Resource depletion

Humans are depleting the earths resources at an

ever-increasing rate. This is a product of an
ever-increasing global population multiplied by and
ever-increasing level of consumption per person.
More people on the planet leads to more:
● Sewerage and stock effluent
● Fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides
● Fossil fuels extracted and burned
● Oil leaked and spilled
● Land deforested and developed
● Soil eroded and degraded
● Minerals mined
● Waste and toxic byproducts of manufacturing
All of these things deplete or degrade the earth’s
natural resources. It is estimated that humanities’
eco-footprint (a measure of consumption) is one and
a half times the earth’s ability to sustainably provide
the resources to meet that level of consumption. That
shortfall is being met through the depletion (or
degradation) of natural capital – things like fresh
water, soil, forest land, wetlands and biodiversity.
ETHICS OF POLUTION CANTROL
● We should recognize our moral duty to protect
the welfare not only as a human being but also of
other non humans parts of the system
● Usefulness of non human world for human
purposes
● Humans have no right to reduce the richness and
diversity expect to satisfy vital needs
● The ideological change is mainly that of
appreciating life quality,rather than to increase
higher standard of living
● Should keep a check of How much of the
environmental damages caused by several
pollutersshould be counted as damage to my
property

ETHICS FOR CONSERVATION OF

RESOURSES
● Development that meet the needs of present
with comprising the ability of future generation
to meet their own needs

● Proper utilization of resoursec i.e the people

should maintain ecological balance

● We should adopt voluntary measures to conserve

the resources.

● If we are to preserve enough resources,so that

future generation can maintain their quality of
life ata satisfactory level

Advertising
​

Ethics
● Economics of it
1. A massive multi-billion-dollar/year business
 2. Cost ultimately borne by the consumer
● Consumer Opinion Surveys have shown
1. 66% believe advertising does not reduce prices
2. 65 % believe advertising makes people buy things they shouldn't
3. 63% believe advertisements are untruthful
4. 54% believe it insults their intelligence
● Nevertheless -- when they vote with their wallets
1. many buy advertised brands
2. often willing paying extra
● In defense of advertising it is said advertising provides a useful
communication service informing customers about products available to
them
● Question: Is advertising a waste or a benefit, on balance?

A Definition

● The Primary Function of Advertising

o not to provide objective information
▪ of course if your product really is superior providing
objective information probably won't hurt
▪ but it still might not help as much as projecting a sexy
image
o it's all about SELLING THE PRODUCT

​ n advertisement is communication between sellers and potential buyers

A
addressed to a mass audience​ (as distinct from a private message to a
specific individual) and​ intended to induce some members of that audience
to buy some product from the seller

▪ by creating a desire for the product in the consumer

▪ or by creating a belief that the product is a means to satisfy
some desire the consumer already has
● Three topics concerning the morality of advertising
1. social effects
2. effects on consumer desires
3. effects on consumer beliefs
Social Effects of Advertising

