Controlling Technology: the "good," "right," and "us"

The Super Bowl commercials draw just about the same anticipation among the viewers as the event itself. The Super Bowl no longer hosts a football game. It fills consumer appetite for commercialism by displaying an array of jazzy brand new hot-off-the-press advertisements for various everyday products that consume our lives. Big sponsors (i.e. big corporations) shell out millions of dollars for a mere 30-second spot.

During the last Super Bowl, Pepsi decided to spend its money elsewhere – in charity advertising. According to The Economist (Feb. 13, 2010), the cola giant started a new campaign called “Refresh Everything,” a grant-giving initiative to charities of choice of people through online voting. The grants range from $5000 to $250,000. This is a classic example of cause marketing for Pepsi, which is attempting to “win customers by ostentatiously doing good” (p. 68).

Hans (1973) talked about Kant’s Categorical Imperative (CI). The essence of CI is the universal acceptance of morality. According to Hans, the theory argues the universal morality through reasoning. And reasoning leads to “include future Wholeness of Man among the objects of your will” (p. 44). Reason provides a high degree of accuracy and completeness. Kant provided three maxims of CI: first, we do the morally “right” thing without any precondition; second, we should do what is “right” and that our act should be the “ends” toward others and not the “means” and third, the morale of our act should be universal (Wikipedia).

The argument here is between “right” and “good.” Kant’s CI suggested that “right” should be the norm over “good.” A “right” act is morally higher than a “good” act because a “right” act focuses on others whereas a “good” act represents self-interest (Wikipedia). Hans (1973) mentioned that Kant’s CI was an individual-oriented theory where a person consider his or her action as universal if he or she acted on the basis of the moral maxims (p. 44). Furthermore, Hans argued in favor of Kant’s idea of “all.” He mentioned, “The new imperative invokes a different consistency: not that of the act with itself, but that of its eventual effects with the continuance of human agency in times to come” (p. 45).

On the premise of “right” and “good,” let’s shift gear to Pepsi. Its new campaign deserves credit for its commitment to corporate responsibility. Other big companies have also revved up their corporate responsible acts. But the idea is anything but new. What is clever about this campaign is its effort to involve consumers with socially responsible acts. Remember, Pepsi’s campaign requires online participation only for consumers to choose their choice of charity organizations. According to The Economist, “people are turning to the internet to give their consciences a boost without doing anything more onerous than clicking a mouse a few times” (p. 68).