BUSINESS ETHICS

Kant's 3 Formulations and Nestle Marketing Tactics

Kant's 3 formulations and Nestle Marketing Tactics

According to Immanuel Kant's ethical theory, an act is only morally right if we can will it to be a universal law of conduct. This ideal is what Kant called the "categorical imperative." The categorical imperative has been successfully achieved when all of the following conditions have been met: the act in question is possible for everyone to follow; all rational people must be able to accept the act as if they were receiving the treatment themselves, and last, the act can never treat people as means to ends (Weiss, 2009).

In following Kant's conditions, if everyone used deceptive marketing practices, as Nestlé did, ultimately no one would believe in any product being marketed or those marketing the product. It would essentially nullify marketing altogether, and possible hurt the economy. The logical conclusion to Kant's first condition is: no, not everyone could practice the same marketing tactics as Nestlé because the deception would be so widespread that marketing itself would be irrelevant (Rohlf, 2010).

Second, if another company used these same tactics on the Nestlé Company itself or its employees, it's very doubtful they wouldn't walk away feeling anything less than deceived and/or insulted. No rational human being has a desire to be deceived or taken advantage of, so it is logical and rational to assume that no one who practiced these marketing tactics would have wanted them used upon themselves (Rohlf, 2010). The last condition to be met to achieve Kant's categorical imperative is that the act itself can never treat people as a mere means to an end. This means that you cannot use or disrespect people in any way for the purpose self-interest or obtaining any other specific goal. Nestlé did not respect anyone else's goals or desires but their own. Using blatantly deceptive marketing practices to persuade people to buy products that they do not fully understand how to use, only to further Nestlé's company objectives, is a very clear example of treating people as a means to an end (Weiss, 2009).

Immanuel Kant concerns himself with deontology, and as a deontologist, he believes that the rightness of an action depends in part on things other than the goodness of its consequences, and so, actions should be judged based on an intrinsic moral law that says whether the action is right or wrong - period.  Kant introduced the Categorical Imperative which is the central philosophy of his theory of morality, and an understandable approach to this moral law. It is divided into three formulations (Murphy, 2004). The first formulation of Kant's Categorical Imperative states that one should “always act in such a way that the maxim of your action can be willed as a universal law of humanity”; an act is either right or wrong based on its ability to be universalized. This belief is part of the “universal law theory” and states that to determine if an action is essentially “good” or “bad,” ...