Critics of advertising claims that it has several adverse effect on society

o degrades peoples tastes

o wastes valuable resources
o sustains monopoly & oligopoly power
● Psychological Effects of Advertising
o Some complain of the vulgarity of it: it's distasteful and debases
tastes:
▪ an aesthetic criticism not an ethical one?
▪ For effective adverisement being intrusive, and repetitive a
way of getting people's attention
▪ ads for toilet bowl cleaners, deodorants, etc.
▪ show images and focus peoples minds on things
some think are not particularly edifying
▪ or elevating things to fix your mind on.
o Moral Criticism: Debases ​values
▪ by inculcating and reinforcing materialistic conceptions of
▪ what happiness is: having lots of toys and going on
cruises
▪ and how to get it: "VISA it's everywhere you want to
be."
▪ alleged consequence: people neglect and underestimate
▪ the importance of other, more basic, values.
▪ and the existence of other ways of finding self
fulfillment besides buying.
▪ alleged consequence: people lead more selfish lives
▪ energies diverted away from nonmaterialistic
pursuits beneficial to many & all
▪ service & camaraderie
▪ towards selfish pursuit of acquisition
▪ Debatable that advertising is so powerful or values so
malleable as this criticism would have us think
▪ values are formed early & run deep: shaped &
influenced by
▪ parents & friends: mostly
▪ church & school & work: considerably
▪ arts & entertainment: not inconsiderably
 ▪ advertising: very little
▪ plausibly advertising can't to much to really change
people's basic values
▪ all it can do is appeal to values people already have
● Advertising and Waste
o Economist's Distinction: Two Kinds of Costs
▪ Production Costs: go into changing the product
▪ development
▪ production
▪ improvement
▪ Selling Costs do not go into changing the product, such as
costs that go into persuading people to buy the product
o Utilitarian Argument
▪ Sellers costs and advertising in particular don't add
anything to the utility of the product to the consumer.
▪ Therefore, from the standpoint consumer utility, advertising
expenditures are wasted
o Reply: Advertising produces broader social benefits: so it's not
wasted expense
▪ Benefits
▪ It informs consumers about available products &
their characteristics
▪ produces an economically beneficial rise in demand
for all products, thus,
▪ encouraging mass production and economies
of scale
▪ and an economy in which products are
manufactured more efficiently
▪ and cost less than they otherwise would.
▪ Dueling Rejoinders
1. advertising doesn't affect total consumption: it only
shifts consumption from one product to another
▪ increasing overall consumption is a good
thing
▪ but advertising doesn't do it
2. increasing total consumption is a curse not a blessing
▪ it's a bad thing: the threat of resource
depletion requires stabilizing or even
decreasing consumption
 ▪ and advertising does it
● Advertising and Market Power
o Worry: advertising resources large corporations command enable
them to consolidate monopoly & oligopoly control of markets.
▪ massive advertising campaigns of the major players
establish brand name loyalties
▪ the small player may be effectively closed out of the market
o Reply: there's no evidence this really is the case
▪ absence of a firm correlation between advertising
expenditure & degree of concentration:
▪ some concentrated industries (soaps, detergents,
breakfast cereals) feature heavy advertising
▪ other concentrated industries (drugs, cosmetics) do
not [?drugs & cosmetics?]
▪ in some oligopoly industries -- autos, e.g. -- smaller firms
spend more per unit than large

Advertising and the Creation of Consumer Desires

Advertising is manipulative:

▪ it creates desires in consumers for the sole purpose of

absorbing industrial output
▪ thus it uses people: whether it's ​in their interest​ to consume
more is not a consideration

Two types of desires

▪ physiological:
▪ characterization: of physiological origin:
▪ originate in the buyer and are relatively immune to
being changed by persuasion.
▪ examples: food, shelter
▪ psychic: of psychological origin
▪ characterization: highly subject to being changed by
persuasion
▪ originating from the would-be seller: advertising can
▪ swayed & expand & even create them
▪ example: social status
● Galbraith's charge: advertising exploitatively manipulates our psychic
desires
o that it manipulates: perhaps obvious
o the case that this is exploitative
▪ psychic desires are easily manipulated to excess
▪ demand created by physical needs are finite . . . only
so much you can eat
▪ but psychic demands are virtually infinite: "more,
more, is the cry of the deluded soul" (Blake)
▪ it uses the consumer as means alone
▪ advertisements' express purpose is selling their
product
▪ not the consumers welfare [maybe not if it's a
product you really believe in?]
▪ would be redeeming social benefit: fuels ever expanding
economy is a dubious benefit
▪ a kind of systemic compulsion
▪ there's cause to worry about long-term sustainability
of growth given finitude of depletable resources
o ideal of consumer sovereignty is undermined: producers usurp it
▪ rather than production being molded to serve human desires
▪ human desires are molded to serve the needs of production
● Assessment of Galbraith's Criticism
o Dubious of empirical assumption about the manipulability of
psychic desires
▪ mentioned above regarding advertising alleged abilities to
change peoples values.
▪ advertising has no monopoly on creation of psychic wants:
arguably plays a very small role in shaping people's basic
preferences
o Nevertheless, some advertising is clearly intended to manipulate:
▪ to arouse in the consumer a psychological desire for the
product without the consumer's knowledge
▪ which interferes with the consumer being able to rationally
weigh whether purchase of the product is in his or her own
best interest
▪ examples
▪ ads using "subliminal suggestion"
 ▪ ads that attempt to make consumers associate unreal
sexual or social fulfillment with the product
▪ advertising aimed at exploiting children's gullibility
▪ about the wonderful feats of the animated
action character
▪ misrepresent the characteristics and
capabilities of the plastic action figure doll
▪ modeled on the character: or vice versa
it often happens these days
▪ for sale near you.
▪ such advertising is manipulative in intent because it seeks
▪ to circumvent conscious reasoning & hence
undermine the rational agency of the consumer
▪ to influence the consumer to do what the advertiser
wants
▪ regardless of what is in the consumer's best
interests

