Introduction

In a book about ethics and the alcohol industry, it would seem right to begin with ethics. The conventional way of doing that would be, first, to set out what is meant by ethics. The problem is that we can hardly expect everyone to understand the term ‘ethics’ in the same way. Postmodernism suggests that any convincing overview of ethics has gone. The effort of sustaining some overarching prescriptive framework of deciding what is right and wrong is now too great (Connor 1989). In any case, so the argument goes, we all have very different, personal or local views about this. Moreover, it is argued, we have every right to follow what we feel is morally acceptable, unless it is harming another. Whatever view is taken regarding theories about postmodernity, it is clear that in many areas of life there is no shared moral discourse. Moreover, regardless of views about content, perceptions of the nature of ethics differ according to experience. If, for instance, an individual has been brought up dom0inated by prescriptive and legalistic ethical practice, he or she might well be inclined to be suspicious even of the term ‘ethics’.