The Ethics of Consumer Production and Marketing
The Ethics of Consumer Production and Marketing
There are lots of cases we found about the injuries happen to the consumer, each year some 20 millions people suffer serious accidental injuries and about 100.000 are killed, more than half of them in accidents involving consumer products.
However, products injuries make up only one category of cost imposed on unwary consumer, consumer must also bear the cost of deceptive selling practices.
1. Market and consumer protection
In such market the consumer is said to be ‘sovereign’. When consumer wants and will willingly pay for something, seller have an incentive to cater to their wishes.
In Market approach, to consumer protection, consumer safety is seen as a good that is most efficiently provided trough the mechanism of free market whereby seller must respond to consumer demands.
Problem with the assumption of rational utility maximization.
• Few people are good at estimating probabilities
• People are irrational and inconsistent when weighing choices
• Many consumer market are monopolies or oligopolies
2. The contract view of business firm’s duties to consumers
The view that the relationship between a business firm and its consumer is essentially a contractual relationship, and the firm’s moral duties to the customer are those created by this contractual relationship.
The duty to comply
The most basic moral duty that the business firm owes its customer, according to the contract view, is the duty to provide consumers with a product that live up to those claims that the firm expressly made about the product which let the customer to enter the contract freely and which formed the customers’ understanding concerning what they were agree to buy.
The degree to which product performance meets predetermine expectation with respect to :
▪ Reliability
▪ Service life
▪ Maintainability
▪ Product safety
3. The due care theory
The view
There are lots of cases we found about the injuries happen to the consumer, each year some 20 millions people suffer serious accidental injuries and about 100.000 are killed, more than half of them in accidents involving consumer products.
However, products injuries make up only one category of cost imposed on unwary consumer, consumer must also bear the cost of deceptive selling practices.
1. Market and consumer protection
In such market the consumer is said to be ‘sovereign’. When consumer wants and will willingly pay for something, seller have an incentive to cater to their wishes.
In Market approach, to consumer protection, consumer safety is seen as a good that is most efficiently provided trough the mechanism of free market whereby seller must respond to consumer demands.
Problem with the assumption of rational utility maximization.
• Few people are good at estimating probabilities
• People are irrational and inconsistent when weighing choices
• Many consumer market are monopolies or oligopolies
2. The contract view of business firm’s duties to consumers
The view that the relationship between a business firm and its consumer is essentially a contractual relationship, and the firm’s moral duties to the customer are those created by this contractual relationship.
The duty to comply
The most basic moral duty that the business firm owes its customer, according to the contract view, is the duty to provide consumers with a product that live up to those claims that the firm expressly made about the product which let the customer to enter the contract freely and which formed the customers’ understanding concerning what they were agree to buy.
The degree to which product performance meets predetermine expectation with respect to :
▪ Reliability
▪ Service life
▪ Maintainability
▪ Product safety
3. The due care theory
The view