Summarize the three issues pertaining to marketing ethically.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

It will be helpful to keep three concerns in mind as one approaches any ethical issue in marketing:

The rights-based ethical tradition would ask to what degree the participants are respected as free and autonomous agents rather than treated simply as means to the end of making a sale. It is not always easy to determine if someone is being treated with respect in marketing situations. As a first approximation there are two conditions. First, the person must freely consent to the transaction. A second condition for respect requires that the consent be not only voluntary, but also informed.
The utilitarian tradition would want to know the degree to which the transaction provided actual as opposed to merely apparent benefits. This looks to the alleged benefits obtained through market exchanges. Economics textbooks commonly assume that consumers benefit whenever they make an exchange in the marketplace. But this assumption won't bear up under close scrutiny. Both parties to the marketing exchange are also not benefited in situations in which one party is injured by the product. Unsafe products do not further the utilitarian goal of maximizing overall happiness. It would also be the case that consumers are not benefited if the desires that they seek to satisfy in the market are somehow contrived or manipulated by the seller.
Every ethical tradition would also wonder what other values might be at stake in the transaction. Such primary social values as fairness, justice, health, and safety are just some of the values that can be jeopardized by some marketing practices. An adequate ethical analysis of marketing must ask who else might be affected by the transaction. One must also ask what the true costs of production are. An adequate ethical analysis of marketing must consider externalities, those costs that are not integrated within the exchange between buyer and seller. Externalities show that even if both parties to the exchange receive actual benefits from the exchange, other parties external to the exchange might be adversely affected.