The Theories of Ethics of Hot Coffee

The 2011 film Hot Coffee, directed by Susan Saladoff, explored the ethics and practices of media and public relations specialists who used considerable power to influence laws for the benefit of businesses at the expense of victims of wrongful damages. This paper will discuss three ways in which Hot Coffee showed the ethical issues and dilemmas surrounding judicial elections, laws behind tort reform, and mandatory arbitration to silence the victims of harmful practices; I will focus particularly on the feminist ethics, Kantian ethics of duty, and ethical egoism, the roles these ethics play in the conduct of the companies, and their larger impact.

Feminist Ethics

The case of Jamie Leigh Jones discussed the matter of Jones’ sexual harassment, abuse, and eventual drugging and violent gang rape that left her in need of while she worked for Halliburton in Iraq. Halliburton’s employment contract included a mandatory arbitration clause, meaning that at nineteen years old, Jones signed away her legal right to pursue action in a civil court for damages (Hugo, Oxman & Saladoff, 2011). The forced mandatory arbitration clause meant that Jones had to face a private arbitrator, selected by a company that was hired by Halliburton, following a trend of biased arbitrators siding with the hiring company to avoid being blacklisted from working in the field (Hugo, Oxman & Saladoff, 2011). Because of the mandatory arbitration clause in the contract, Jones was unable to face a fair trial, based on the ideas that feminism tries to fight.

Jones complained of sexual harassment for three days while she was stationed in Iraq, where she was placed in barracks with 400 men, after being promised lodgings with another woman (Hugo, Oxman & Saladoff, 2011). The second of four tenants of feminist theory according to Landau is that “The experiences of women deserve our respect and are vital to a full and accurate understanding of morality” (2012, p. 273). This means that Halliburton violated this ethic by, as Senator Franken said, telling Jones that being drugged and raped so violently that she required reconstructive surgery to repair the damage to her body was an expected workplace risk (Hugo, Oxman & Saladoff, 2011). Halliburton’s unaccountability in the eye of the public courts dismissed Jones’ experience of a sexual crime, something that disproportionately affects women, and tried to normalize it as a risk of being a woman in the workplace (Landau, 2012, p. 276). This attitude lead to the brutal attack on Jones, because it created a safety net for the men who assaulted her; they would never face the consequences of their actions like Jones, because Jones could never bring their actions into the light for scrutiny.

Furthermore, Halliburton’s arbitration clause forced the numerous women who came before Jones to keep silent about their experiences with sexual assault and rape at the hands of their male coworkers, so that it was impossible for women to be informed of the risks they had to face (Hugo, Oxman & Saladoff, 2011). Landau says, “The importance of vulnerability, of not having control over important aspects of one’s life, of dependence and connectedness to others, are all features of the moral life highlighted by feminist ethics” (2012, p. 277). This means that Halliburton had a responsibility ethically to care for Jones by recognizing her vulnerability, and the fact that they, Halliburton, had control over the situation that lead to Jones’ assault and did nothing, showing Halliburton’s moral failings towards her.

Kantian Ethics

The case against McDonald’s by Stella Liebeck in 1992 set off a wave of repercussions in the legal community; Liebeck, a 70-year-old woman, spilled coffee that was heated to 180 degrees Fahrenheit on her inner thighs, for which she needed surgery and medical care costing $10,000; McDonald’s only agreed to pay $800 in damages (Hugo, Oxman & Saladoff, 2011).

Liebeck claimed to only want money to pay for her medical bills as a recent retiree, and thus sought punitive damages from McDonald’s to show that the corporation’s answer to her family’s “polite letter” was inexcusable (Hugo, Oxman & Saladoff, 2011). Kant emphasizes the importance of rules and fairness in approaching morality. “The Kantian path offers a certain kind of moral safety in an uncertain world” (Hinman, 2013b). The Kantian theory shows that McDonald’s has strayed from this path, according to the principal of universalizability: “An act is acceptable if, and only if, its maxim [a principle of action you give yourself when you are about to do something] is universalizability” (Landau, 2012, p. 157). Landau continues: “Indeed, we can imagine two people doing the same thing, but for different reasons. That means that they will have different maxims. And even if their actions bring about identical results, one of the actions may be right and the other wrong, since only one of the maxims may be morally acceptable” (2012, p. 158). Thus, because McDonald’s refusal to pay Liebeck’s medical bills is not a universally acceptable action, McDonald’s actions were immoral and unethical.

To further the idea of McDonald’s treatment of Liebeck as immoral, it is important to be aware of the company’s modus operandi. “In order to negatively shape public perception of their opponents in such tort suits, McDonald’s responds to such charges with the same claims of individual responsibility and freedom it has used so successfully in selling its products over the years” (Forell, 2011, p. 111). The type of media manipulation McDonald’s used to remove the blame from their faults cannot be universally accepted, evidenced by many people speaking out against these tactics (Salisbury, 2013, n.p.). McDonald’s failed to perform their duty of behaving ethically in society.

Ethical Egoism

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent millions of dollars advertising for and funding campaigns for judicial candidates, to assure that judges in the Supreme Court held the same business-positive beliefs that the Chamber itself held (Hugo, Oxman & Saladoff, 2011). By acting in the best interest of the group’s members, the Commerce followed the theory of ethical egoism. This theory focuses on the importance of acting in one’s own interest, which would in turn better the world, going so far as to saying that “altruism was demeaning because it meant that an individual was saying some other person was more important than that individual,” which in turn devalued the individual (Hinman, 2013a). The Chamber of Commerce, thus, was only making sure to value themselves appropriately, and putting their interests as businesses and insurance beneficiaries ahead of the needs of people seeking what they deemed frivolous lawsuits.

Similarly, McDonald’s decisions to only pay what they felt was appropriate, or the $800 they offered to Liebeck when her family sought medical payments from the company, was an act of ethical egoism, which they used to preserve themselves money to further their business. That the tactic failed did not change their ultimate goal.

Conclusion

The focus of Hot Coffee was to expose unethical practices taking place in the corporate world, and how it affected the larger national political body. By examining the theories of Kant, ethical egoism, and feminist theory, it is possible to see exactly how the movie shows the ways in which its subjects break the “rules” of ethical conduct according to Kant and feminist theory, but uphold the foundations of ethical egoism in the interest of self-preservation. The film lowers the veil of secrecy to allow its viewers to see the ethical issues of the actions of companies such as Halliburton and McDonald’s to allow the viewers to come to moral decisions from an informed standpoint.

References

Forell, C. (2011). McTorts: The social and legal impact of McDonald's role in tort suits. Loyola Consumer Law Review, 24, 105-155. Retrieved October 19, 2013, from http://works.bepress.com/caroline_forell/9/

Hinman, L. M. (Director) (2013a, October 19). Ethical Egoism. CLASS NAME. Lecture conducted from University of San Diego, UNIVERSITY CITY.

Hinman, L. M. (Director) (2013b, October 19). Kantian Ethics of Duty. CLASS NAME. Lecture conducted from University of San Diego, UNIVERSITY CITY.

Landau, R. (2012). The fundamentals of ethics (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.

Saladoff, S. (Director). (2011). Hot coffee[Documentary]. United States: Docurama Films.

Salisbury, P. (n.d.). The Globalization of “Fast Food”. Behind the Brand: McDonald’s. Global Research. Retrieved October 20, 2013, from http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-globalization-of-fast-food-behind-the-brand-mcdonald-s