Michael Carlson and Chris Luhrs outline the ethical failings of Tobacco marketing in the US in “The Ethics of Tobacco Marketing.” In this research paper, the authors juxtapose the American Marketing Association’s ethical norms against the Kantian theory of ethics to expose that by marketing tobacco products and betraying their duty to “do no harm” tobacco marketers fail the Kantian standard of ethics to act only in a manner worthy of becoming a universal law (Carlson and Luhrs).

The paper outlines the dangers associated with marketing tobacco products when the marketing is extremely effective, pervasive, aimed at vulnerable children and deceitful resulting in high levels of addiction, sickness and ultimately death (Carlson and Luhrs). Carlson and Luhrs point out that “one would not consider doing harm to others or acting dishonestly as worthy of a universal law.” While this ethical failing, by Kantian standards, is evident in the US, the ethical failings of tobacco corporations are compounded when this marketing is done in developing countries with even more vulnerable populations.

In her March 2010 article, “Phillip Morris Pushing Smoking Hard in Foreign Countries,” Anne Landman outlines the tactics that Tobacco giant Phillip Morris had begun to use in developing countries to sell their product because the market for tobacco products in the US had decreased. These tactics included utilizing strategies that had proven successful in the US prior to the decline of tobacco, fear mongering and exploiting the shortcomings of these populations including their high illiteracy rates and poverty (Landman, 2010).

It is clear from these practices that an ethical dilemma arises at the corporate level when these businesses in the tobacco industry must weigh the survival of their company against public safety. However, in utilizing these strategies, tobacco corporations