An Introduction to Business Ethics - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

1 / 21
About This Presentation
Title:

An Introduction to Business Ethics

Description:

Ethics of Sales. The aim of all marketing strategies or techniques is the sale. ... some of the particular concerns raised by ethicists and business people, we ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

Number of Views:66
Avg rating:3.0/5.0
Slides: 22
Provided by: PhilipM
Category:

less

Transcript and Presenter's Notes

Title: An Introduction to Business Ethics


1
An Introduction to Business Ethics
  • Chapter 8
  • Marketing Ethics Advertising and Target Marketing

2
Ethics of Sales
  • The aim of all marketing strategies or techniques
    is the sale. Producing and pricing goods is an
    important element of this, but advertising and
    product placement are the means by which the sale
    is promoted..
  • We often assume that these aspects of marketing
    are a relatively benign aspect of contemporary
    business. After all, they involve no cultural
    conflict, no violation of employee rights or
    responsibilities, and no obvious abdication of
    corporate responsibility.
  • Furthermore, advertisement is directed at free
    individuals who are not externally coerced to
    accept the claims made by the advertisers.
    Despite these facts, there are significant
    ethical issues that arise in these contexts.

3
A Question of Influence
  • The aim of marketing and product placement is to
    influence the purchasing decision of the
    consumer.
  • Clearly, there are ethically acceptable and
    unacceptable means of influencing consumer
    behavior
  • Acceptable means include persuading, asking,
    informing and advising.
  • Unacceptable ways include threats, coercion,
    deception and lying.

4
Influence and Manipulation
  • The unacceptable means of influencing people
    share a common feature they all aim at
    manipulating the consumer.
  • Manipulation seeks to guide behavior without the
    consent or awareness of the target.
  • Manipulation is not control its more subtle.
  • The better you understand how people think, the
    more effectively you can manipulate them.
  • Manipulation should be contrasted with forms of
    rational influence like persuasion.

5
Manipulative Marketing
  • It should be easy to see that critics of
    advertising and product placement techniques
    focus on instances where the intent of the
    techniques is clearly manipulative.
  • Another area of concern is marketing research, in
    particular research aimed at consumer psychology.

6
Is There Anything Wrong with Manipulation?
  • Before we examine some of the particular concerns
    raised by ethicists and business people, we
    should answer this question.
  • All of the general ethical approaches weve
    examined raise important objections to many forms
    of manipulation.
  • Manipulation is characterized by a failure to
    treat others with respect by treating them as a
    means rather than an end.
  • Manipulation thus tends to decrease overall
    utility by making social interaction more
    difficult.
  • Manipulation conflicts with many of the most
    commonly articulated virtues (ex. honesty).

7
Deceptive and Unfair Advertising
  • Some advertising techniques are obviously
    unethical.
  • Prominent among these are techniques that seek to
    deceive consumers or seek an unfair advantage
    over competitors.
  • Is the Tylenol campaign an example?
  • What was its intent?
  • What did Johnson Johnson want to achieve?

8
Regulating Deceptive and Unfair Advertising
  • Given the harms that arise from deceptive and
    unfair advertising, society has good reasons to
    target these forms of advertising.
  • There are obviously a number of practical
    obstacles to overcome, but our analysis of the
    Tylenol case highlights some important resources.
  • The focus on intent seems promising. Perhaps we
    could target advertising that intends to deceive.
  • Given the difficulty of measuring intent, some
    have argued that we should focus on effects.
  • In both cases, it seems necessary to agree on
    some definition of the qualities of a reasonable
    consumer.

9
Considering Other Effects
  • The question of the effects of deceptive and
    unfair advertising points to other issues
    concerning the effects of advertising.
  • Clearly advertising can have a number of positive
    effects on consumers, markets and the culture.
  • Information entertainment, market efficiency.
  • Are such effects always positive?

10
Galbraith and the Dependence Effect
  • Economist John Kenneth Galbraith argued that
    contrary to common assumptions, advertisement
    doesnt just respond to demand, it in large
    measure creates it. Galbraith labeled this
    capacity the Dependence Effect.
  • Galbraith went on to argue that there are three
    negative consequences of the DE
  • It reverses the law of supply and demand, making
    demand a function of supply.
  • It creates and encourages irrational consumer
    desires, which limit the efficiency of markets.
  • Advertising that creates demands undercuts
    consumer autonomy.

