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Culturally Relative Ethics Vs. Objective Essay

Carr's argument also addresses the limits of the range of unethical business conduct. Specifically, many unethical business practices do not necessarily involve deception, per se. The case of "legally" selling car keys to car thieves is an example of that. In fact, there are many instances of decidedly unethical deception in business that are not illegal and that do not involve lying, necessarily. A strong argument could be made that the use of paid celebrity endorsers of consumer products is unethical for at least two reasons. First, paid celebrity endorsers do not necessarily use the products they recommend to consumers; they enter contracts to read scripts and the law permits those scripts to be very liberal in terms of literal accuracy, if not necessarily truth. Second, the entire concept may be unethical precisely because it takes advantage of human social psychology to follow or emulate well-known individuals. Similar forms of advertising actually are illegal, such as subliminal messaging, although it is not clear why the latter is any "worse" or more...

For example, it may not be illegal to bombard a competitor with paperwork for strategic purposes to distract them, but it is unethical just the same as distracting poker opponents. Law firms, and corporate litigants battling opponents with tighter budgets in particular, do this all the time, precisely because they know that it increases the legal work (and the expense associated with it) and can result in a settlement earlier than allowing the opposing party to keep legal fees down. It is unethical but legal and does not involve explicit lies.
Ultimately, lying in business is illegal and unethical in some cases; it is legal but unethical in others; and it is legal and not necessarily unethical in still others. The analogy with legal bluffing in poker, legal but unethical distraction in poker, and outright cheating in poker holds up logically.

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references is not unethical because it produces no harm.

Meanwhile, other types of business deception are as unethical as cheating in poker. Concealing the material truth about a product or about the details of a business arrangement to induce another entity to do something he would not do with full awareness is unethical deception and is analogous to playing with an extra card that is not part of the deck. Examples of that principle would include concealing major repairs to a vehicle offered for sale and a dishonest answer to a direct question asking whether the vehicle had ever suffered major damage.

Carr's argument also addresses the limits of the range of unethical business conduct. Specifically, many unethical business practices do not necessarily involve deception, per se. The case of "legally" selling car keys to car thieves is an example of that. In fact, there are many instances of decidedly unethical deception in business that are not illegal and that do not involve lying, necessarily. A strong argument could be made that the use of paid celebrity endorsers of consumer products is unethical for at least two reasons. First, paid celebrity endorsers do not necessarily use the products they recommend to consumers; they enter contracts to read scripts and the law permits those scripts to be very liberal in terms of literal accuracy, if not necessarily truth. Second, the entire concept may be unethical precisely because it takes advantage of human social psychology to follow or emulate well-known individuals. Similar forms of advertising actually are illegal, such as subliminal messaging, although it is not clear why the latter is any "worse" or more unethical to consumers than the former approach.

In that regard, Carr's comparison of unethical poker strategies that are not part of the game (such as distracting opponents) also have analogs in business. For example, it may not be illegal to bombard a competitor with paperwork for strategic purposes to distract them, but it is unethical just the same as distracting poker opponents. Law firms, and corporate litigants battling opponents with tighter budgets in particular, do this all the time, precisely because they know that it increases the legal work (and the expense associated with it) and can result in a settlement earlier than allowing the opposing party to keep legal fees down. It is unethical but legal and does not involve explicit lies.

Ultimately, lying in business is illegal and unethical in some cases; it is legal but unethical in others; and it is legal and not necessarily unethical in still others. The analogy with legal bluffing in poker, legal but unethical distraction in poker, and outright cheating in poker holds up logically.
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