Discussion 6: Techniques of Neutralization
The Heinz Dilemma is an ethical dilemma frequently posed to students in an ethics class. For this discussion, let’s modify the Heinz Dilemma to dive a little deeper into Sykes and Matza’s techniques of neutralization.
Your mother is near death from a rare illness. There is a new drug that most likely save her–a biologic recently discovered by a small biotech company. The drug is expensive to make, but the CEO of the biotech company insists on charging ten times what the drug cost to make. For each dose, it cost the company $200 to make, but they charge $2,000 a dose for the drug. You go to everyone you know to borrow money, but you manage to only raise about $1,000 – half of what the drug cost. You tell the biotech company that your mother is dying and ask them to sell it cheaper or to let you pay later. But the CEO says, “No, we discovered the drug and now we are going to make money from it.” You get desperate. You break into the biotech company late one night and steal the drug for your mother.
Develop a justification for your crime using each one of Sykes and Matza’s techniques of neutralization. Thoroughly explain each justification. Feel free to have fun with this one.
