Outcome-Based Ethics And Ethical Reason In The Film Erin Brockovich

Decent Essays
Businesses and or individuals apply morals and ethics or ethical reasoning in everyday situations. Ethical reason entails two major components, Duty Based Ethics and Outcome Based Ethics. Duty Based Ethics says that individuals have certain obligation to others, while Outcome Based Ethics concentrates on the impact a decision could/would have on society. In the movie Erin Brockovich starring Julia Roberts, I came across many ethical dilemmas regarding toxic compounds expelled by the chemical company, Pacific Gas and Electric.
The chemical company, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), made many bad ethical decisions. They knowingly released water contaminated with chromium 6 into groundwater that flowed into Hinckley. They also withheld documents

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    The film “Erin Brockovich” points out a numerous of ethical issues from the point of view of Erin Brockovich. The legal drama film Erin Brockovich is based on the true story of a woman who helped win the largest settlement ever paid in a direct-action lawsuit. Brockovich portrayed by Julia Roberts is a struggle mother of three, who meets attorney Ed Masry after being in car accident near his firm. Brockovich compromises her personal injury lawsuit causing her to lose the case, desperate for income she convinces Masry to hire her. Masry employs Brockovich as a legal clerk, while filing a case she ponders the reason for medical records of residents in the town of Hinkley, CA paid by Pacific Gas and Electric are in the file.…

    • 209 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Great Essays

    Ethical Ethics Of Wegmans

    • 1403 Words
    • 6 Pages

    “Ethics is the moral principles that governs a person or group 's behavior. To be ethical is of or relating to moral principles or the branch of knowledge dealing with these.(2)” One of the most ethical companies to work for is Wegmans Food Markets INC. Wegmans, built in 1906 and family owned is a well-known grocery store. Wegmans was “ranked number four on FORTUNE magazine’s 2016 list of the one hundred Best Companies to Work For. Wegmans has been on the list every year since it first ran in 1998, and in 2005, ranked #1.(1)”…

    • 1403 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    Discussion Board Forum 1 Case Study Topic: Business Ethics When reviewing this case study about Benji Watson who graduated near the top of his class while attending Liberty University MBA program and recruited by several national Fortune 500 corporations to include New Gen Health Sciences one can only evaluate the Ethics and Integrity behind each corporation. From the begging Benji had some type of knowledge about New Gen manufacture sold various vitamins, health foods, and health supplements. After some research Benji found out that New Gen had recently featured in a Fortune Magazine as one of the fastest growing companies in America. For any successful graduate who is being considered for apposition in a Fortune 500 corporation similar…

    • 1040 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    Ethics and social responsibility are two important aspects of business law. In order for companies to be successful, putting these concepts into practice is a must. From rules, to regulations, to standards, business law incorporates it all. Part of running a successful business involves knowing every detail associated with the law. Along with that comes a social responsibility and ethical performance that is expected by society.…

    • 1126 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The deception of PG&E took the effects of the Hinkley communities by making them believing the water system was safe. The town held a meeting about the untruth PG&E have been telling them. The meeting gathered many questions and answer about the lawsuit and the problem of the harmful chromium 3 is the same as hexavalent chromium 6. PG&E was using chromium 3, they were using chromium 6 which is dangerous according to the film. I believe both chromium 3 and 6 are importantly dangerous to humans.…

    • 115 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Monsanto Research Paper

    • 550 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The two companies I want to introduce are Monsanto and ADM, both of them which are related to agriculture and are related to the people, and both are multinational companies. In terms of ethics, because of the wide range of areas involved, the creation of this aspect should be paid more attention to. Monsanto Company is a multinational agricultural Company in the United States that operates mainly agricultural products, while ADM is a multinational Company that operates agricultural and sideline products and various nutritional products. Both companies have different branches in China and have different opinions on their own corporate ethics. Enterprise ethics refers to the company in the specific social economic organization, relying on public opinion, traditions and inner conviction to maintain, with good and evil evaluation standard on moral principles, ethics and moral activities combined.…

    • 550 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Introduction The movie titled “Erin Brockovich” was based on a true story and real person. In the movie we saw different health determinants. Health determinants are the variation of personal, social, economic, and environmental factors that can influence our health status. The main character Erin Brockovich is a single mother that raising three kids, she is undergraduate and unemployed.…

