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Recently, American authorities established charges of fraudulent practices against Ranbaxy, the pharmaceutical MNC. Those 'fraudulent practices' of the company has costed several lives. Having pleaded guilty to the "felony charges" the US authorities slapped a fine of 500 million Dollars on Ranbaxy. This raises two fundamental questions:
1. Is it justified to 'compensate' the loss of human lives with monetary 'fines'? Or, to what extent can a monetary value be assigned to human lives?
2. Have the markets of our present libertarian world order permeated so deeply that market ethics (leading to 'commodification') have become the defining yardstick of our moral sensibilities and the idea of 'justice'? Or, what are the ethical limits of economics and the expanding markets?
The two questions pose difficult philosophical problems- the first questions Utilitarian ethics and the second puts the Libertarian ethics and economics' claim to be a 'behavioral science' (as Mankiw and others may argue) under scepticism.
1. Is it justified to 'compensate' the loss of human lives with monetary 'fines'? Or, to what extent can a monetary value be assigned to human lives?
2. Have the markets of our present libertarian world order permeated so deeply that market ethics (leading to 'commodification') have become the defining yardstick of our moral sensibilities and the idea of 'justice'? Or, what are the ethical limits of economics and the expanding markets?
The two questions pose difficult philosophical problems- the first questions Utilitarian ethics and the second puts the Libertarian ethics and economics' claim to be a 'behavioral science' (as Mankiw and others may argue) under scepticism.
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