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Articles

Advertising is Immoral

Peter Gildenhuys says many adverts are saturated with sophistry.

The American burger chain Hardee’s is frequently criticised for its ads featuring hyper-sexualized women. Using sex to sell burgers however is not the only way to go wrong when persuading people to buy things. All advertisers are persuaders, but it’s possible to go about persuasion in either morally legitimate or morally illegitimate ways. Here I want to argue that nearly all advertisements are immoral.

Usually, when advertising is immoral, it is immoral in the way that lying is immoral.

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