So what are the ethics involved with using numbers to make our
point even when we know things could be seen differently if we
presented it a bit differently? Remember, morals are what we know
about right and wrong as individuals, ethics is the systems of
formal and informal rules society adopts for the application of
morals. (Example, most of us would agree that killing a human is
morally wrong, however, the ethical system says it is okay to kill
in self-defense, war, and some other situations.) Yi really wants a car but her credit is pretty poor and she
doesn’t make much money. Both of those make a new car impossible
for her. Instead, she finds a used car seller who offers credit to
anyone and a no down payment deal. She knows that they are charging
more for the car she wants than what she would pay if she bought it
with cash from someone selling their own car but she can get
credit. The deal sounds really good. The car is being sold for
$9,995 with no money down. Unfortunately, her interest rate is
going to be 18% for the five years she has the loan. By law, all of
this has to be in the loan document but the salesperson will focus
on the no money down, easy credit, and the $9,995 car is much
cheaper than what she could get new. Yet, just with simple interest calculations, Yi’s monthly
payment will be $253.81 and her total cost for the car will be
$15,228.60. If she simply saved that same payment for four months and put
$1,000 down, she would likely qualify for a lower interest rate and
could either get a lower monthly payment ($186.72) or she could buy
a $13,000 car for the same monthly payment. Is there a difference between what you’re willing to present as
ethical to a consumer versus what you would consider ethical if a
salesperson did it to you? At what point do you feel unfairly
manipulated by numbers? How much should we trust number-based
evidence? How do we know we are being manipulated fairly or
unfairly?