There is good reason to search a 2.4

There is good reason to search a 2.4

long way back for the ethics to guide marketing. As the British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead (1861­1947) commented, 'all Western philosophy is really no more than a footnote to Plato's (428­354 BC) great work The

Republic.' Tf that were true, our thinking on 'marketing ethics' is little more than a smudge on that footnote.

The ancients were also practical, as Plato's student explained:

'Ethics is a rough and ready business deter­ mined by ordinary practical men of common sense, not by inbred ascetic "experts" with their heads in a remote and austere world.'

Aristotle (384­322 BC}

Thinking's the thing

A lot of thinking went on in ancient Athens, a city state of only about 400,000 people. Socrates (469­ 399 EG) thought that the most important thing about human beings is that they ask questions.

He also thought that real moral knowledge existed and was worth pursuing. He did not think morality could be tough, but said that it was more than just obeying the law. The newly democratic Athenians did not like this questioning of state morality, so they condemned him to death by poisoning.

Good I'or the slate and good for you too Plato thought that Athens' experiments with democracy were a shambles and left town. He believed in moral absolutes that were separate from the more sordid world. This letl him to ideal­ ize regimes where right and wrong was well defined. He thought militaristic and disciplined Sparta was a much better place than free­ thinking Athens and that people should do what is good for the state. Lots of leaders have tried this and very nasty it is too.

Choosing the happy medium Aristotle rejected his teachers' concern for absolute

truths, suggesting that people take a middle road

and learn how to behave from experience. People learn to become

good citizens, and from that achieve contentment. Well, most people! And how about being a good citi­ zen of a gang of hooligans?

It was a long time before west­ ern philosophy recovered from these Greeks, but the Renaissance got things going again. Machiavelli was born in another city state:

Florence. He may be clung, but at least he's our dung

Machiavelli (1469­1527) was an observer rather than a philosopher. After he saw what succeeded,

he recognized that politics and morality mix badly. This is a convenient view for business lead­ ers who think there should be two Nets of moral standards: one for public life and one for private

life. In political and business life it is necessary to

be pragmatic and prudent ­ in other words, unethical ­ while retaining a different private ethic. As recent politicians have found, life does not always divide ­so easily.

Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short The English Royalist Hobbes (1588­1678) is even more depressing than Machiavelli, People are awful and are prevented from degenerating into our natural brutish behaviour only by realizing that everyone behaving that way would make life unbearable. People therefore establish a 'social contract' (which parents call 'bringing up') that has to be enforced by a neutral third party (government contract). Franco­Swiss Rousseau (1712­78) had the opposite view that humanity is essentially good, but is corrupted by society to want things like smart clothes, carriages and Nike trainers.

Sum happiness English Utilitarians Bentham (1748­1832) and Mill (1806­73) invented a form of moral calculus.

Bentham thought his country's laws were in a mess because they lacked a scientific foundation, lie saw human beings as pleasure­pain machines,

so he suggested that law makers should balance the sum of the pain and pleasure to achieve 'the greatest happiness of the greatest number'. This

Business Actions Towards Socially Responsible Marketing • 67

has two consequences: means justifying ends, any advice, but reeogni/<es an 'is­ought gap' and problems for minority groups. Mills worried

between what we experience (is) and the conclu­ about this 'tyranny of the majority'. He preferred

sion we try to draw from that (ought). Even talking about happiness rather than pleasure, tol­

though we know that bull bars on ears kill chil­ erated individual lifestyles and thought that the

dren (is), we can only produce a false argument 'happiness sums' varied and were for individuals

that they should not be sold (ought). Developing as well as law makers.

similar insights, it follows that any moral argu­ ment between people is 'utterly futile, unsolvc­

Bah. happiness able and irrational' (A. J. Avers 1910­89). Kant (1724­1804) had little time for happiness. The German idealist's ethics had categorical

