In trying to understand if Plasma International was morally right in selling blood to Nicaragua for $75 a pint in a time of such a disaster many factors need to be analyzed. First off we need to understand that we will be looking through the eyes of a utilitarian viewer in order to understand if this act was morally right or wrong. This thus implies that the viewer has certain beliefs. In short he believes that, "the rightness or wrongness of an action (or public policy) is determined solely by its consequences, the right action (policy) is the one that results in the best consequences (of all possible alternatives)." Basically this definition of utilitarianism is simply saying that when deciding if a decision is morally right or wrong you need to look at all the possible consequences and weigh them to see the balance between the good and bad. If there are multiple alternatives you must then look at all the consequences of all the different alternatives and then weigh them so that the level of good done by that act surpasses that of the bad, in order to find the action morally right. With this definition in place we can now begin to understand how we should look at the Plasma International case.
As I understand the case, and the method of viewing the case (utilitarianism), I believe that the company was morally right in doing what they did. First off, the company was not selling their product at a price that was unreasonable, because they sold all of it. It is unknown what the going rate for a pint of blood is, but it is irrelevant, because under utilitarianism the viewer is not concerned about if someone was taking advantage of someone but rather how much good was produced from this action. And under this action the Nicaraguans received all the blood they could get from the company, and the company sold their good for a high price. Both sides of the trade profited and both were apparently happy with their trade.
