You’ve probably noticed that once you search something up on your browser, you see ads for related or the same product popping up everywhere. While it may seem harmless when you’ve been searching for a makeup product or some new shoes, the implications change when your searches are made at a vulnerable state. Whether the user is searching for a health-diagnosis or trying to find answers from a pregnancy-scare, those searches are made with a sense of fear, a sense of desperati

As AI-usage increasingly grows in scope, marketing campaigns have become increasingly infiltrated with AI-generated content as well. There are three main, distinct ways AI is used for marketing at the moment. The first is AI-generated ads and images, which are fully AI-generated visual ads and product photos. Another is AI-generated influencers, who are essentially deep-fake people that advertise and endorse a product. Finally, there’s AI-personalized targeting, where AI is u

Non-compete clauses are super controversial in present-day. Are they ethical or not? Do they restrict freedom? What about the well-being of the business? The questions almost seem infinite. Let’s back up for a sec before we dive into this complicated debate. What even is a non-compete clause? Simply put, a non-compete clause is a contract term that restricts an employee from working for a competitor or starting a competing business for a set period of time after leaving a com

Algorithmic pricing is defined as using software or AI to set prices based on data such as the demand, the time of day, the weather, inventory, and specific customer browsing. It is important to distinguish the two different types of algorithmic pricing, as they pose different ethical concerns. One of those types is surge or dynamic pricing, which is prices changing for everyone based on real-time demand. The other type is personalized pricing, where different individual cust

Greenwashing is defined as when a company spends more time or money marketing itself as environmentally friendly rather than being environmentally friendly. Therefore, a false or exaggerated impression of sustainability is created. While this definition may seem pretty straightforward when it comes to whether greenwashing is ethical, there are many gray areas that are built into greenwashing. For example, greenwashing usually is not an outright lie—such as stating a product i

Planned obsolescence, the concept of deliberately designing products to have a limited useful life so that consumers are compelled to repurchase the product. You may have seen this on your social media for-you pages, where creators argue that phone updates are made to slow down your device, thus forcing you to purchase a new one. It is important to distinguish two different types of obsolescence. The first is engineered obsolescence, where the product is deliberately built to

Layoffs. We all know what they are, and we as people can pretty much agree that they suck; the affected lose their income, insurance, identity, and sense of stability. When understanding the intersection between utilitarianism and layoffs, the situation seems pretty black and white. Utilitarianism prioritizes the greatest good for the greatest number of people; thus, when people get laid off, people are harmed, hence contradicting utilitarianism. However, the situation is not

Should virtue ethics become a priority for all American corporations? Virtue ethics is defined as a moral philosophy that simply asks: “What kind of person should I be?” Rather than relying strictly on rules—which can be prevalent in certain philosophies—virtue ethics argues that an action is only moral if a virtuous person would naturally do that action. For example, if you found a wallet on the side of the road, deontology may tell you to give that wallet back simply becau

Is it ever ethical to lie to customers or employees for their own good? This question is complex, with a variety of answers you can delve into. Our instinct may be to immediately say no, but let’s take a look at the other perspective. In many situations, withholding bad news can prevent mass panic and paranoia. For an example of mass paranoia, take a look at COVID-19, where mass hysteria led to nation-wide depletion of toilet paper. Although COVID-19 was shared, business de

Profit. If you went around and asked a random person if profit was a good, bad, or neutral thing, they’d probably tell you that obviously profit is great. However, philosophers find that concept debatable. So, let’s get into it and see what people believe and why. Profit is defined as the financial gain of a business when its revenue exceeds the costs in a specific period of time. For example, if a company spends $40K and gains $50K, the company’s profit would be $10K. Now

Although artificial intelligence is infiltrating a variety of aspects of the world, we most commonly interact with AI in social media. Be it manipulated political speeches, music, visual art, or simple scams, AI is prevalent in all sorts of social media apps. However, we’ll shift our focus to another sector of artificial intelligence presence: businesses. As COVID struck, dozens of small businesses took a hit. Unemployment skyrocketed, businesses that required communal human

As usual, let’s start with definitions. Shareholder Primacy is a corporate philosophy stating that a company’s primary focus should be maximizing wealth and returns for its shareholders above any other stakeholders, including employees, customers, or community interests. This idea was popularized by philosopher Milton Friedman. It states that management has the task of solely increasing profit. This is a pretty bold philosophy, as many of the philosophies we have discussed b

Corporate Social Responsibility, or CSR, is a self-regulating business model in which companies integrate social, environmental, and ethical concerns into their decisions in order to make a positive impact. Let’s begin with Immanuel Kant. Before analyzing his beliefs in business, let’s analyze his general philosophical ideas. First, delving into Immanuel Kant’s beliefs, one of his most important ideas is the Formula of Humanity. This idea is that we must act in a way that we

Developed by European engineer C.H. Douglas, the Social Credit theory was formed in the 1900s and was made in response to a very commonly recognized flaw in capitalism. This flaw was the idea that most people don’t have the money to buy the goods that they produce themselves. Douglas believed that wages were so unfair that even though economies produce tons of goods, consumers can’t afford them, leading to chronic underconsumption; since factories produce but people can’t pur

Best known as a modernist poet, Ezra Pound formed a controversial theory on capitalism, most focusing on the aesthetic aspects of it. He studied the artistic aspects of human relationships. Notably, Pound hated usury, which is the concept of loaning money with an interest rate. Pound believed that usury was exploitative and unfairly enriched the loaner, corrupting economics, creativity, labor, and people. There are a variety of roots that provide the foundation for Pound’s t

Born in 1806, John Stuart Mill was a utilitarian philosopher and economist. He believed that economics should have the purpose of providing utilitarianism, or providing the greatest good for the greatest number. Mill, inspired by pre-existing economic ideas, such as Smith’s Invisible Hand Theory, focused more on the ethical and moral aspects of economics. Mill’s theory was rooted in utilitarianism–which we discussed in an earlier blog–classical economics, and the Enlightenme

Alasdair MacIntyre, born in 1929, was best known for authoring After Virtue, published in 1981. With philosophies rooted in Aristotelian virtue ethics, he argued that capitalist society lost their ethical sense of purpose. In other words, he believed that capitalist societies lost their senses of fulfilling honesty, justice, and courage. MacIntyre’s philosophy is rooted in many philosophies; today, we’ll go over three main ones. The first, as discussed as virtue ethics, is a

Created by Karl Marx, the theory of alienation argues that in capitalism, workers will become disconnected from labor and their humanity. Marx argues that instead of their work being a fulfilling source of creativity and purpose, it becomes a meaningless transaction that is a means for survival; Marx believed that capitalist societies turn everything into an economic instrument that dehumanizes laborers. Some philosophical roots include Hegel, Feuerbach, and the historical c

R. Edward Freeman founded the Stakeholder Theory in 1951, in his well-known work “Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach (1984)”. His main aim was to create a theory that challenged the normal view at the time that businesses only existed to maximize shareholder wealth. Instead, he wanted to argue that long-term success is dependent on the interests of multiple stakeholders being balanced and accounted for. The main idea of the Stakeholder Theory is that business shoul

Adam Smith, a historically famous economics philosopher, was undeniably famous during the 18th century. He had a profound impact on United States economics and many argue that his philosophies played a major role in the Industrial Revolution. One of the arguably most impactful theories of Smith’s was the Invisible Hand Theory. The core idea in this theory was that when individuals are able to pursue a competitive market with their own interest in mind, then they would be able