Cadfan said:
pawsplay-
I think you are getting confused.
Perhaps I have not made myself clear, and it is you who are confused.
There is a difference between saying that a business "owes" its consumers certain things for moral reasons, and saying that a business ought to behave in a certain moral way because it will create long term profits.
There is a difference, just as there is a difference between buying an apple and eating an apple. Both events may yet have related causes, while remaining distinct in a great many particulars.
It is true, the only way to say a business owes someone things for moral reasons is to say that, in fact, moral obligations exist, whether we wish them to or not. But I have no problem with that position. Some things are moral and some things are not. Some immoral things are illegal, some are civilly actionable, and some are neither yet immoral nonetheless.
Just as a for instance, I think it would be immoral for WotC to declare they are going to publish a sourcebook, Races of the Underdark, have it listed on Amazon, and take pre-orders, and then put out a book with the information promised on the advertising blurb, four pages of rules on foot-racing underground, and one hundred pages of the word "rhubarb" printed over and over. That would be considered bad faith.
In general, I tend to regard things as immoral to the extent to which they are self-destructive or isolating, but there are other ways of looking at morality.
A business can be excused from morality only so far as morality does not exist for individuals, either. And insofar as there is such a thing as morality, a business is not excused from it merely because they are in business.
To say that people often, and perhaps usually, behave immorally does not mean human beings are not subject to morals, which is equivalent to the argument put forth by the "you don't know business" position taken earlier. For instance, a milllion people sharing files does not make it more, or less, moral to do so.