alcohol – Philosophy @Newcastle

Should the Advertising of Alcoholic Products Be Restricted?

In my project I am going to be focusing on advertising of Alcohol in our current society and its positive and negative effects.

By looking at how the negative health effect of smoking changed the advertising of cigarettes I will relate this to what we already know about alcohol and its damaging attributes both physically and mentally, and assess if the advertising of alcohol needs to change.

It is arguable that because alcohol is a legal product then it should be legal to advertise.

However, the same can be said for cigarettes but because of the clear connection between cancer and cigarettes.

Clearly a total ban on alcohol advertising would be detrimental to individual brands of alcohol, but possibly not on the general sale of alcohol.

The main arguments against alcohol advertising suggest they increase sales in existing drinkers and provoke new young drinkers.

Cheap accessible alcohol promotes anti-social behaviour and heavy drinking which can lead to alcoholism and depression in later life, as well as various health issues.

Essentially, advertising of alcohol legitimates excessive use of a potentially damaging product.

To establish if it is right to ban alcohol or an infringement of our liberty I will be looking at Bentham and Mill’s concept of welfare. A vitally important question for Mill is what are: “the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by the society over the individual’ (L.1.1)

I aim to establish whether the health effects of alcohol are reason enough to ban the advertising of it.

The Change of Social Values over the last 100 years as Demonstrated in Advertising

Territory: Beer advertisements. Object: Carlsberg advertisements. Aim: The aim of my personal project is to show the changing attitudes and social values of the early 20th century society as opposed to our contemporary society. I have decided to show this using the marketing of beer. I also intend to point out how these represent the introduction of “Lad Culture” which became apparent in British society during the 1990’s along with ‘lads’ magazines such as maxim, FHM and Loaded as well as TV shows such as ‘men behaving badly’. It also shows a distinct change in attitude towards the consumption of alcohol in general; the development of the binge drinking culture that is so prevalent in today’s youthful society. I also believe these adverts show a distinct decline in the strong family values that we saw in the first half of the 20th century. I will thus talk about Hegel’s view of family values and compare them to that of a lesser known modern philosopher, David Cooper’s, works called ‘The death of Family’.