Since it appeared in 1971, John Rawls's A Theory of Justice has become a classic. The author has now revised the original edition to clear up a number of difficulties he and others have found in the original book. Rawls aims to express an essential part of the common core of the democratic tradition--justice as fairness--and to provide an alternative to utilitarianism, which had dominated the Anglo-Saxon tradition of political thought since the nineteenth century. Rawls substitutes the ideal of the (...) social contract as a more satisfactory account of the basic rights and liberties of citizens as free and equal persons. "Each person," writes Rawls, "possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override." Advancing the ideas of Rousseau, Kant, Emerson, and Lincoln, Rawls's theory is as powerful today as it was when first published. (shrink)

It is argued that persuasive advertising overrides the autonomy of consumers, in that it manipulates them without their knowledge and for no good reason. Such advertising causes desires in such a way that a necessary condition of autonomy — the possibility of decision — is removed. Four notions central to autonomous action are discussed — autonomous desire, rational desire and choice, free choice, and control or manipulation — following the strategy of Robert Arrington in a recent paper in this journal. (...) Replies are made to Arrington's arguments in favour of advertising. It is also claimed that the argument developed by Philip Nelson, which concludes that even if persuasive advertising does override autonomy, it is still in the interests of consumers to be subjected to it, is seriously mistaken. Finally, some caveats concerning informative advertising are presented. (shrink)

Advertisers often have been accused of using techniques which manipulate and control the behavior of consumers and hence violate their autonomy. Some of these techniques are puffery, subliminal advertising, and indirect information transfer. After examining both criticisms and defenses of such practices, this paper presents an analysis of four of the concepts involved in the debate — the concepts of autonomous desire, rational desire, free choice, and control. Applying the results to the case of advertising, it is shown that advertising (...) cannot be found guilty of intrinsically or frequently violating the consumer's autonomy in any of the relevant senses of this notion. (shrink)

In this paper I will criticize a common practice I call associative advertising. Briefly, associative advertising induces people to buy (or buy more of) a product by associating that market product with such deep-seated non-market goods as friendship, acceptance and esteem from others, excitement and power even though the market good seldom satisfies or has any connection with the non-market desire. The fault in associative advertising is not that it is deceptive or that it violates the autonomy of its audience (...) — on this point I find Robert Arrington's arguments persuasive (Advertising and Behavior Control, Journal of Business Ethics 1 (1982), 3–12). Instead, I will argue against associative advertising by examining the virtues and vices at stake. In so doing, I will offer an alternative to Arrington's exclusive concern with autonomy and behavior control.My main criticism is two-fold: (a) Advertisers must surely desensitize themselves to the compassion, concern, and sympathy for others that are central emotions in a virtuous person, and (b) associative advertising influences its audience to neglect the nonmarket cultivation of our virtues and to substitute market goods instead, with the result that we become worse and, quite likely, less happy persons. (shrink)

PowerMaster was a malt liquor which Heileman Brewing Company sought to market to inner-city blacks in the early 1990s. Due to widespread opposition, Heileman ceased its marketing of PowerMaster. This paper begins by exploring the moral objections of moral illusion, moral insensitivity and unfair advantage brought against Heileman’s marketing campaign. Within the current market system, it is argued that none of these criticism was clearly justified. Heileman might plausibly claim it was fulfilling its individual moralresponsibilities.Instead, Heileman’s marketing program must be (...) viewed as part of a group of marketing programs which all targeted inner-city blacks. It is argued that those marketers who target this particular market segment constitute a group which is collectively responsible for theharms imposed by their products on inner-city blacks. This responsibility is reducible neither to individual responsibility nor to a shared responsibility. It constitutes a dimension of moral responsibility to which marketers must pay attention. (shrink)

Despite being co-opted by economists and politicians for their own purposes, ‘welfare’ traditionally refers to well-being, and it is in this sense that L. W. Sumner understands the term. His book is a clear, careful, and well-crafted investigation into major theories of welfare, accompanied by a one-chapter defense of “welfarism,” the view that welfare is the only foundational value necessary for ethics. Sumner himself is attracted to utilitarianism, but he makes no commitment to it in this work, which will be (...) of interest to many moral philosophers. (shrink)

The formulation of moral issues surrounding consumer advertising tends to focus on the capacity to persuade or inform, and how these capabilities may be used to distort or fulfill needs and desires. Discussion of these issues abstracts from widespread advertising and marketing practices, by assuming that all advertising is mass advertising, broadcast indiscriminately over the entire market population. This assumption directs attention away from important issues stemming from actual advertising strategies, which involve campaigns designed for and conveyed to particular customer (...) groups or segments within broader product market. Several cases are outlined to illustrate the class of practices considered to be important and usually ignored, and issues that they raise for moral appraisal are suggested. (shrink)

In recent years, the business ethics literature has exploded in both volume and importance. Because of the sheer volume and diversity of this literature, a review article was deemed necessary to provide focus and clarity to the area. The present paper reviews the literature on business ethics with a special focus in marketing ethics. The literature is divided into normative and empirical sections, with more emphasis given to the latter. Even though the majority of the articles deal with the American (...) reality, most of the knowledge gained is easily transferable to other nations. (shrink)

This inquiry analyzed the extent to which television commercials used mature models, relative to younger models. It also analyzed the extent to which commercials portrayed the elderly in a favorable or an unfavorable manner. The study used content analysis to test twelve hypotheses. The authors arrived at conclusions relating to the depiction of mature individuals in television commercials and set forth various recommendations to advertisers, based on the analysis.

Advertising can be regarded as having two separate functions, one of persuading and one of informing consumers. Against some who claim that persuasive advertising using irrational means is moral as long as the product or service it represents is good or useful, this paper argues that by denigrating human reason such advertising is always immoral. On the other hand, advertisements which present information in a straight-forward and truthful way are always moral no matter what they advertise; indeed, only such advertisements (...) are moral. (shrink)

Many critics have questioned the ethics of advertising as an institution in current American society. The purpose of this paper is to critically examine three negative social trends that have been attributed to advertising: (a) the elevation of consumption over other social values, (b) the increasing use of goods to satisfy social needs, and (c) the increasing dissatisfaction of individual consumers. This explanation yields a defense of advertising which argues that the underlying cause of these negative trends is not advertising, (...) but a larger social factor - capitalism. Solutions that address the capitalistic roots of these negative social trends are suggested. (shrink)