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Can designing and selling low-quality products be ethical?

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Abstract

Whereas previous studies have criticized low-quality products for inadequate safety, this paper considers only safe products, and it examines the ethics of designing and selling low-quality products. Product quality is defined as suitability to a general purpose. The duty that companies owe to consumers is summarized in the Consumer-Oriented Process principle: “to place an increase in the consumer’s quality of life as the primary goal for producing products.” This principle is applied in analyzing the primary ethical justifications for low-quality products: availability and applicability. Finally, a low-quality product should be designed afresh, not by altering an existing high-quality product.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Coordinated Science Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA

    Willem Bakker II & Michael C. Loui Ph.D.

Authors
  1. Willem Bakker II
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  2. Michael C. Loui Ph.D.
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Additional information

Supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant CCR-9315696. The views, opinions, and conclusions of this paper are not necessarily those of the University of Illinois or the National Science Foundation. A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the Fifth Annual Meeting of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, St. Louis, Mo., February 29 to March 2, 1996.

Willem Bakker is an undergraduate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is majoring in computer engineering and philosophy.

Michael Loui is professor of electrical and computer engineering and associate dean of the Graduate College at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. From 1990 to 1991, he served at the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C. His scholarly interests include computational complexity theory, theory of parallel and distributed computation, faulttolerant software, and professional ethics.

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Bakker, W., Loui, M.C. Can designing and selling low-quality products be ethical?. SCI ENG ETHICS 3, 153–170 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-997-0007-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-997-0007-5

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