ABSTRACT
The late 1980s have been a time of intense analysis of ethical issues. Ethical abuses have touched almost all sectors of society, including business, government, the media, and even television evangelists. Ethics is closely linked to marketing in the sense that exchange, the central concept of marketing, is said to be based on "fairness." Three conditions must be met for a fair exchange. First, the transaction must be entered into freely by both parties. A coerced exchange, then, is unfair. Second, the marketer and consumer both expect to benefit from the exchange. For example, the hypertensive consumer expects to benefit from dietary changes advocated by the American Heart Association, which fulfills its mission by promoting these changes. Third, both marketer and consumer must have access to appropriate levels of knowledge concerning the exchange. Four theories of ethics are said to be applicable to social marketing: natural law, utilitarianism, paternalism, and distributive justice.
