The Ethics of Consumers Engaging in Ethical Purchases Essay

The Ethics of Consumers Engaging in Ethical Purchases - Essay Example Brief Summary of the Topic Various scholars have studied consumer ethics in different perspectives. Newman (2011) studied them and explained that those consumers who try to make ethical purchases only to realize they were duped may become cynical and feel their efforts were futile. DaVinney et al. (2010) studied them in terms of consumer social behaviors while Nicholls & Opal (2005) studied the way they drive market and thus influencing fair-trade. According to Carrigan (2005), Consumer ethics are the moral principles that guide consumers in obtaining, using, and disposing of goods and services. These consumer ethics help us to understand how consumers make their judgment about products or services in questionable situations like fraud and shoplifting. The ethics helps consumers to conduct themselves in a way that help them remain in harmony with concerns of nature while not neglecting the needs and interests of their social reality and their immediate and material needs (Koslowski e t al 2004). These ethics can also help consumers to avoid unhealthy products and services and those products, which might pollute the environment. According to Schwartz (2010), it is necessary for consumers to consider the moral and ethical dimension of the products when making a purchase. However, there are very few who do so. In this era, what people say and what they actually do when shopping differ greatly (Miller 2001). Moreover, it is somehow very difficult to avoid unethical purchases completely and as a result, few people in the current world buy products and services purely on ethics. In most cases people tend to make emotional decisions based on the perception they have for a product or service when making a purchase (Arnold 2010). A good example of people who make ethical purchases are those who choose to buy a product that is labeled fair-trade because of their concern for the developing countries. Another good example is people who buy product because of the role they p lay in conserving the environment (Harrison et al. 2005). Various factors are believed to influence the consumer ethics. Some of these factors include culture, social-economic status, and religion (Carrigan 2005). Many scholars have studied these factors and tried to explain the roles they play in influencing a consumer to make an ethical purchase. It is also believed that when making an ethical purchase the consumer does not have to ignore other factors of the product or service like price and quality (Harrison et al. 2005). In this case, what a consumer should do is to use an additional criterion of ethics when deciding his purchases. Consider the Topic from the Views of at least Two Competing Ethical Perspectives We can consider the issue of consumer ethics from various different perspectives. One of these perspectives is when it comes to purchasing food staffs. In such a case, consumers are bound by various factors when deciding which product to buy. With the current development in economy and technology, various types of synthetic foodstuffs have emerged. These foodstuffs are promoted even in our media. Also due to competition of the sorts of foodstuffs in the market, no company can dare to tell the consumers the disadvantage of their products. The kind of