Please read the case study entitled Even Better Than the Real Thing
The web store FinerBags.com sells fakes—very good copies of purses originally made by Louis Vuitton and similar high-end brands. The price is right: a $1,800 Prada bag can be purchased as a copy for about $180. At Finer Bags, they’re totally open about what they’re doing, and their home page lists the advantages of buying their products. According to the leadership at Finer Bags, “Millions of replica handbags can be found on internet these days, they are not a rare thing anymore. Maybe the Louis Vuitton handbag that your friend bought is a perfect replica. Maybe the Louis Vuitton Monogram Speedy 30 that Linda paid $1,200 for is a replica handbag. Maybe those replica bags all were bought from finerbags.com.
Based on what you have learned in this unit, answer the following questions:
1. Would you call honesty part of the corporate culture at Finer Bags? Yes, no, or both? Explain.
2. Corporate cultural dissonance occurs when what actually happens on the ground doesn’t jibe with the principles supposedly controlling things from above. Do you suspect that dissonance is occurring here? Why or why not?
3. This company is selling counterfeit purses, bags designed to trick people into thinking they’re real when they’re not. No one denies that. Could you use a utilitarian argument (bring the greatest good and happiness to the greatest number) to justify this corporate culture and business endeavor as ethically respectable?
4. Could you use either a basic duties argument (right and wrong is defined by preexisting principles) or Kant’s categorical imperative (to be right an act must be universalizable) to make the ethical case that this company should put itself out of business?