Moral Issues in Business

Akanksha Sharma
3091807
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Ontario Code of ethics For Life Insurance

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What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets

Akanksha Sharma
Student number: 3091807

PHIL-2203-001 MORAL ISSUES IN BUSINESS

INSTRUCTOR: D.K. BRADSHAW MA

SUBMITTED: December 13,2017

What Money Cant Buy : The Moral Limits of Markets

There was a time when there were many things that money couldn’t buy, but in todays
era money can buy almost everything. Michael J. Sandel brings out many points in
his book “what money can’t buy: the moral limits of market”. In his book he
mentioned many examples stating money can buy anything, few of them are-prison cell
upgrade by paying money, service of an Indian surrogate mother to carry a
pregnancy, admission to respected university etc. as the time changes many new ways
are created by which one can earn money for e.g.: paying school kids for reading
books etc. if we see the examples that are mentioned you’ll figure out that these
activities are morally incorrect. He also discussed about “the era of market
triumphalism”- the year which lead to financial crises in this he stated that
according to Ronald Reagan and Margaret thatcher the only key to freedom and
prosperity were the markets. Financial crises questioned not only the ability of
markets but also about how markets got apart from moral values. In the
introduction he discusses all about how everything could be bought with money from
outsourcing private military contractors to outsourcing pregnancy there is nothing
which one can’t buy with money but in all this one thing is missing and that is
markets moral values. In this chapter he is concerned about main things one is
inequality and the other is corruption. For e.g. when rich person pays extra to the
doctor for right away checkup instead of standing in que with other it brings
inequality between them same is with corruption when a child is paid for reading
books it gives them wrong values they will treat reading as chore not as source of
knowledge which is against moral values. He also brings argument stating that we
want a market economy or a market society. Its all about the challenges that we
face morally and politically in the society, the way we value things like selling
votes etc. these kind of activities passes wrong values and attitude. No doubt we
can buy almost everything with money but there is a thing called moral values which
no one can buy with money.

In his chapter 4 that is market in life and death he tells how companies buy
insurance on the name of their customers and put themselves as beneficiary by doing
this they earn huge profits. Michael talks about the history of life insurance
stating how because of unpleasant gambling on death it was banned in some countries
like Europe also about how companies took life insurance on their staff and made
profits later on. The way companies put themselves as beneficiary without the
consent of its employees. Also, the way viatical industry in which they buy
policies from the ill and then gambles easily so that they die soon and they could
earns profits. Similar to viatical is death pools, it is an online gambling game in
which they submit the list of actors they think will die by the end of the year. if
we see in most of the cases people are interested in death of policy holder so that
they can earn profits from their deaths. There was a site launched by defence
department called terrorism future market by media. this one was used to predict
where next terrorist attack was going to take place. In this sandels brings an
argument stating that they are considering people as future commodity rather than
the valuable employees who are assets to their company and should be valued for the
work they do. in the whole context his main argument is that the market is corrupt.
Basically, code of ethics are the instructions/guidelines given by a company to its
employees so that they take right actions. In the same way insurance commission
also set code of ethics for life insurance agents. In the chapter 4 sandel bought
up how companies were violating the code of conducts. There are basically 2 main
cases discussed in his chapter 4 and they are:

• Janitors insurance
In this case companies used to buy insurance on the lives of their CEOs and top
executives, as to balance the cost of replacing them if they die. Some of them were
aware that they are priced but most of them were unware about this. This policy was
called corporate-owned life insurance(COLI). Even if the employee quit, retired, or
was fired this policy remained in effect. When these employees who were not even
part of the company later dies the company used to collect the death benefits. Code
of conduct that we can apply in this case is 15th point from disclosure which
states that the agent should disclose all the essential information about the
policy like benefits, risk before signing an application for insurance. In this way
the person who is getting insured will give the consent if he wants the policy or
not. But the action taken in this case violets this code. The employee were
completely not aware about the policy and they didn’t even signed the application
which is ethically wrong because this action is taking place without their consent
and knowledge.

• Viaticals: you bet your life

This case was driven by the AIDS epidemic and was called viatical industry. It is
consisted of the life insurance policies of the people suffering with the AIDS. in
this if a person owns a policy and tells doctor he just has 1 year left and he
needs money then the investor buys this policy from the surfer at discounted rate
but when the person dies the investor collects the whole amount. The code of
conduct that we can apply in this case is 2nd point from duty of care this states
that agent should put his clients interest first rather than putting his own direct
or indirect interest. Again, this case violates the code of ethics because investor
who buys the policy just pays the person who is selling policy and need money the
amount which is beneficial for him not the surfer. So here the investor is going to
get the profit after the person dies. This action just serves investors self
interest and his action doesn’t benefit the surfer.

In this whole scenario what I feel is whatsoever they did was ethically wrong .even
their actions violated the code of ethics. It is complety unethical if we do
something without the consent of the person. In both of the cases discussed as
above sort of fraudelent conduct was used to earn profits even through the death of
persons rather than indemnifying on their deaths , they made quiet pleasant amount
of profits which proves to be morally and ethically unacceptable from the market as
well as from the business point of view. Moreover it also negatively affected
social and moral ethics of human race which should not be violated at all.