Today in class we discussed how to
define a virtuous act. The requirements were that the agent must know that he/she
is acting virtuously, the agent must decide to perform virtuous action because
it is virtuous, and the agent must act in this virtuous way from a firm and
unchanging nature. This is what defines a virtuous act.
Recently I heard that CVS Pharmacy
was going to stop the selling of cigarettes in their stores for the safety of
the public. They estimated their annual loss at 2 billion. At first I thought “wow
this is a truly virtuous act on their part”. I could not believe that CVS was
willing to lose so much money just to keep the public healthy. It wasn’t until I
told my sister that I was led to believe otherwise. I explained to her what was
going on and I noticed that she seemed unfazed by the news. I asked her why so
she told me that cigarettes are really dying out. People are really not smoking
as much as they used to and the numbers are dropping every day. People in
today’s time prefer e-cigarettes or vaping. There is much more money to gain in
this business and it is likely that CVS realized that smoking was dying out and
did this whole thing simply as publicity stunt to increase sales. I personally
do not know the true reasons as to why CVS did this but if it’s for the reasons
that they claim than their actions were virtuous. However, if the real reason
as to why CVS stopped the sale of cigarettes was to simply boost their sales
this (according to the way virtue is defined) is truly an unvirtuous act.
However, one can’t help but still be happy about all the lives that will be
saved by this course of action regardless of the reasons behind it.
I think this is a great example of what would not be virtuous according to Aristotle, however I disagree with just a few small points. In some parts of the country smoking is still a huge factor in sales. For example, in Mississippi it would do a business some serious harm if they quit selling tobacco products because it's something that is so common in Mississippi. I still do believe that this isn't a virtuous act, though.
ReplyDeleteI think that when this decision was made they weighed the pros and cons of this decision quite a bit, which in itself, breaks Aristotle's third criteria of what makes an action virtuous or not.
I agree that it is not a virtuous act because there is a way CVS is benefitting from it. I work at a Walgreens and we are always selling cigarets to older people over forty. I'm leaning to the oppinion that they could be doing it to make a better world but no business wants to go down. I'm going to go with them not wanting to be virtuous. On the bright side I think it's great that old cigarets are going out of style because the e-cigarettes don't smell horrible. The bad part is they are more expensive and so I think CVS will benefit from the e-cigaretts.
ReplyDeleteI think that it could be a virtuous act, just because CVS isn't really gaining anything from stopping the sale of cigarettes. Regardless of whether e-cigs are popular or not, there are still a lot of people of the older generation that prefer the traditional cigarette (especially in certain parts of the country), and I would assume that CVS would still make a profit from selling them. So ultimately, I am not really convinced one way or another without being sure of their true motives.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about it not being a virtuous act. Although CVS did it for the safety of the public, they also did it for sales which does not make the act virtuous. If CVS would've stopped selling the older cigarettes for the safety of the public only the act would be virtuous. I'm glad that the older cigarettes are dying out. The older cigarettes are unhealthy and they cause severe health problems.
ReplyDelete