Michael J. Phillips

The argument that political controls are needed because advertising manipulates consumers is, for Phillips, a critique with a tacit assumption: that such manipulation is bad. Phillips considers that assumption from the perspective of a business ethicist, applying four ethical frameworks: utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, autonomy, and virtue ethics. If it works as the critics say, manipulative advertising probably is unethical under most or all of these criteria. But does it really manipulate? Does it stimulate the propensity to consume and dictate the brand and product choices consumers make? Basing his conclusion on considerable empirical research, Phillips argues that advertising is not an especially strong force in these respects. For that reason, most of the ethical arguments against it break down. This means, he says, that if capitalism's critics want to tout some new and better social order, they cannot use advertising's manipulativeness as an aid in doing so.

Answering a Flawed Indictment

Ethics and Manipulation in Advertising

Bruce D. Fisher

This highly effective text has chapters arranged in seven functional modules to emphasize how legal topics relate to business functions like marketing, finance, human resources, accounting, and manufacturing. Streamlined for easy readability, the text contains excerpted cases offering substantial portions of original language of the court. In addition, the text presents a strong emphasis on ethics, international law and environmental law as well as Internet applications to encourage students to use the Web as a resource.

Michael J. Phillips

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