The Age of Unreason

imperatives. Tie believed that a moral action was Postmodernists have pursed this ethical scepti­ one done out of a sense of duty, and thought that

cism to new layers. Reason fails because of its ethics was about finding out our duties and living

dependence on language. What passed as reason by them. Kant deduced a 'universality test' to find

in the past has caused so much human suffering. the compulsory rules. He asked people to imagine

This level of ethical uncertainty is not new; it is what it would be like if everybody did what they

close to the Sophist views that Plato argued themselves wanted to do. Using this mind model,

against. Postmodernists despair at the society we deduce that if people sold shoddy goods habit­

they see coming: a kaleidoscope of consumerist ually, life would be chaotic and, therefore, people

images that hypnotize citizens into accepting the have a duty not to sell shoddy goods.

morality of capitalism; where individual morality ceases to exist, where all that remains is super­

And justice for all market slavery and where the only choice is by Living American John Rawls (1921— ) has greatly

consumers between products ­ marketing. influenced modern liberal thinking. He has a

Meanwhile Alisdair Maclntyre looks back to mind model based on imagining a group of people

the Aristotelian idea that we should concentrate brought together with no knowledge of what place

less on the individual and more on people and they will have in society. They have to invent a

what is good for the society.

series of rules that will make their community just and fair. Then they have to live in it.

SouKflES: J. Ackrill, An.stotfe and the Philosophers (Oxford, Don't know; can't know

1981); G. Kerner, Three Philosophical Moralists (Oxford,

This rationalist climb to understanding 'truths' 1990); A. Maclntyre, A Short History (/Ethics (Routledgu,

1987); D. Robinson ami C. Garratt, Kthitisfar Beginners

started being undermined by Scotsman David

(Icon. 1996); B. Russell,/I History nj'Western Philosophy

Hume (1711­76). His 'meta­ethics' does not offer

(Oxford, 1945); P. Singer, I'rautical Kthics (Oxford, 1993).

deals with vSaudi Arabia, or many South American countries, where bribes and kickbacks are routine business practice, to actV Some companies may set tougher standards than others. The question arises as to whether a company must lower its ethical standards to compete effectively in countries with lower standards. Some western firms have made a commitment to a common set of shared stan­ dards worldwide. For example, the ethical code of Levi Strauss, a jeans manufac­

turer, forbids bribes, whether or not prevalent or legal in the foreign country involved.

Across Europe, national cultures naturally impose different standards of behaviour on individuals and organizations. In the European Union, each market sector in each country is still characterized by a mixture of accepted commercial practices, codes of practice and formalized legislation. What is considered an acceptable practice in one country may be illegal in another (see Marketing

68 • Chapter 2 Marketing and Society

Highlight 2.6). The EU may eventually move towards a pan­Europe an business ethics policy anil codes of conduct, but that day is still some way off. 21

Ethics and social responsibility require a total corporate commitment. They must be components of the overall corporate culture. Ethics programmes or sem­ inars for employees help to imbue corporate ethics and codes of conduct among staff, while ethical audits may be used to monitor and evaluate business conduct and to use the lessons to guide both policy and behaviour:

In the final analysis, 'ethical behaviour' must he an integral part of the organization, a way of life that is deeply ingrained in the collective

corporate body ... In any business enterprise, ethical behaviour must be a tradition, a way of conducting one's affairs that is passed from generation to generation of employees at all levels of the organization. It is the responsibility of management, starting at the very top, to both set the example by personal conduct and create an environment that not only encourages and rewards ethical behaviour, but which also makes anything less totally unacceptable. 22

The future holds many challenges and opportunities for marketing managers as they move into the twenty­first century. Technological advances in solar energy, home computers, interactive television, modern medicine and new forms of transportation, recreation and communication provide abundant marketing opportunities. However, forces in the socioeconomie, cultural and natural en­ vironments increase the limits within which marketing oan be carried out. Companies that are able to create new values and to practise societally respon­ sible marketing will have a world to conquer.