Advertising and its Effects on Consumer Beliefs

● Much criticism of advertising focuses on its communicative aspect and

its deceptive use
o can communicate truths: information
o but also falsehoods: misinformation & disinformation
● Pertinent to the would-be defense of the utility of advertising -- against
the charge of wastefulness -- since
o if information has value: if being informed is a benefit
o disinformation presumably has disvalue: being misinformed is a
cost
● Deceptive advertising unarguably wrong on both Kantian & Utilitarian
grounds
o Kantian grounds:
▪ violation of consumer's rights to rational self determination
▪ lying is a paradigm case of a nonuniversalizable practice
o Utilitarian grounds:
▪ breeds distrust of communication in general
▪ false beliefs have disutility: leads to wrong (more costly,
less beneficial) choices
 ▪ interferes with the beneficial workings markets by
undermining the free rational agency of buyers
● All communication involves three terms
1. the author(s) who originate it
2. the medium that carries it
3. the audience who receives it
● Authors
o Have moral duty not to deceive
o Whether an advertisement is culpably deceptive depends on the
intent of the author
▪ the author must intend the audience to believe something
false
▪ that the author knows is false
▪ which the author intentionally leads the audience to believe
▪ whether through explicit assertion
▪ or implication
▪ or otherwise: e.g., in subliminal ads
▪ In the case of vulnerable audiences like children
▪ duty not to exploit their vulnerabilities
● Media
o Have a duty to ensure the ads they transmit are not misleading.
o In the case of vulnerable audiences like children
▪ duty not to exploit their vulnerabilities
● Audience
o Have a right not to be deceived.
o In the case of vulnerable audiences (like children)
▪ have a right not to have their vulnerabilities exploited
● Ethical Checklist: ​"the main factors that should be taken into
consideration when determining the ethical nature of a given
advertisement"
o Social Effects
▪ What does the author intend the effects to be?
▪ What are the actual effects?
o Effects on Desire
▪ Is the argument intended to be informative or merely
persuasive?
▪ If mainly persuasive does it attempt to create a desire that is
irrational or possibly injurious?
o Effects on Belief
 ▪ Is the content of the advertisement truthful?
▪ Does the advertisement have a tendency to mislead its
target audience?
▪ True claims can be misleading
▪ 9-10 dentists use the Oral-B toothbrush
▪ supposed to conclude: dentists overwhelming
judge Oral-B the best toothbrush
▪ why else would they choose it?
▪ but they don't exactly "choose" it: they're distributed
free to dentists

Consumer Privacy
● Threats to privacy in the computer age
o British firms are known (from reports they file) to collect highly
detailed and very personal information about their customers
including
▪ sexual information
▪ political information
o MIB (the Medical Information Bureau) -- "a company founded in
1902 to provide insurance companies with information about the
health of individuals applying for life insurance to detect
fraudulent applications" -- currently has medical histories on
about 15 million people
o Credit Bureaus
o Other
● Privacy rights
o right to privacy: ​the right of persons to determine what, to
whom, and how much information about themselves will be
disclosed to other parties
o psychological privacy​: privacy with respect to a person's inner
life
o physical privacy: ​privacy with respect to a person's physical
activities
● Protective functions of privacy
1. prevents others from acquiring information about us that would
expose us to shame, ridicule, or even blackmail
2. keeps others out of our business: leaves room for
unconventionality
 3. protects those we love from having their beliefs about us shaken
4. protects us from self-incrimination
● Enabling functions of privacy
o privacy enables intimacy: intimacy involves sharing confidences
which requires ​having​ confidences
o privacy enables various professional relations to exist
▪ attorney-client
▪ doctor-patient
o enables individuals to sustain distinct social roles
o enables individuals to control their own image or self-presentation
● Consumers' rights to privacy need to be balanced with legitimate
business needs for information: key concerns:
o relevance: ​databases 'should include only information that is
directly relevant to the purpose for which the database is being
maintained"
o informed: ​consumers should be informed about what information
is being collected and why
o consent: ​consumers should explicitly or implicitly consent to any
information collection
o accuracy: ​data collecting agencies must take care that the data is
accurate
o purpose: ​the purpose for which the information is collected must
be legitimate, i.e., if its collection is generally beneficial to those
about whom it is being collected.
o recipients and security: ​data collectors "must insure that
information is secure and not available to parties that the
individual has not explicitly or implicitly consented to be a
recipient of that information"

