Andrew Drain

Professor Newhouse
Business Ethics
12 March 2015
Harvey Benjamin Fuller Case Study Paper

Harvey Benjamin Fuller had many ethical decisions to make on

behalf of his company regarding issues with his popular glue product. Mr.
Fullers products provide valuable service to many consumers due to the
thousands of varieties of glue and its reliability to hold together everyday
products such as cars and cigarettes. However, some consumers,
including young children in Central America, are abusing the glue product
and using it sort of as a drug due to its ability to intoxicate. While Mr.
Fuller and his company are not doing anything illegal or putting any
banned substance in their glue, the process of sniffing this glue is harmful
because of its dangerous fumes. Because of this the question arises,
does Mr. Fuller have an ethical obligation to make a safer product which
could result in a loss of profits? After giving this question long
deliberation, I believe Mr. Fuller does not have an ethical duty to change
his product in order to make it safer and I will explain why.

First, I believe that since Fuller is selling a legal product he does not
have any obligations to stop selling this product in Central America. If Mr.

Fuller adds noxious oil to its glue it may discourage the abusers. However,
the changing of this product could result in a less-effective product, which
would make the consumers of this product, who are using the product for
its legitimate purpose, unhappy. So why do the actions of a very small
percentage of this products users, mainly homeless children in Central
America, mean that Mr. Fuller must change his product. If Mr. Fuller
changes his product to adhere to the small percentage of users abusing
the product for their own pleasure then he could lose many customers,
which I believe is unfair since Mr. Fuller is in fact selling a legal product.

Many companies sell products that are unsafe to the general public,
especially kids, but are in fact legal products such as; alcohol, tobacco,
cleaning products, and even fast food restaurants to name a few. Mr.
Fuller took actions that he was not obligated to do by not selling his
companys glue to retailers or small-scale users in Central America.
Instead, Mr. Fuller only sold their glue in large barrels to industrial
consumers. The problem that arose here was that Mr. Fullers company
claimed to stop selling resistol adhesives in Central America. So when this
statement was made, people believed that Mr. Fullers product would not
be sold to anyone in Central America. I dont believe that the company
lied, but instead twisted the words to make the public hear what they
want. I do not believe that Fuller should receive any consequences for this

lie; however, the deontological approach would say that it is ones duty
(in general) to tell the truth.

The company has taken many steps, in which they were not legally
obligated to do, in order to stop the abuse of this product. One step the
company took was it altered resistols formula by replacing the addictive
smelling and highly toxic glue with a slightly less toxic chemical called
cyclohexane. The company has also tried to develop non-intoxicating
water based glue but was unsuccessful. I believe these actions prove to
be an example of a business having ethical obligations to provide a safe
product to its purchasers, consumers, and even the general public, in this
case being the homeless children in Central America. The company has
taken steps other than fixing its product to help the general public.
According to the article, the company gives 5 percent of its profits to
charity, it has committed itself to safe environmental practices, and it
contributes to community programs for homeless children in Central
America. I find these actions as acts of virtue and shows the companys
loyalty to helping the community out while still being able to sell its highly
effective glue to consumers who use the product for its intended
purpose.

Now that I have talked about what position I believe Mr. Fuller
should have taken regarding the matters of changing his companys glue

product, I will now talk about the consequentialist and deontological

perspectives of this case study. The first way to look at this case is
through the Kantianism theory, which is a part of deontological ethics.
Kant states that one should do a good duty because it benefits others, not
because it helps you obtain some sort of benefit for yourself. So the
question arises based on this theory, would it be more moral to not
change the intoxicating glue in order to provide the best quality and most
effective glue to consumers who use the product properly, than to change
the product to prevent a small percentage of the consumers who use the
glue as way of becoming intoxicated?

Another way to look at this case is through utilitarianism, which part

of the consequentialist theory. Utilitarianism states that what matters is
finding the end result that maximizes the happiness for the most amount
of people. Utilitarianism simply is the idea that the ends justify the
means. This means that in order to achieve an important goal, like
obtaining the greatest amount of happiness for the most people, it is
acceptable to do something bad. In this case study, a utilitarian would
say that the intoxicating glue is benefiting more people and results in
more utility. In order to keep consumers happy, the company must keep
the glue as it is because its best quality glue that they know. By the
company not changing the glue this is considered something bad, and it
results in a few people being unhappy.

In conclusion, I believe that Mr. Fuller made ethical decisions based

on the legality of the glue product he was selling to consumers. Even if
Fuller stopped selling his product in Central America or made a nonintoxicating glue, who is to say that these kids or anyone else who abused
this product wouldnt find another way to get their hands on a glue that is
intoxicating. Why does Fuller have to be ethically obligated to change a
product that works effectively for consumers who use it for its purpose.
Why must Fuller risk losing customers and a profit in order to potentially
stop those who use this product improperly for their own benefit if what
Fuller is selling is a completely legal product?