Patrick Schuyler
February 22, 2015
Business Ethics
Professor Christianson

Unsolicited Emails Unsolicited emails do much more harm than good in this world. It is very unethical for online companies to send out any spam or unwanted emails to any person who makes a purchase online. Maybe a receipt email from the company you bought from is ok, but receiving emails without asking from companies with similar products is ridiculous. These unsolicited emails could always have the chance of opening up some type of virus onto the device you open it with. According to chapter four, they are considered to be an invasion of one’s privacy. Also, these unsolicited emails are wrong and unethical because society prospers through the struggle of market-places. An invasion of someone’s privacy is clearly thought of as unethical which is in essence what companies are doing when they send out unsolicited emails. What happens when you open a spam email and it crashes your computer? Would you say that the email has invaded your life in a bad way? The answer is yes. These businesses invade people’s lives by sending emails to people who never want them in the first place. Citizens have the right to their own lives and who enters them. No way should someone else force something into your life without approval. As John Locke states, “Though the earth and all inferior creatures be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person; this nobody has any right to but himself.”
No matter who you are you get the right to your own self and the right to have as much privacy as you please which clarifies why unsolicited emails are unethical and should be illegal for businesses to send them. From a different stand-point, companies sending emails to people without their prior permission is wrong because according to Andrew Carnegie, you are hurting society with them in terms of wealth. In chapter 4, his article “defends the pursuit of wealth by arguing that society is strengthened and improved through the struggle for survival in the market-place”. Most unsolicited emails are ways and hopes of expanding the given company’s market by reaching out to as many people as possible without permission. Thus actually affecting the wealth of the company positively as well as affecting the overall economy and society negatively. One final reason proving that unsolicited emails are unethical in today’s society comes from the philosopher Karl Max. He is a believer that devaluation of the human world increases in direct relationship with the increase in value of the world of things. Every company hopes to increase the value of their business when they send out the unwanted emails and advertisements because maybe they will gain more customers. However like Marx said, increasing value ends up increasing the devaluation of the human world, thus being unethical. Without a doubt, companies are at complete fault when they send out unsolicited emails. They may be making more and more money by doing so but it is unethical because it has a much larger effect on hurting society. Philosophers in chapter 4 would say that they are so unethical because they are an invasion of privacy, a negative effect on society, and they increase the devaluation of the human world. It really should be illegal everywhere.