Discrimination
The root of the term discriminate is “ to distinguish one object from another,” a
morally neutral an not necessarily wrongful activity. However, in modern
usage, the term is not morally neutral; it is usually intended to refer to the
wrongful act of distinguishing illicitly among people not on the basis of
individual merit, but on the basis of prejudice or some other invidious or
morally reprehensible attitude. In this sense, to discriminate in employment is
to make an adverse decision (or set of decisions) against employees (or
prospective employees) who belong to ac certain class because of morally
unjustified prejudice toward members of that class.
Discrimination in employment must involve three basic elements, there are:

(1) it is a decision against one or more employees (or prospective employees)

that is not based on individual merit, such as the ability to perform a given job,
seniority, or other morally legitimate qualifications.

(2) the decision derives solely or in part from racial or sexual prejudice, false
stereotypes, or some other kind of morally unjustified attitude against members
of the class to which the employee belongs.
(3) the decision (or set of decisions) has a harmful or negative impact on the
interests of the employees, perhaps costing them jobs, promotions, or better
pay.

Discrimination : Utility , Rights , Justice

The arguments mustered against discrimination generally fall into three groups:
(a) utilitarian arguments, which claim that discrimination leads to an
inefficient use of human resources;
b) rights arguments, which claim that discrimination violates basic human
rights;
(c) justice arguments, which claim that discrimination results in an unjust
distribution of society’s benefits and burdens.
Principle of equality is individuals who are equal in all respects relevant to the
kind of treatment in question should be treated equally even if they are
dissimilar in other, nonrelevant respects.

Arguments against discrimination

Utility
The standard utilitarian argument against racial and sexual discrimination is
based on the idea that a society’s productivity will be optimized to the extent
that jobs are awarded on the basis of competency (or “merit”). Different jobs,
the arguments goes, require different skills and personality traits if they are to
be carried out in as productive manner as possible. Furthermore, different
people have different skills and personality traits. Consequently, to ensure that
jobs are maximally productive, they must be assigned to those individuals
whose skills and personality traits qualify them as the most competent for the
job. Discriminating among job applicants on the basis of race, sex, religion or
other characteristics unrelated to job performance is necessarily inefficient and,
therefore, contrary to utilitarian principles.
Utilitarian arguments of this sort, however, have encountered two kinds of
objections. First, if the argument is correct, then jobs should be assigned on the
basis of job-related qualifications only so long as such assignments will
advance the public welfare. Second, the utilitarian argument must also answer
the charge of opponents who hold that society as a whole may benefit from
some forms of sexual discrimination.

Rights
Non-utilitarian arguments against racial and sexual discrimination may take the
approach that discrimination is wrong because it violates a person’s basic moral
rights. Kantian theory, for example, holds that human being should be treated
asends and never used merely as means. At minimum, this principle means that
each individual has a moral right to be treated as a free person equal to any
other person and that all individuals have a correlative moral duty to treat each
individual as a free and equal person.

Justice
A second group of non-utilitarian arguments against discrimination views it as
a violation of the principle of justice. For example, John Rawls argued that
among the principles of justice that the enlightened parties to the “original
position” would choose for themselves is the principle of equal opportunity: “
Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are attached to
offices and positions open to all under condition of fair equality of opportunity.
Discrimination violates this principle by arbitrarily closing off to minorities the
more desirable offices and positions in an institution, thereby not giving them
an opportunity equal to that of others.

Discriminatory Practices
1​.​ Recruitment; ​Firms that rely solely on the word-of-mouth referrals of
present employees to recruit new workers tend to recruit only from those racial
and sexual groups that are already represented in their labor force.
2. Screening​; Job qualifications are discriminatory when they are not relevant
to the job to be performed. Aptitude or intelligence tests used to screen
applicants become discriminatory when they serve to disqualify members from
minority cultures who are unfamiliar with the language, concepts, and social
situations used in the tests but who are in fact fully qualified for the job.
3.​ ​Promotion;​ Promotion, job progression, and transfer practices are
discriminatory when employers place White males on job tracks separate from
those open to women and minorities.
4. Conditions of Employment; ​Wages and salaries are discriminatory to the
extent that equal wages and salaries are not given to people who are doing
essentially the same work.
5. Discharge;​ Firing an employee on the basis of race or sex is a clear form of
discrimination.