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Ethics

Are TV shows like "Dr. Phil" or "Jerry Springer", etc. unethical? They do after all exploit people's problems - which should really be discussed in a private setting - to win viewers.
Accepted:
October 14, 2010

Comments

Oliver Leaman
October 15, 2010 (changed October 15, 2010) Permalink

Bad taste, perhaps, but surely not unethical. In any case, the reality of the participants and their "problems" is often in question in any case. The shows do give us the opportunity to consider a number of interesting issues that can arise within human relationships, although chiefly for amusement than for anything else, and there is nothing wrong with that, except for the feeling of vague superiority that most viewers probably feel when comparing their own lives to the complicated disasters that those onthe shows seem to inhabit.

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