Content area
Full Text
ABSTRACT. In this paper I present a moral account of the legal notion of deceptive advertising. I argue that no harmful consequences to the consumer need follow from a deceptive advertisement as such, and I suggest instead that one should focus on the consequences of permitting the practise of deceptive advertising on society as a whole. After a brief account of `deceptive advertising', I move to discuss the role of the reasonable person standard in its definition. One interpretation of this standard is empirical, aiming to objectify the quality of misleadingness in the advertisement. I offer an alternative normative interpretation which aims to draw the line between the advertiser's responsibility and that of the consumer, between misleading and miscomprehension. I then examine and reject several possible moral grounds for condemning and prohibiting deceptive advertising. These include: harm, in the sense of welfare, to the misled consumer; harm to competitors; and a violation or a reduction of the consumer's autonomy. Finally, I explain how the effect of the practise of deceptive advertising on society as a whole should inform our normative line-drawing between misleading and miscomprehension, and how it provides the basis for the moral evaluation of deceptive advertising.
The title question has received remarkably, though perhaps not surprisingly, little attention.' It might be thought that whatever is morally condemnable about deceit in general, will also be so with respect to deceptive advertising in particular. But the inference is flawed, for the legal notion of `deceptive advertising' (DA), as defined by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), for example, and as analysed by social scientists, lawyers and philosophers alike, focuses entirely on the consumer's viewpoint to the neglect of that of the deceiving advertiser. As such it does not necessarily involve deceit as a deliberate act.2 This being so one cannot take for granted that whatever is wrong with deceit must also be wrong with `deceptive advertising'.
I aim to show that what is wrong with DA is not related to the vices generally associated with lying and with deceit as such. Neither the intention of the advertiser nor the erroneous beliefs of the misled consumer factor in the moral account of DA. Moreover, the harmful, but contingent, consequences of behaviour influenced by a deceptive advertisement...