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Utility and Democracy in Political Campaign Advertising: Toward a Rule-Utilitarian Ethic for Political Marketing and the Ethics of Meddling in the Other Party's Primary.

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Title: Utility and Democracy in Political Campaign Advertising: Toward a Rule-Utilitarian Ethic for Political Marketing and the Ethics of Meddling in the Other Party's Primary.
Authors: Reed, Joel Lansing1 (AUTHOR) JoelReed@uark.edu
Source: Journal of Business Ethics. Jan2026, Vol. 203 Issue 3, p611-630. 20p.
Subject Terms: Political advertising ethics, Political ethics, Rule utilitarianism (Philosophy), Political campaigns, Corrupt practices in elections
Company/Entity: Democratic Party (U.S.)
Abstract: Political advertising ethics has long been dominated by an adherence to the norms of democratic idealism or the highly situational ethics of act utilitarianism. This article proposes an alternative system of political advertising ethics grounded in Brandt's ideal moral code theory, a form of rules-based utilitarianism. To illustrate the relative advantage of rule utilitarianism, the author investigates the ethics of advertising campaigns aimed at intervening in an opposing party's primary. The past decade has seen a dramatic resurgence in Democratic and Republican candidates in the United States meddling in the opposing party's primary through advertising campaigns designed to exploit tensions between electability and viability within the political outgroup. The author critiques the common act-utilitarian defenses of interparty–intraparty intervention and proposes a rule-utilitarian alternative that prioritizes the preservation of democratic norms over individual election outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Copyright of Journal of Business Ethics is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
Database: Education Research Complete
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  Data: Political advertising ethics has long been dominated by an adherence to the norms of democratic idealism or the highly situational ethics of act utilitarianism. This article proposes an alternative system of political advertising ethics grounded in Brandt's ideal moral code theory, a form of rules-based utilitarianism. To illustrate the relative advantage of rule utilitarianism, the author investigates the ethics of advertising campaigns aimed at intervening in an opposing party's primary. The past decade has seen a dramatic resurgence in Democratic and Republican candidates in the United States meddling in the opposing party's primary through advertising campaigns designed to exploit tensions between electability and viability within the political outgroup. The author critiques the common act-utilitarian defenses of interparty–intraparty intervention and proposes a rule-utilitarian alternative that prioritizes the preservation of democratic norms over individual election outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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  Data: <i>Copyright of Journal of Business Ethics is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.</i> (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
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        Text: English
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      – SubjectFull: Political advertising ethics
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      – SubjectFull: Political ethics
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      – SubjectFull: Rule utilitarianism (Philosophy)
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      – SubjectFull: Political campaigns
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      – SubjectFull: Corrupt practices in elections
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      – SubjectFull: Democratic Party (U.S.)
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              Text: Jan2026
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