Hey everyone! This is my first blog post on business ethics. The main point that i took away from the reading, “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Profit”,  is that companies are now responsible for the ecological and social side affects of their economic activities. They  should not be solely driven by the pursuit of profit but rather stand for something greater than themselves. Companies now have responsibilities to fulfill to show that they care about issues other than profits. This is evident in the article “CVS Vows to Quit Selling Tobacco Products”. CVS, America’s largest drugstore chain in overall sales, announced that by October they were going to stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products.

This is in direct correlation with business ethics because CVS wanted its brand to promote health and wellness and could not accomplish that by selling tobacco. Tobacco is known to cause high blood pressure and heart disease and CVS did not want to be connected with that. They forecast that they will lose about 2 billion dollars in sales but that in hindsight is a minor loss in protecting their brand name. CVS is a primary example in merging business and ethics.