ETHICAL DILEMMAS IN ADVERTISING
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The Ethical Question
Why does modern society still indulge in excessive advertisements seen in all forms of media when the negative impacts of these advertisements are increasingly harmful?
- a) Act central to the ethical question
No product has ever failed because of too much advertising, but lots of products have been unable due to bad advertising—Zima, Dockers, and Infinity cars come to mind. While they all survived their initial product launches, they dug themselves holes that took years to climb out of. While the main aim of advertisements may be to get potential consumers noticed, it’s clear that the central act in the excessive advertisement continues to glorify the violent exploitation of consumers and customers. Excess advertising turns out to confuse customers who even lead to wrong purchase decisions (Sheehan,2013). During advertisements, lots of products make comparable claims, which makes consumers confuse regarding which item they must buy (Sheehan,2013). For example, all the cleaning agents like Surf, Tide, and Ariel make a comparable claim of eliminating stains and whitening your clothes but selecting which is the best is a terrific process because all of these brands come up with massive advertisement which makes it challenging to get just the best product.
Excess advertising also encourages the Sale of Inferior Products (Sheehan,2013). AS we all know, the primary objective of marketing is to persuade individuals to buy the products without a distinction between superior and inferior products. It weakens social worth and brings about materialism. When people come to know about a brand-new product in the market, they turn to feel dissatisfied and discontented with their present standard of life. It as well boosts the expense of a product which subsequently hands down to the clients in the form of high costs
- b) Virtues relevant to the morality of the act central of the moral question
Two virtues that count is uprightness and sincerity.
- c) Discussion of the morality of the act central to the ethical question
One can be honest without integrity; however, one cannot have integrity without honesty. Sincerity and uprightness are often used together. Many people perceive that honesty and integrity in advertising mean owning a stable temperament for revealing the truth of products being advertised, which should be of good quality and at least keeping away from deceit in product advertisements. The notion of integrity and honesty as a virtue also includes further evaluative and formal characteristics. Consumers need to be protected, and the truth about products revealed to them. This is ethical. Ethical advertising is essential because consumers value a comfortable experience. Honest and upright advertisements protect consumer’s rights and protect them from harmful products; hence they will likely share the business’s services and products.
- d) Kant’s categorical comparative
Kantian ethics is about what kind of actions are free actions. Concerning the Categorical Imperative, Kantian ethics discounts subjectivity in a situation. However, acting according to freedom does not make you a better human being, although it is required too. For we cannot fully know whether an act is according the moral law, we can at least be sincere concerning our conscience. However, sincerity is not an ethical instance of why Kant did not elaborate on it in depth. For Kant, duty, such as moral conformity, was another restriction on freedom.
The specific rule that authorizes the act central of the ethical question is the maxim. The maxim is the rule on which an advertising agency may decide to act (in this context) for their benefits. Descend to be dishonest only benefit them and not the consumers. The general law that authorizes the act central of the ethical question is the generalization of the maxim rule into a law nature (Westphal,2014). For instance, in excessive advertisements, businesses are forced to lie because they have no other ways to obtain funds or maybe profits and to ease the strain on benefits, they resort to dishonesty. The general rule, however, seems to be inherently self-contradictory as well as violates the other absolute moral rules published by Kant as well as its fundamental purpose. This is because, according to Kant, deception is wrong, and we should not lie, yet the general rule implies that when one desires to meet his needs, he is right if he becomes deceptive (Westphal,2014). The general rule also seems to violate Kant’s thesis of the deontological moral. According to Kant’s ethical system, the acts are reasonable because from his reasoning, as much as we expect to serve people in the right way (using the maxims), lust and needs become diverse and incompatible; therefore hence we cannot help everyone. Thus, in the context of the act of exploitation through excessive advertisements, Kant would perceive this to be right.
- e) Conclusion
Ethics turns out to be a key element in life. If you have no ethical code of any kind but go on impulse, you’ll likely do the wrong thing time and again (Board,2014). Human beings are in a unique position. Unlike other species on this planet, we have “broken” Nature. The rest of Nature cannot threaten us with extinction, but we can do it to ourselves. We can do massive damage to ourselves and the environment unless we develop a sense of social responsibility (Pojman, McShane & Pojman,2015). Hence, the human species must live by some ethical code unless you want destruction, pain, misery, and cannibalism. However, it’s also challenging to make an informed decision when we rely on ethical theories; they are formulated based on different ideas. As much as the utilitarian analysis and the Kant analysis attempts to address matters of ethics, the two analysis is based on different grounds which I might refer to as ‘confusing.’ We need to rely on o our conscience, the moral sense of right and wrong, viewed as acting as a guide to one’s behavior (Board,2014). Conscience judges the morality of an action, how it is performed, and its consequences.
References
Board, B. A. C. (2014). Professional and ethical compliance code for behavior analysts.
Pojman, L. P., McShane, K., & Pojman, P. (2015). Environmental ethics: Readings in theory and application. Nelson Education.
Sheehan, K. B. (2013). Controversies in contemporary advertising. Sage Publications.
Westphal, K. R. (2014). Practical reason: Categorical imperative, maxims, laws. In Immanuel Kant (pp. 113-129). Routledge.