Whistleblowing Flashcards
What is Whistleblowing
Whistleblowing is when someone, usually an employee, leaks information about the wrongdoings of a company. This could be bad business practices regarding employees, customers, society or the environment.
Facebook case study.
Whistleblowing
Frances Haugen worked for Facebook (which owns Instagram) and leaked internal documents which came to be known as **‘The Facebook Files’. **
One quote from the files in the leak acknowledged that “we make body issues worse for one in three teenage girls”. The leak also shows that the Facebook algorithm promoted posts that caused anger or outrage.
What is the upside of whistleblowing
The upside to whistleblowing is that the negative business practice is brought to light which gives it a better chance of being brought to an end.
What is the downside of whistleblowing
The downside is that the company might suffer financial losses or even go bankrupt, causing some of or all of its staff to lose their job. In cases where the company was doing good, that could also be stopped.
Utilitarianism on Whistleblowing
Act utilitarianism holds that whistleblowing is morally right depending on the situation. If whistleblowing causes more happiness than not whistleblowing, then it is morally good; if it causes less happiness then it is morally wrong.
For example, if the business is causing a lot of happiness, then whistleblowing about some suffering it is causing, e.g. through exploitation, might be wrong.
Kant on Whistleblowing
Kant thinks lying cannot be universalised and is therefore always wrong. So, he would certainly also be against lying to cover up negative business practises, even if that truth being brought to light resulted in the failure of the businesses and employees who may have done nothing wrong nonetheless losing their jobs.
It is your duty never to lie.
What would Kant also regard about whistleblowing
Kant would also regard the treatment of people as mere means to be wrong due to the second formulation of the categorical imperative.
Most if not all cases of whistleblowing seem to involve exploitative or deceptive business practices that treat people as a mere means. This would be another reason that Kant would be in favour of whistleblowing.
