Duties of Fidelity

Ross prima facie duties speak of fidelity, reparation, gratitude, justice, beneficence, non- maleficence and self-improvement. Even though Ross has explained each duties, it is still uncertain that how these duties can be implied in marketing activities. If we look at each duty, it is not easy to implement every duty in a situation unless it demands so. One has a prima facie duty (not) to do a certain action if and only if there is some moral demand for one (not) to do it (Baumrin, 1965). Therefore in order to execute these duties, understanding the circumstances is very important. It is understood that prima facie duties are expressions referring to a characteristic by certain individual act-tokens rather than by certain act-types (Atwell, 1978). A sense of which duties are towards the bottom of the scale and which duties are towards the top is to be made sure in order to achieve every duty (Robinson, 2010).

Duties of fidelity are the duty of keeping up promises. The company should not promise anything to their customers that they cannot execute. Promise can be anything related to product quality, size, etc. Breaking a promise can bring down the value for the products as there will be no trust for the products in the market. Keeping up promises will encourage the customers to buy the product. According to prima facie duties, one cannot be blamed if he undertakes to make the right choice but it does not produce a good act (Meyers, 2009).

Duties of reparation are only essential when one cannot keep up the promise or when unintentional mistakes happened. If the product is damaged then the product is to be recalled and repaired or new products have to be issued to the customers. Cash Payments can also be made fo...

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...tilitarian can increase the costs for the company but they are responsible to do so because, the fault is not caused by customers. Whether a person’s action is morally justifiable, is a deontological question; whether the act is good is ultimately a consequentiality question (Meyers, 2009).

According to my point of view what Maruti Suzuki did was correct but these faults are not supposed to be happened from a company like these. Instead of repairing faulty cars new cars is to be provided immediately when they recalled faulty ones. Also they should have taken additional efforts to help customers when they were waiting for their car to get repaired. They should have given bonus packages to their customers for the mistake happened. Even though it can add total cost for the company, it can support them in maintaining their customers and good will in the market.