Advertising and deep autonomy

Concerns about advertising take one of two forms. Some people are worried t hat advertising threatens autonomous choice. Others are worried not about a utonomy but about the values spread by advertising as a powerful institutio n. I suggest that this bifurcation stems from misunderstanding autonomy. Wh en one turns from autonomous choice to autonomy of persons, or what is ofte n glossed as self-rule, then one has reason to think that advertising poses a moral problem of a sort so far unrecognized. I diagnose this problem usi ng Charles Taylor's work on "strong evaluation". This problem turns out to have political ramifications that have been only dimly recognized in busine ss ethics circles.