    • 1489 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    After much investigation, it was found that the company has been contaminating the water supply of this small desert town for more than thirty years. This is seen as deviance act because the corporation violated social…

    • 1556 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Case Study: Techfite

    • 1218 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Ethical Versus Legal Issues An ethical issue is one in which the decisions being made within the corporate structure adhere to a set of core values or a moral code established by the company’s top executives or owners. The decisions should take into account our moral compass, what we deem as inherently right or wrong. A corporation should not compromise its moral stand for the sake of increased revenue, or market shares. Since an ethical issue relies on our moral compass or core values, what is the guiding precept for legal issues?…

    • 1218 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Ethics have a major impact in the way companies hire and fire employees. Today, more than ever, companies are susceptible to lawsuits for a myriad of reasons from wrongful termination to policy violation to violating equal employment rights. Many of these organizations spend years entangled in the legal system and accumulate thousands of dollars in legal fees. More often than not, many are bankrupt as a result while others downsize and pay out millions to victims.…

    • 1313 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    After a stream of bad luck, she finally convinces a lawyer to give her a job as a file clerk at his firm. Although no one took her all too seriously at work because of her lack of experience and “trashy” ensemble, she soon changes their perception of her when she begins to investigate a suspicious pro bono real estate case involving the Pacific Gas & Electric Company. After relentless prying she finds out that PG&E was secretly trying to buy land from local residents in order to cover up the damages done in the area. Come to find out, they had been contaminating an entire neighborhood’s water supply with a deadly toxin called hexavalent chromium and not telling anyone. Erin Brockovich is by far the most interesting model of leadership in this movie but when you consider mainstream leadership qualities, she is not our usual contender.…

    • 678 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Thus, we often see articles about how companies covered up their soon-to-be scandals, how companies assured citizens but ended up hurting the environment (chemical companies and their wastes), and fraud among executives like the ENRON scandal. The ENRON scandal was a big event in American economy history, because such large energy company was doing illegal practices, from the executives to employees, no one said anything before it was revealed. There must be employees who knew about the executives’ action and were against it, but because of loyalty and they were afraid to be fired, what they could have done was limited, and this is just one example among many. In result, to prevent such big problems from happening, companies must guide their members in an ethically way. As Daryl Koehn, author of the article “Is Business Ethics an Oxymoron?”, wrote: “In more general terms, businesses must care about ethics because businesses are part of a human community.…

    • 1291 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Financial professionals have the responsibility to conduct themselves with integrity and honesty and exercise professional and moral judgement that serves clients, employers, and the public. Furthermore, there are professional, ethical, and legal standards with which they are to utilize when making financial and accounting decisions. Greed or fear of losing clients or their job often motivates financial professionals to make decisions that conflict with ethical finance or accounting practices. In all three scenarios, the employees failed to make decisions that uphold these moral and professional standards. Case 11.2: Marketing High Energy Main Ethical Issue(s)…

    • 1208 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Airport Ethical Dilemmas

    • 1115 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Head lining enterprises and their government often have the authority and the overall power to approve or disapprove of decisions that (in the long run) will obviously affect the public’s well-being, therefore, they practice the art of ethical decision-making. Ethical issues always have a way of showing up in situations where multiple stakeholders, interests and values fuse and rules are ambiguous or terribly enforced. These decisions being made by people we can hardly trust have the potential of an aftermath of tremendous social consequences, mostly with regards to safety, health and welfare of employees, consumers and the entire community (McGuiggan, 2012). It’s no secret.…

    • 1115 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Nowadays, Laws are used to as rules to set the standards of behaviors act by people. As the most advanced mammal on the earth, human beings also have morals to enforce the power of those standards or set up other groups of standards of right and wrong that influence people’s behaviors which are also unknown as ethics. That is the ethics for the society people live in, while there is another term called ‘business ethics’ related to rules, standards and moral principles those are set up in the world of business to guide business related behaviors. An increasing number of companies noticed the benefits of business ethics and the advantage of improving ethical behaviors, but there is always one issue which is profit versus ethics. As businesses…

    • 1369 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays