PHI445 Week 2 Discussion 1
Unintentional discrimination occurs when a company’s policies uncritically reflect prejudicial stereotypes yet do not involve overt racial prejudices of its managers or executives. Does legislation to verify voter identification fall under the domain of unintentional or intentional discrimination? Explain your views.
One example that comes to mind is of companies using puffery in order to sell product in the bottled water industry. In many cases, bottled water companies use images in their advertising to depict locations of pure natural water. If one reads the nutritional content labels on most of them they would learn that this is seldom the case. One example of this is Everest bottled water. On the bottle, the company has a picture of a mountain, however, the water is actually bottled in Corpus Christi Texas. In our text it states “Though not, strictly speaking, deceptive, puffery involves exaggerated claims in advertising that no reasonable person would take as factual and that are too vague to be provable” (Fieser, Moseley, 2012, p 1.3). Everest Could claim that just because there is a mountain on the label does not mean they are depicting Mount Everest. On the other hand fast food advertisers use deceptive advertising when showing their food. It usually does not look the same in real life.
Also, how does your personal ethical perspective on discrimination- intentional or unintentional- compare to the culture of a particular group to which you currently belong, or previously belonged?
When I see advertising using puffery, it makes me analyze the ad or commercial more thoroughly. I am a literal minded person. I know that marketers are not going to divulge all of the facts about a product but I expect an accurate description of the product. It has been noted that “Communication of a false or misleading claim is legally seen as having a potential to influence purchases, and advertisements possessing such deceptive potential may be proscribed” (Rotfeld,
One example that comes to mind is of companies using puffery in order to sell product in the bottled water industry. In many cases, bottled water companies use images in their advertising to depict locations of pure natural water. If one reads the nutritional content labels on most of them they would learn that this is seldom the case. One example of this is Everest bottled water. On the bottle, the company has a picture of a mountain, however, the water is actually bottled in Corpus Christi Texas. In our text it states “Though not, strictly speaking, deceptive, puffery involves exaggerated claims in advertising that no reasonable person would take as factual and that are too vague to be provable” (Fieser, Moseley, 2012, p 1.3). Everest Could claim that just because there is a mountain on the label does not mean they are depicting Mount Everest. On the other hand fast food advertisers use deceptive advertising when showing their food. It usually does not look the same in real life.
Also, how does your personal ethical perspective on discrimination- intentional or unintentional- compare to the culture of a particular group to which you currently belong, or previously belonged?
When I see advertising using puffery, it makes me analyze the ad or commercial more thoroughly. I am a literal minded person. I know that marketers are not going to divulge all of the facts about a product but I expect an accurate description of the product. It has been noted that “Communication of a false or misleading claim is legally seen as having a potential to influence purchases, and advertisements possessing such deceptive potential may be proscribed” (Rotfeld,