The company should know better...

Today's ethics class has been bothering me. We discussed two seemingly unrelated subjects:

1. Corporate Whistleblowers - heroes or trouble makers?

2. Nestle - what responsibility does a company have to ensure baby formula is correctly administered in developing countries and should formula be promoted at all?

Rick Powers, Associate Dean and Ethics professor, asked a number of students in my class whether the saw themselves as 'whistleblowers'. Most said no. The class ended before we were able to discuss Nestle Baby.

After class, a few of us were unable to go for lunch with images of starving babies still fresh in our minds, so we tried to solve the Nestle case on our own. Needless to say, we were unable to solve all the world's problems in half an hour, but the general feeling was that the company does indeed have a responsibility to do what they can to ensure that their products are used correctly.

The company should know better than to promote their products when the are aware that there are significant risks of them being used incorrectly.

Ironically, I met a Nestle employee tonight at a Business Design event. She was an absolutely lovely person.

It hit me.

Who is this so-called "company" that we all agreed should know better? A company has no feelings. A company has no conscience. How on earth can a non-living thing with no brain know anything, let alone "know better"?

A company is nothing more than a group of people. People like the one that I met tonight. Nice, honest, good people.

People.

Perhaps like the ones in my class who said they wouldn't blow the whistle?