Agreement Breaking
When it comes to the issue of whether or
not it is ok for someone the knowingly
aid someone in breaking an agreement I
feel it depends on the risks at stake for
people not knowing what the person
has to say. For example, if I had an
agreement with a co-worker to not tell
anyone that I had cancer I would be very
angry if someone coerced that person
into telling everyone. But on the other
hand if I made that person promise
not to tell anyone about a possible danger to
all the other workers and
someone coerced them into saying something it would be
far better for all the
workers to know about a possible danger even if I did not
want them to know.
In other words the happiness that comes from the workers
knowing there is a
problem and being able to fix it would far out weigh my anger
towards the
person who broke the agreement. In the case of big tobacco I think
there is a
difference. People already know that smoking is bad for you and can
cause
lung cancer but they continue to smoke. The idea that because the people
now
know that big tobacco adjusts the levels of nicotine in their cigarettes
does
not mean people will be angry enough to quit. The only reason why it would
be
important to know that big tobacco adjusted the levels of nicotine in
their
cigarettes would be in order to sue them for the fact that they
knowingly try to
get people addicted to a product that will kill them. But
that money should be
going to one place and that would be to pay for all the
doctors bills of the
people dying of lung cancer from being addicted.
Utilitarianism would have to
agree that the happiness of the people that
don't have to pay more taxes to
support the people on Medicare or welfare who
are dying of cancer from smoking
far out weighs the loss of happiness of the
workers of big tobacco. Besides, big
tobacco has enough money to pay all of
the lawsuits and still come out on top.
The sad thing is the government
is basically becoming big tobacco because with
every lawsuit the prices of
cigarettes goes up, but does that mean that smoking
has decreased? No, it has
actually started to increase among teenagers, more
than 1.2 million Americans
younger than 18 started smoking in 1996, up from
708,000 in 1988,
according to numbers released by the Center for Disease Control
in the fall
of 1998. Utilitarianism might actually favor not blowing the whistle
on big
tobacco because all that is happening is the government is just
taking
advantage of cigarette addicts and that makes them no better than big
tobacco. I
know that I am no happier now than before big tobacco lost all of
their lawsuits
because me, and millions of other Americans, have not seen any
of that money;
whether through tax cuts or, being in the Seattle area, road
maintenance. I
think the hit cigarette smokers take to their wallets, by the
increase in
prices, creates for more unhappiness than happiness. Kant would
say, no an
agreement cannot be broken because then you could never make an
agreement in
good faith. If everyone went around breaking their agreements
the world would be
a terrible place; therefore, in all circumstances
agreements must be kept no
matter what. If airing a story on big tobacco
might damage you financially I
think you do need to be guided by the public
interest. But in the case of big
tobacco I don't think it was that big of a
deal because the public already knows
that cigarettes are addicting and that
they will kill you. Whether or not big
tobacco adjusts the levels in their
cigarettes is not that big of a deal when
the other aspects of cigarettes are
already well known. The story only seemed
big for the people who could profit
from it. You would have to measure how much
of the public interest is at
stake before making the decision, and in the case
of tobacco the public knows
everything it needs to know to make an intelligent
decision of whether to
smoke or not.