IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jbuset/v122y2014i3p501-510.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Moral Psychology and the Intuition that Pharmaceutical Companies Have a ‘Special’ Obligation to Society

Author

Listed:
  • James Huebner

Abstract

Many people believe that the research-based pharmaceutical industry has a ‘special’ moral obligation to provide lifesaving medications to the needy, either free-of-charge or at a reduced rate relative to the cost of manufacture. In this essay, I argue that we can explain the ubiquitous notion of a special moral obligation as an expression of emotionally charged intuitions involving sacred or protected values and an aversive response to betrayal in an asymmetric trust relationship. I then review the most common arguments used to justify the claim that the pharmaceutical industry has a special moral obligation and show why these justifications fail. Taken together, these conclusions call into question the conventional ideologies that have traditionally animated the debate on whether the pharmaceutical industry has special duties of beneficence and distributive justice with respect to the impoverished in dire need of their products. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Suggested Citation

  • James Huebner, 2014. "Moral Psychology and the Intuition that Pharmaceutical Companies Have a ‘Special’ Obligation to Society," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 122(3), pages 501-510, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:122:y:2014:i:3:p:501-510
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-013-1773-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10551-013-1773-4
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10551-013-1773-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Koehler, Jonathan J. & Gershoff, Andrew D., 2003. "Betrayal aversion: When agents of protection become agents of harm," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 244-261, March.
    2. Hume, David, 1740. "A Treatise of Human Nature (III) Of Morals," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, volume 3, number hume1740.
    3. Burke, Edmund, 1790. "Reflections on The Revolution in France," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, number burke1790.
    4. Leisinger, Klaus M., 2005. "The Corporate Social Responsibility of the Pharmaceutical Industry: Idealism without Illusion and Realism without Resignation," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(4), pages 577-594, October.
    5. Hume, David, 1739. "A Treatise of Human Nature (I) Of the Understanding," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, volume 1, number hume1739.
    6. Hume, David, 1739. "A Treatise of Human Nature (II) Of the Passions," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, volume 2, number hume1739a.
    7. Bale, Harvey, Jr, 1998. "The Conflicts between Parallel Trade and Product Access and Innovation: The Case of Pharmaceuticals," Journal of International Economic Law, Oxford University Press, vol. 1(4), pages 637-653, December.
    8. De George, Richard T., 2005. "Intellectual Property and Pharmaceutical Drugs: An Ethical Analysis," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(4), pages 549-575, October.
    9. Maitland, Ian, 2002. "Priceless Goods: How Should Life-Saving Drugs be Priced?," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(4), pages 451-480, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bénédicte Bourcier-Béquaert & Loréa Baïada-Hirèche & Anne Sachet-Milliat, 2022. "Cure or Sell: How Do Pharmaceutical Industry Marketers Combine Their Dual Mission? An Approach Using Moral Dissonance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 175(3), pages 555-581, January.
    2. Helen LaVan & Lori S. Cook & Ivana Zilic, 2021. "An analysis of the ethical frameworks and financial outcomes of corporate social responsibility and business press reporting of US pharmaceutical companies," International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 15(3), pages 326-355.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. James F Fieser, 2022. "A response to Kendra Asher," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(3), pages 500-504, October.
    2. Gilles, Robert P. & Pesce, Marialaura & Diamantaras, Dimitrios, 2020. "The provision of collective goods through a social division of labour," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 287-312.
    3. Masahiko Aoki, 2013. "Institutions as cognitive media between strategic interactions and individual beliefs," Chapters, in: Comparative Institutional Analysis, chapter 17, pages 298-312, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Shi Li, 2014. "How to Make a Grateful Child? Reflection on Gratitude Campaigns in China in Recent Years," SAGE Open, , vol. 4(4), pages 21582440145, November.
    5. Franz Dietrich & Antonios Staras & Robert Sugden, 2021. "Savage’s response to Allais as Broomean reasoning," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(2), pages 143-164, April.
    6. Smith, Vernon L., 2005. "Behavioral economics research and the foundations of economics," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 135-150, March.
    7. Agranov, Marina & Elliott, Matt & Ortoleva, Pietro, 2021. "The importance of Social Norms against Strategic Effects: The case of Covid-19 vaccine uptake," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    8. Alessandra Smerilli, 2012. "We-thinking and vacillation between frames: filling a gap in Bacharach’s theory," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 73(4), pages 539-560, October.
    9. Johanna P. Maksimainen & Tuomas Eerola & Suvi H. Saarikallio, 2019. "Ambivalent Emotional Experiences of Everyday Visual and Musical Objects," SAGE Open, , vol. 9(3), pages 21582440198, September.
    10. Sheila Dow, 2010. "The Psychology of Financial Markets: Keynes, Minsky and Emotional Finance," Chapters, in: Dimitri B. Papadimitriou & L. Randall Wray (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Hyman Minsky, chapter 13, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    11. DeSteno, David & Li, Ye & Dickens, Leah & Lerner, Jennifer, 2014. "Gratitude: A Tool for Reducing Economic Impatience," Scholarly Articles 12185844, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
    12. Hausman, Daniel M., 2023. "Eliciting preferences and respecting values: Why ask?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 320(C).
    13. David Simpson, 2013. "The Rediscovery of Classical Economics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 15080.
    14. Bogliacino, Francesco & Codagnone, Cristiano, 2021. "Microfoundations, behaviour, and evolution: Evidence from experiments," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 372-385.
    15. Andrea Stevenson Thorpe & Stephen Roper, 2019. "The Ethics of Gamification in a Marketing Context," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 155(2), pages 597-609, March.
    16. Graham Dawson, 2008. "The Economic Science Fiction Of Climate Change: A Free‐Market Perspective On The Stern Review And The Ipcc," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(4), pages 42-47, December.
    17. Smith, Vernon L., 2010. "Theory and experiment: What are the questions?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 3-15, January.
    18. Colin, Price, 2011. "Optimal rotation with declining discount rate," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 307-318, August.
    19. González-Díaz, Julio & Gossner, Olivier & Rogers, Brian W., 2012. "Performing best when it matters most: Evidence from professional tennis," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(3), pages 767-781.
    20. Antoinette Baujard & Adrien Lutz, 2018. "The capacity to confuse: rescuing the Saint-Simonian notion of ability from modern capability theories of social justice," Working Papers halshs-01963252, HAL.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:122:y:2014:i:3:p:501-510. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.