11
Some Implications of the Dependence Effect
  • If Galbraiths concerns are legitimate, there are
    a number of important consequences.
  • Undercutting consumer autonomy would violate
    traditional ethical standards.
  • Market exchanges which appear to increase overall
    satisfaction would actually not do so.
  • The reversal of the law of supply and demand
    significantly undercuts the democratic nature of
    markets and makes it difficult to justify the
    accumulation of wealth by a few individuals on
    the ground of their supposed responsiveness to
    consumer demand.

12
The Dependence Effect and Autonomy
  • The thin wedge of this issue is the question of
    autonomy.
  • Is it the case that common forms of advertising
    undercut consumer autonomy?
  • Answering this question requires a distinction
    prepared for in our analysis of manipulation.
  • We saw there that undercutting autonomy does not
    require actually controlling a person.
  • That is, a person can act without constraint, but
    still not be acting autonomously.

13
Autonomous Behavior vs. Autonomous Desire
  • We can account for the gap between action and
    autonomy, by noting a difference between
    autonomous behavior and autonomous desires.
  • If I act without constraint, I can in one sense
    be said to be acting autonomously.
  • However, if the desires upon which I act are not
    autonomously chosen, then the lack of constraint
    does not guarantee autonomy.
  • Is the drug addict acting autonomously when they,
    without external interference, use drugs?

14
A Framework for Understanding Desire
  • A way of understanding the apparent conflict
    lived by an addict it to draw a distinction
    between first-order and second-order desires.
  • A first-order desire is any desire I have at the
    moment. A second-order desire is one I have on
    the basis of a reflective consideration of my
    interests.
  • Autonomy requires this capacity for reflection.
  • It is thus the capacity to form and act in
    accordance with second-order desires which makes
    a person autonomous.

15
Autonomy and the Addict
  • The addict may have strong first-order desires
    for that to which they are addicted, but any
    reflective individual in that situation is going
    to have strong second-order desires to be free of
    the addiction.
  • Given the analysis just offered, to the extent
    that the addict acts on their first-order desires
    rather than their second-order desires, they act
    non-autonomously.

16
Autonomy and Advertising
  • Under what conditions are the desire-creating
    capacities of advertising going to be consistent
    with the autonomy of consumers?
  • Only in that situation where the creation of
    first-order desires does not conflict with
    legitimate, reflectively established second-order
    desires.
  • This is reflected in the cooling-off periods
    common in consumer protection law.
  • In other words, the fact that consumers often
    respond favorably to desire creating marketing
    techniques is no evidence of their acceptability.
  • Willingly participating in therapeutic shopping
    is not enough. The individual would have had to
    reflect upon the nature of such an enterprise and
    determined its appropriateness.

17
Further Complications
  • Even this picture may fail to address the full
    complicity of advertising in undercutting
    consumer autonomy.
  • Persuasive advertising actively contests the
    development of the critical, reflective skills
    necessary for the formation of autonomous
    second-order desires.
  • Sheer volume of advertising which bombards us
    everyday renders even the most critical and
    reflective individuals incapable of immunizing
    themselves from autonomy-limiting first-order
    desire creation.

18
Target Marketing and Manipulation
  • Our analysis of advertising and autonomy
    suggested that directing advertising at
    reflective established desires was ethically
    appropriate.
  • On the other hand, advertising aimed at desires
    not so established is ethically inappropriate.
  • Such desires would seemingly include those
    grounded in fears, anxieties, and whims.

19
Vulnerability and Desire
  • Consider the examples offered on p. 168.
  • What is the difference between the ad addressed
    to young, active women and that addressed to
    elderly widows?
  • Clearly, the ad aimed at the widow plays on the
    perception or reality of her vulnerability.
  • Can desires grounded in vulnerabilities be
    well-founded. If they arent , do marketers have
    a special responsibility to the vulnerable?

20
Nature and Types of Vulnerability
  • Vulnerability refers to a susceptibility to
    harm more specifically it refers to factors that
    individuals possess that makes them more
    susceptible than their fellows.
  • Individuals exhibit General Vulnerability when a
    physical or psychological feature they exhibit
    makes them susceptible to some harm.
  • Elderly, addicts.
  • Individuals exhibit Consumer Vulnerability to the
    extent that their ability to participate in
    rational exchanges is impaired.
  • Children

21
Marketing to Vulnerability
  • Marketing techniques can target general
    vulnerabilities or consumer vulnerabilities.
  • Clearly techniques that target consumer
    vulnerabilities are illegitimate, on the grounds
    of our analysis of autonomy.
  • Just as clearly, many general vulnerabilities
    make individuals vulnerable as consumers.
  • Elderly, infirm are vulnerable to ads that play
    on their anxieties. Low income people vulnerable
    to high priced consumer goods.
Write a Comment
User Comments (0)
About PowerShow.com