Since 1960s’, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and various anti-smoking groups have been trying to attack cigarette industry and ban cigarette advertisements. The problems that tobacco manufacturers face are that: smoking can lead to many health diseases; tobacco advertisements are unethical because they advocate the enjoyment of smoking and intend to target teenagers.
In my opinion, it’s wrong for government to ban the cigarette advertisements because it leads to undesirable outcomes, deprives people of individual liberty and creates inequality.
Consequentialism is a class of normative ethical theories which argues that consequences of one’s deeds are the ultimate basis of judgment about the rightness of the deeds. From the perspective of this theory, government’s banning tobacco advertisements leads to bad consequences. The government’s hostility toward cigarette industry will raise the cost of doing tobacco business and force those less competitive companies out of the market. Smokers will find it more expensive to get cigarette and thus their well-being will be negatively affected. When deprived of the rights to advertise on televisions and radios, tobacco businessmen have to use other methods, like sponsoring sports events, to continue marketing their products. What’s ironic will be that audience, especially teenagers, will get more direct exposure to tobacco advertisements because sports are more popular and influential. Some people may argue that evil tobacco ads should be banned because they advocate enjoyment of smoking and thus mislead people to get a shot. But I don’t think it that way; instead, it may be the case that government regulation incentivizes tobacco industry to advertise more “evil” content. For example, in 1950s’, tobacco industries voluntarily advertised the disadvantages of smoking. They did this not based on altruism; instead, a non-government report which showed that smoking is bad for health gave those initially less competitive tobacco producers an insight to get a big share: produce filtered cigarette. The outcome was that during that time period the number of smoking population dropped and filtered cigarettes were popular. What’s worth noticing was that it was government that stopped tobacco companies from advertising potential health hazards of smoking because market shrinkage led to fewer tax revenues generated from tobacco industry. But now the situation is exactly the opposite: government exerts great effort trying to eliminate smoking phenomenon, but the number of smoking population doesn’t shrink as it has hoped.
Existentialism, another school of philosophy thoughts, contends that people be free to make choice yet take full responsibility for what they do. In my opinion, what distinguishes man and other animals is that man possesses independent thinking. People have different tastes, and thus it’s up to every single individual to judge which activity is dangerous or not. Letting government to ban cigarette advertisements is like foregoing our rights to think independently and make free choices. If people call for government to ban cigarette because it’s dangerous, why don’t they call for a ban on football or driving? Some may rebuff that cigarette cannot be considered ordinary goods because people get addicted to it. But I think people get addicted to cigarette because they like it and under their own situation, they judge benefits higher than the costs. We can only judge what a person prefers by observing what he has done, and thus forbidding him from doing what he wants is like forcing him to obey other’s opinion and disregarding him as an independent man.
Some people may object that, “But what about the teenagers? They are not mature enough to make cost-benefit analysis and thus are more likely to do harmful things. We should protect them from evil things for the sake of their safety and future. ” The argument is plausible, but it’s parents’ job to take care of their own child, not the government’s. Everyone’s social background and growing path are distinct and it’s thus hard to reach out universal criteria to teach children. Parents have more information about their own children and thus may help them more in their life, but government is not omniscience. I don’t doubt government’s good intention to protect teenagers, but good intentions may lead to bad consequences simply because of a lack of information.
My opponents will not stop here and may argue from another angle, “So you stick to the point that banning cigarette ads are bad considering well-being of producers and customers? But what about the innocent non-smokers? Smoking is amoral because it imposes external costs, like secondhand smoke, on them.” I do care about non-smokers’ utility, and there are certain ways to cope with externalities. The first way is to let smokers and non-smokers make mutual agreements. If it doesn’t work, then government may step in a little bit. But a total ban doesn’t eliminate the problem. In fact, from the perspective of deontology, which judges the morality of an action based on the actions’ adherence to rules, banning cigarette advertisements creates inequality. Taxation and ban both force smokers to smoke less, but they are different. Taxation on cigarette forces smokers and producers to take into consideration of negative externalities of smoking. If we can judiciously gauge the tax, the final price of cigarette functions as the real trade-off for smoking. But a ban of cigarette is different. It’s like totally sacrificing two groups’ (cigarette manufacturers and smokers) benefits to comfort the third party, non-smokers.
The advocates of regulation seem to make comparison between imperfect market and perfect government, but in my opinion, government’s regulation leads to undesirable consequences, neglects rights of free choice and creates inequality. Government failure may be even worse than market failure.
No comments:
Post a Comment