Consumer Autonomy

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Autonomy is the ability that people have to make their own decisions of choosing what they want freely and reasonably. It is argued by advertising critics that marketing violates the autonomy of consumers by manipulating and deceiving them therefore targeting those not capable of making fully autonomous decision, such as children, and therefore creating non-autonomous desires. According to those critics there are two kinds of desires. First-order desires are those wants that are voluntary and that happen at any time without rationalizing them. Second-order desires are the wants that are rationalized about and considering whether those wants are truly necessary. Philosopher Gerald Dworkin agrees with these two kinds of desires, yet he describes them as authenticity, the desire is not rejected by the individual after being bought, …show more content…
Just like autonomy there are two types of vulnerability that marketers use to target people. The first is consumer vulnerability. Consumer vulnerability is the inability of consumers to be well informed about a product or service being advertised. Vulnerable customers usually lack maturity and the ability to make judgments, making them uninformed. This is the reason why children are the main type of people that are considered to go through consumer vulnerability since their ability to fully comprehend is not developed yet making them not take many things under consideration. The second type is general vulnerability. General vulnerability targets people in general ways that they may be vulnerable; this can be physical, psychological, or financial. Taking advantage of a person’s vulnerability and deceiving them through advertisement is surely unethical. Yet, despite this argument marketing defenders state that it is not with intention that some people get deceived through their vulnerability since they are not targeting individuals when they advertise but whole

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