Ethical Clothing: Achieving Common Good and Human Dignity

Running head: ETHICAL CLOTHING
ETHICAL CLOTHING
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Principle of common good and relation with human dignity
The common good is achieved when individuals work together for the improvement of the
wellbeing of the people in society and the wider context of the world. The right regarding the
individual towards the personal possessions and the resources of the community need to be
balanced with the requirements of the disadvantaged. The context of common good as the
foundation principle is intertwined with the human dignity leading to solidarity. The principle of
the common good needs to be related to each and every aspect of the social life for the effective
attainment of the fullest meaning, unity, dignity and the opportunity for equality among all the
people throughout the world.
Human dignity is the major key is the key for the achievement of the justice to the people
residing in the societies. Achievement of the common good which is beneficial for the entire
society is thus related to the dignity of the individual of the society since dignity can be achieved
by the successful attainment of common good.
The ways common good is challenged by this issue locally and globally
Ethical fashions are about being aware of the fashion and do it in an ethical manner. Ethical
fashion consumers are the consumers who assess the social and environmental aspects of the
products they purchase. They are commonly rare as the fashion consumption is a complex
activity and it tends to happen under certain kind of situation that tends to discourage considering
ethical fashions. It is important to understand that ethical fashion market is a niche market which
is consists only about 1 per cent of the global fashion industry (Fung, 2015). The common good
is challenged when the ethical fashion is not considered as by consuming fashion are harmful to
the society as well as environment. Today fashion companies are becoming more responsible as

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consumers are less likely to engage in responsible consumption due to higher prices, misleading
information and lack of readily available ethical goods. The way out of this issue is sustainable
fashion, which is not only important for the environment but also for the society as it will bring
the common good. Being involved in sustainable fashion helps the common people see each
other with respect and dignity (Bao et al., 2013).
Ways to address the challenge for a just society
As discussed in the section above, the issue of ethical clothing has presented a grave
challenge to not only the Australian society but the world in general. It is a concern that only few
people are aware of this issue and hence, it has reached a point from where it is very difficult to
control. Davies and Gutsche (2016) validate this statement with their study where they have
found that limited number of consumers is aware of the sustainability influence of clothing. The
researchers argue that making people aware about ethical fashion or ethical clothing is quite a
complex process because consumers are extremely diverse when it comes to ethical clothing. In
addition, since clothing is not a selfless purchase, it does not help in making people associate
ethicality with it.
Therefore, in order to address the challenge, it is first important to make people relate ethicality
and morality to clothing. In order to do this, the focus has to shift from cost reduction to buying
branded clothing so that they could start valuing the clothes. As Harris, Roby and Dibb (2016)
have found, when the manufacturers embed “sustainability within its branding and values”’, it
encourages consumers to value clothing. In the research undertaken previously, it has been found
that clothing purchases are based mostly on price, quality and style and hence, increasing the
value of quality and style with an increase in price might encourage consumers to value the