Do consumers shoulder some culpability for unethical and immoral practices associated with products they purchase? To answer, David T. Schwartz provides the most detailed philosophical exploration to date on consumer ethics. He utilizes historical and fictional examples to illustrate the types of wrongdoing currently implicated by consumer products in this age of globalization, offers a clear description of the relevant moral theories and important ethical concepts, and provides concrete suggestions on how to be a more ethical consumer.

A no-holds-barred examination of 'ethical' consumerism.

Focusing on ethical consumers, their behaviour, discourses and narratives as well as the social and political contexts in which they operate, this text provides a summary of the manner and effectiveness of their actions.

​This dissertation elaborates differences and similarities of forms of ethical behaviour in general and analyses whether German consumers differentiate between different types of ethical behaviour in particular. The thesis is characterised by its intensive combination of theoretical and empirical research. It furthermore contributes to the literature as the method triangulation applied in the different surveys reveals previously unknown relationships between different kinds of ethical behaviour, such as ethical consumption and charitable giving, as well as between different forms of ethical products. Choice experiment, latent class analysis, information display matrix and item-based attitude assessment allowed the comparison of stated and revealed preferences as well as an analysis of the relevance of ethical product features within the context of different product and process attributes. The dissertation provides insights into a research field which is becoming more and more relevant and improves the understanding of consumers’ assessment and the interdependencies of the possibilities of ethical behaviour. This allows the development of recommendations for consumer policy makers, business and NGOs concerned with the ethics of consumer choice as well as future research on ethical behaviour in general and ethical consumption in particular.

Increasingly, consumers in North America and Europe see their purchasing as a way to express to the commercial world their concerns about trade justice, the environment and similar issues. This ethical consumption has attracted growing attention in the press and among academics. Extending beyond the growing body of scholarly work on the topic in several ways, this volume focuses primarily on consumers rather than producers and commodity chains. It presents cases from a variety of European countries and is concerned with a wide range of objects and types of ethical consumption, not simply the usual tropical foodstuffs, trade justice and the system of fair trade. Contributors situate ethical consumption within different contexts, from common Western assumptions about economy and society, to the operation of ethical-consumption commerce, to the ways that people’s ethical consumption can affect and be affected by their social situation. By locating consumers and their practices in the social and economic contexts in which they exist and that their ethical consumption affects, this volume presents a compelling interrogation of the rhetoric and assumptions of ethical consumption.

An analysis of how findings in behavioral economics challenge fundamental assumptions of medical ethics, integrating the latest research in both fields. Bioethicists have long argued for rational persuasion to help patients with medical decisions. But the findings of behavioral economics—popularized in Thaler and Sunstein’s Nudge and other books—show that arguments depending on rational thinking are unlikely to be successful and even that the idea of purely rational persuasion may be a fiction. In Good Ethics and Bad Choices, Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby examines how behavioral economics challenges some of the most fundamental tenets of medical ethics. She not only integrates the latest research from both fields but also provides examples of how physicians apply concepts of behavioral economics in practice. Blumenthal-Barby analyzes ethical issues raised by “nudging” patient decision making and argues that the practice can improve patient decisions, prevent harm, and perhaps enhance autonomy. She then offers a more detailed ethical analysis of further questions that arise, including whether nudging amounts to manipulation, to what extent and at what point these techniques should be used, when and how their use would be wrong, and whether transparency about their use is required. She provides a snapshot of nudging “in the weeds,” reporting on practices she observed in clinical settings including psychiatry, pediatric critical care, and oncology. Warning that there is no “single, simple account of the ethics of nudging,” Blumenthal-Barby offers a qualified defense, arguing that a nudge can be justified in part by the extent to which it makes patients better off.

This book shares a collection of novel ways to re-conceptualize and envision the moral imperatives of consumption, thereby providing invigorating insights for future dialogue and intellectual and social action. It privileges a consumer moral leadership imperative, which augments the conventional management imperatives of sustainability, ethics, simplicity and environmental integrity. There are 13 chapters, including first-ever discussions of non-violent consumption, transdisciplinary consumption, consumer moral adulthood, integral informed consumption, conscious and mindful consumption, biomimicry informed consumption, and consumer moral leadership as a new intellectual construct. The book strives to intellectually and philosophically challenge and reframe the act, culture and ideology of consuming. The intent is to foster new hope that leads to differently informed activism and to provocative research, policy, entrepreneurial and educational initiatives that favour the human condition, the collective human family and interconnected integrity. This book strives to move consumers from managing for efficiency to leading for moral efficacy, the ability to use their existing moral capacities to deal with moral challenges in the marketplace. The very core of what it means to be a morally responsible member of the human family is challenged and re-framed through the lens of consumer moral leadership.