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all (113). The basic liberties of citizens are the traditional democratic ones of the freedom of thought and speech, liberty of conscience, and freedom of religious worship, as well as of freedom of the person and political liberty. Also, Rawls’s first principle guarantees not only equal liberty to individuals but also as much liberty to individuals as possible (113). Furthermore, the right to freedom of expression is important for media, which plays a significant role in exercising the rights to freedom of expression for all society members. In this case, obviously Mrs. Davis’s right to freedom of speech is under threatens from Mr. Jenkins and the company board. As a result, fewer opportunities the media and the public would have to know the truth about the harmful alcohol products and everyone’s liberty can be enhanced if free speech could be more extensive. Therefore, both the Mr. Jenkins' individual memo and the company's business pursuits are unethical.

Worked Cited
Shaw, William H. Business Ethics 7th Editon. Boston: Wadsworth, 2011. Print.