Abstract
This commentary presents a reply to the Gaski paper that is published in this issue. Our stance is that he overstates his position and makes several 'leaps of faith' that are unwarranted. We focus on four major reservations about this work: (1) the dynamics of ethics and regulation are underrepresented; (2) simplistic assumptions are made about the uncertainty of ethical claims and theories; (3) responsibility is considered as an all or nothing proposition; and (4) empirical claims are offered that are not backed up with evidence and bad faith is displayed in presenting 'real world' examples. We conclude by stating that corporations have already institutionalized ethics and corporate social responsibility functions within their firms. We firmly believe that responsible marketers do have a conscience.
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Notes
See (in French) the text of the loi Garot here: https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000032036289
“I have no difficulty in practical moral judgments, which I find I make on a roughly hedonistic [i.e., utilitarian] basis, but, when it comes to the philosophy of moral judgments, I am impelled in two opposite directions and remain perplexed.” (Russell on Ethics, edited by Charles Pigden, London: Routledge, 1999, 165–6).
Bernard Williams qualifies such radical relativism as “the most absurd view to have been advanced even in moral philosophy” (1972: 20). (Williams, B. Morality. An Introduction to Ethics. Cambridge University Press 1972).
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Demuijnck, G., Murphy, P.E. Why should marketers be forced to ignore their moral awareness? A reply to Gaski. AMS Rev 12, 38–43 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13162-022-00226-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13162-022-00226-2