week 4 in-class activity
Cooper2021
4-1.pptxBusiness Ethics Summer 2022 (1) Week 4, Lecture 1
Chaeyoung Paek
In Week 4…
In Week 3, we discussed whether there should be some ethical limitations on what money can buy.
Both Sandel & Anderson argue that there should be such limitations on the market.
They claim that commodifying certain kinds of things—shared goods/political goods—could de-value and de-grade these goods & the values they have.
Based on the in-class activity responses, it seems like many of us agree that there should be some limitations on what money can buy!
(ex) Female hygiene products/children/education
In Week 4…
But even for things that could be commodified, maybe there should be some ethical limitations (or regulations based on ethical consideration) on how you sell these things.
In Week 4 – 5, we’ll talk about this new topic: do some advertising techniques manipulate and invade privacy of customers? Can using such techniques be justified?
We’ll see Arrington’s defense of certain advertising techniques that may seem manipulative;
Then we’ll see how O’Neil and Susser et al. criticize contemporary advertising techniques.
In today’s class…
We’ll look at Robert Arrington’s defense of advertising techniques that are often criticized of being manipulative.
There will be an in-class activity right after this slide.
Exercise: Advertising Techiniques
Click ”4-1 In-class Activity” below the lecture video.
Click “Write Submission”; fill in your answers & click “Submit.”
This should take about 5 minutes, but feel free to take more/less time as needed.
Advertising Techniques
Advertisements intend to persuade potential customers to buy the advertised products.
To achieve the intended goal, many advertising companies use techniques developed based on the research about human mind.
In “Advertising and Behavior Control,” Arrington discusses three of such techniques:
Puffery
Indirect information transfer
Subliminal advertising.
Puffery
Puffery = the practice by a seller of making exaggerated, highly fanciful or suggestive claims about a product or service
Puffery
Puffery is based on motivational research; advertising firms identify our hidden needs and desires, then design ads that respond to these needs and desires.
Cf. Puffery vs. Deceptive advertising
Levitt’s defense of puffery
The very purpose of advertising is "to influence the audience by creating illusions, symbols, and implications that promise more than pure functionality.”
Puffery is not deceptive in nature; it serves advertising’s true purpose!
Indirect Information Transfer
Some advertising companies use another technique to affect the viewers: they make ads that do not really provide any info about the product, but simply run the same ads repeatedly.
(ex) “It’s a Tide ad!”
This repetitive advertising strategy is called indirect information transfer; it does not offer any direct information about the product, but only indirect information.
(ex) New iPhone commercial on Youtube
Nelson’s defense of indirect information transfer
- The very fact that (a) the same brand can run their ads repeatedly shows how well the brand is doing and that (b) what they sell would be a better buy for the consumers.
Subliminal Advertising
Subliminal advertising uses subliminal suggestion to persuade the audience to act in a certain way or to buy certain products.
(ex) Department store background music + ads
Arrington’s defense of subliminal advertising
Subliminal advertising do not “invent” new desires or needs; it simply triggers the desires/needs that were already there.
Against Advertising
Braybrooke’s argument against advertising:
P1. Advertising techniques, such as puffery, indirect information transfer, or subliminal advertising, undermine the consumers’ autonomy.
P2. If some advertising techniques undermine an agent’s autonomy, they must be banned or regulated.
C. Advertising techniques, such as puffery, indirect information transfer, or subliminal advertising, must be banned or regulated.
Q. Why does Braybrooke think that (P1) must be true?
A. Braybrooke points out that these advertising techniques do not simply provide information about the product; they create desires and make the audience have and act on that artificial desire.
Against Advertising
Arrington on Braybrooke:
Braybrooke’s argument is valid; but it may not be sound.
To show whether (P1) is actually true or not, we need to see what it means for something to undermine one’s autonomy.
If we properly understand what it means for something to undermine one’s autonomy, we would see that advertising does not undermine anyone’s autonomy; it simply influence how the audience behaves.
Autonomy & Advertising
What is autonomy? What does it mean that one makes an autonomous decision?
- (Arrington) 4 potential answers:
To be autonomous is to have autonomous desires.
To be autonomous is to have rational desires and make choices based on them.
To be autonomous is to be able to make free choices.
To be autonomous is to be free of control or manipulation.
Arrington argues that advertising does not undermine autonomy in any of these senses.
Advertising & Autonomous Desire
Q1. Does advertising undermine one’s ability to have and act on autonomous desires?
(Arrington) Culturally induced desires are still autonomous desires.
(ex) The desire for music/art/knowledge
The desires induced by advertisements are culturally induced desires.
A’s desire to X is autonomous if and only if A has the desire to maintain and fulfill the desire to X.
(ex) A desire based on momentary madness
Most desires created by ads are actually autonomous based on this definition!
Advertising & Rational Desires
Q2. Does advertising undermine one’s ability to have rational desires and make choices based on them?
It is hard to distinguish rational desires from irrational ones.
So, it is hard to say whether advertising, or anything, undermines one’s ability to have rational desires; we don’t know what rational desires are!
Q. But when you decide to purchase something based on puffery, you’re buying it because of some imaginary benefits of that product; that’s irrational desire & choice!
Arrington: In many cases, what customers look for when they purchase the advertised product is the subjective effect.
(ex) Luxury car + other people’s compliments
It is rational to seek such subjective effects to be brought about by purchasing certain items!
Advertising & Free Choices
Q3. Does advertising undermine one’s ability to make free choices?
(Arrington) When A acts on the desire to X with a reason, A’s action is based on A’s free choice.
Sometimes, ads do undermine one’s ability to make free choices in this sense.
(ex) Taco Bell ad + sudden craving
But sometimes, ads don’t undermine the ability to make free choices; they simply trigger the desires + the reasons that were there already.
Advertising & Control or Manipulation
Q4. Does advertising undermine one’s freedom from control or manipulation?
(Arrington) To see whether this is the case, we need to first understand what it means for one to be controlled.
A person, A, controls the behavior of another person, B, if and only if
A intends B to act in a certain way, X;
A’s intention is causally effective in bringing about X; and
A intends to ensure that all of the necessary conditions of X are satisfied.
(ex) You + Younger sibling + Cleaning up the mess
Advertising & Control or Manipulation
If the ads are really controlling the audience’s behavior, then the ads should not only intend that a lot of people would buy the advertised products; they should also intend to make sure that the necessary conditions for people buying the advertised products are satisfied.
(ex) Luxury car + {The need & desire for a new car & money}
(Arrington) This doesn’t seem to be the case; ads merely influence the audience.
Conclusion
Arrington concludes that Baybrooke’s argument against advertising techniques is not sound.
He argues that (P1) of his argument is not true.
There are 4 ways to understand how advertising could undermine one’s autonomy, and advertising does not actually undermine one’s autonomy in any way.
For the next class…
Read Cathy O’Neil, “Propaganda Machine.”
