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Customary Ethics Ethical practices that are sanctioned by custom and tradition promote the idea that there is a learning curve to being a buyer of goods and services. For instance, a seasoned shopper in a supermarket is likely to make wiser choices than a young newly married housewife. After a few years of shopping the newly married woman is likely to begin to detect patterns of deception, mismarking and mistakes that can be found in products throughout the supermarket. The wise shopper learns to control impulse buying and read the labels while others are not. This experience is transferable to a wide variety of other products and services that use deceptive and sometimes dishonest means to get a customer’s business. In this light it would be difficult to condemn what supermarkets do as immoral. It is a customary practice. First time home buying falls into this category, but it can get out of hand when the buyers' agent—eager to close the sale—gets a shady home inspector to generate a report on the structural features of the house that are inaccurate. Generally, first-time sales do not go this far. Since first time buyers have no grasp of real costs they generally pay more than a seasoned buyer would spend. Again, first time buying is a very important lesson in learning the ropes of handling large amounts of money. By the time they have enough money to invest in other things such as stock & bonds, rental property, or retirement funds they will know how to shop wisely. Customary ethics are sort of an initiation into the world and they are relatively harmless while bestowing Benito on people. "Paying your dues." What is customary will change over the long-term if consumers begin
to understand the relationship between ethics based on principle and
ethics based on customs. Traditions and customs of a predatory nature
hold the society down and keep society from reaching higher forms of
social evolution. One therefore cannot judge unethical actions inspired
by custom to harshly.
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