Philosophy 223
Marketing, Advertising and Information
Moral Dimensions of Advertising
 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 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.
A Question of Influence
 The aim of marketing and product
placement is to influence the purchasing
decision of the consumer.
 Common moral opinion suggests that 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.
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; it’s 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.
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.
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 we’ve 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).
Deceptive and Unfair Marketing
 Some marketing techniques are obviously
unethical.
 Prominent among these are techniques that
seek to deceive consumers or seek an unfair
advantage over competitors.
 Is the “Sales at World Camera and Electronics”
case (336) and example of deceptive or unfair
marketing.
 What was its intent?
 Was the customer harmed?
Deception and Manipulation in
Advertising
 Given the harms that arise from deceptive and
unfair advertising, society has good reasons to
target these forms of advertising.
 The focus on intent seems promising. Perhaps we
could target advertising that intends to deceive.
 However, intent is difficult to discern, so 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.”
Galbraith and the Dependence Effect
 Economist John Kenneth Galbraith argued that contrary to
common assumptions, advertisement doesn’t 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.
Some Implications of the Dependence
Effect
 If Galbraith’s 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.
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.
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 behaving 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?
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.
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 secondorder desires to be free of the addiction.
 Given the analysis just offered, to the
extent that the addict acts on their firstorder desires rather than their second-order
desires, they act non-autonomously.
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 secondorder 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.
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.
 The 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.
Arrington, “Advertising and Behavior
Control”
 This article considers whether or not a
common technique of advertising, puffery,
illegitimately interferes with consumer
autonomy via manipulation.
 The author argues that generally it does
not.
 His argument rests on analysis of the
concepts of desire, free choice, and
manipulation.
Puffery
 Puffery is the practice of a seller making
exaggerated or fanciful claims about a product or
service.
 Some argue that the use of puffery constitutes
manipulation.
 Examples: “Better ingredients, better pizza.”
 Axe Body Spray
Arrington on Autonomy and Desire
 Autonomous Desire
 We act autonomously when we act in a manner
consistent with our second-order desires.
 Autonomous Desire and Choice
 Based on knowledge of information relevant to
choice. Desire is only autonomous when it’s
rational (ensures consistency).
 Free Choice (Acting Freely)
 We act freely when we do things for a reason.
What about Manipulation?
 As Arrington understands it,
manipulation involves:
 Intention
 Causality
 Guaranteed Control of Outcome
Arrington’s Conclusion
 Arrington argues that persuasive advertising
typically does not undermine autonomy.
 Consumers typically
 Consumers typically
be good ones.
 Consumers typically
desires.
 Consumers typically
act freely (on reasons).
act on reasons they take to
act on their second-order
are not manipulated.
Holley, “Information Disclosure in Sales”
 This essay defends a rule or principle of disclosure for
ethical sales.
 How much information are sales people ethically
required to disclose? Five levels of disclosure:
 Minimal Information: buyer is solely responsible;
 Modified Minimal Information: disclose only what is necessary
to avoid risk;
 Fairness Rule: safety information plus unavailable
information;
 Mutual Benefit Rule: safety information plus information
needed for a reasonable judgment;
 Maximal Information Rule: all relevant information.
What’s Required?
 Holley first considers if it would be appropriate to merely
consider the interests of the consumer. What rule would you
want if you were the consumer (the Golden Rule)?
 Holley thinks that this focus ignores the appropriate advocacy of the
salesperson.
 This leads him to consider the two versions of the minimal
information rule, but this seems to ignore legitimate interests of
consumers.
 Addressing the various ways in which consumers are
informationally vulnerable leads him to reject the fairness rule.
 He thus concludes that the mutual benefit rule is best, as it
allows for product advocacy but protects consumer interests.