LR Drill Set 14, Question 10
Gerrit: While browsing in a record store I(90 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(10 more words not shown)
- AThe price displayed(19 more words not shown)
- BCustomers of retail(16 more words not shown)
- CRetailers are morally(15 more words not shown)
- DRetailers are morally(15 more words not shown)
- ERetailers are morally(26 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Waiting in line for an hour is frustrating. Does that entitle Gerrit to the item at one-quarter of its intended price?
The store made a pricing mistake, and I can understand wanting it to make that inconvenience right. But the conclusion needs more than sympathy: why would the appropriate response have to be selling the item at the mistaken price? The store could choose to honor it without being morally obligated to do so.
Saskia points to something else: Gerrit knew the price was a mistake. He wasn't innocently relying on what he thought the store intended to charge. He was hoping to benefit from an error he recognized. That is the fact Saskia uses to reject his claim that the retailer owes him the discount.
What we’re looking for
The question asks for a principle supporting Saskia. One possible rule would let retailers correct mistaken prices. Another, closer to her stated reason, would say that someone who recognizes a pricing error cannot demand that the error be honored. Either way, we need to connect the facts to the absence of the particular moral obligation Gerrit claims.
Working the answers
- A
An “irrevocable offer” is an offer the store can't take back. This would require the retailer to honor the displayed price and therefore support Gerrit. We are supposed to help Saskia deny that obligation.
- B
This also favors Gerrit. If customers are entitled to profit from pricing mistakes, then recognizing the mistake wouldn't defeat his claim to the bargain. Saskia uses his knowledge against him; B gives him permission to benefit from the error.
- C
Updating a price after the manufacturer's suggested price changes is different from correcting a label that was wrong in the first place. We have no changed manufacturer price here. A permission that applies to periodic updates doesn't establish the retailer's position in this mistaken-price situation.
- D
The retailer didn't intentionally encourage this expectation; the low price was a mistake. D therefore doesn't establish an obligation in this case. But failing to establish an obligation isn't the same as proving there is none. D gives one situation in which the store owes a price to customers and leaves other situations unresolved. We need a principle that supports Saskia's denial.
- ECorrect
This makes being genuinely misled a requirement for the retailer's obligation to honor a mistaken price. Gerrit fails that requirement because he recognized the error. He can't claim the price gave him a mistaken belief about what the retailer intended to charge when he already knew it was wrong.
Apply the rule narrowly: the retailer isn't morally obligated to sell this item to him at the mislabeled price. We don't need a sweeping claim that stores never owe customers anything or that pricing mistakes can never create obligations. E makes Gerrit's knowledge matter in exactly the way Saskia's response needs.
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