Ethics Assignment 1

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3. The Western modernist ethical theories that are to be used to evaluate the boycott of Uzbek cotton by major textile companies are egoism (consequentialist) and ethics of duties (non-consequentialist). Stakeholders of the action to boycott include The Uzbek Government, cotton farmers including children, international commodities-trading companies, processors, manufacturers, stitchers, retailers and consumers.

Egoism is the ethical position that an action is deemed morally correct if one is to do what is in their own self interest. It also assumes that one’s knowledge of the outcome of one’s interests is limited. To analyze if boycotting the Uzbek cotton was morally correct or not, one must consider all stakeholders’ ability to freely purse their best self interest due to such a boycott. The boycott was a decision made solely by the manufacturers and retailers, without direct input from the rest of the stakeholders.

Due to the boycott, the Uzbek Government is a clear loser as the Government’s self interest is to maximize revenues and profits whereas both these objectives are considerably limited due to less demand of their product. In terms of cotton farmers including children, the action to boycott the Uzbek cotton does not actually improve the working conditions of these employees, in fact, the opposite could be the case as their incomes would be lower which is again against their self interest. Certain companies boycotting the cotton has also led the Uzbek Government to find other purchasers of cotton who have little concern about working conditions in Uzbekistan, which almost guarantees that the boycott has little to no effect even in the interest of the boycotters who wanted improved working conditions. This further goes against the self interest of farmers as they not only might have less income due to perhaps the new purchasers paying less but their working conditions do not improve and may get worse due to less revenues from the new purchasers. In terms of the farmers who are children, one can claim that they are free to attend school by not being forced to work which is probably in their self interest. However, this is probably only temporary as the Uzbek Government has found new purchasers which will lead the Government to forcing the students to go back to work again, which again does not align with the self interest of students. International commodities-trading companies, processors, manufacturers, stitchers and retailers are all not fulfilling their self interest which is to maximize profit as they have forgone a reliable cost which was previously minimized. Consumers’ self interest to maximize consumerism is also not met because of the increased prices of cotton-based products. Therefore, according to egoism, the action to boycott is morally incorrect because of the lack of self interest of the parties concerned.

In order to judge whether boycotting Uzbek cotton is morally correct through the view of ethics of duties, one must use the three maxims as tests for the action and to see if it survives all three tests.

In accordance to maxim 1, the boycotting of the cotton can be performed by everyone universally. Obviously, all parties involved would be against child labour if it included people they cared about, thus, the action to boycott the Uzbek cotton in order to stop such working conditions is moral on the basis of consistency. With regards to maxim 2, the current working conditions for farmers ignore the workers’ freedom to work. The Uzbek Government uses farmers for their own ends instead of as ends in themselves which goes back to the lack of dignity being respected. Thus, the boycott of Uzbek cotton tries to reverse such conditions by not allowing the Uzbek Government to have the power to fail the test of maxim 2. Maxim 3 asks the question whether one would be comfortable being an advocate of purchasing cotton by a nation that endorses child labour and poor working conditions. Since, however, boycotting such practises is generally seen as rational by manufacturers and retailers as they would advocate doing such an action, the test is passed again and thus the action to boycott Uzbek cotton is deemed morally correct in accordance with the ethics of duty as all maxims were passed.

4. I believe that simply boycotting Uzbek cotton is not the way to go in order to reach the objective of those who participate win the boycotting. First and foremost, this is an indirect way of handling the situation in Uzbekistan and because Uzbekistan has found other purchasers, it does nothing in the objective of bettering working conditions of farmers. An alternative solution to this problem would be to have discussions to solve the ethical problems in the way Uzbekistan does business with cotton. The initial problem here is that all parties would have to have representatives and due to the parties being from across the world, they would all have different morals. However, the aim to find a solution to the problem in the industry would go in line with discourse ethics which aims to find ethical truths through discussion and therefore not necessarily come into discussion with current ethics. All representatives of the stakeholders should therefore have detailed discussions outlining all of their concerns which should eventually lead to an agreement which is much better than the current situation. This solution that I have proposed may take a long time but if given the proper resources, can be done efficiently and can help each party’s self interest by giving up as little as possible. An ethical approach based on character and integrity should definitely be taken into consideration, as even the Uzbek Government would not agree to have their children work in such work conditions as they let other children. The ethical approach based on relationships and responsibility should also be taken into account as each representative will show their feelings toward the situation.