Fidgety Widgets: Incommensurability and Indeterminacy in Consumer Choice Journal Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • Abstract; Many people believe that individual actors should and can respond to social and environmental problems by making ethical or conscientious decisions in the marketplace. They encourage consumers to purchase fair trade coffee, buy locally grown produce, avoid shopping in stores with union-busting tactics, boycott exploitative soda manufacturers, and so on. In this paper, I argue against the idea that demand-side decisions on the part of individual consumers can adequately capture the complicated moral dimensions of any given product. I argue this position by pointing to two intermingled features of consumer choice: value incommensurability and market indeterminacy.

publication date

  • April 1, 2025

Date in CU Experts

  • February 1, 2026 9:11 AM

Full Author List

  • Hale B

author count

  • 1

Other Profiles

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 0887-0373

Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)

  • 2152-0542

Additional Document Info

start page

  • 103

end page

  • 129

volume

  • 39

issue

  • 2