Refashioning Second-Hand Clothes Consumption Through Pleasure, Pain, Seduction and Conversion: A Virtue Ethics Perspective

Kristina Auxtova (), Stephanie Schreven () and Lucy J. Wishart ()
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Kristina Auxtova: University of Edinburgh Business School, University of Edinburgh
Stephanie Schreven: University of Dundee School of Business, University of Dundee
Lucy J. Wishart: University of Edinburgh

Journal of Business Ethics, 2025, vol. 196, issue 4, No 8, 863-881

Abstract: Abstract The fashion industry needs to become more circular, given the unsustainable levels of waste it produces. Our research empirically explores and theoretically develops how adopting a virtue ethics approach can encourage and support second-hand clothing consumption as a form of reuse and a way of practicing sustainability. Based on ethnographic interviews with consumers who shop in UK charity shops, our grounded theory study focuses on how consumers experience second-hand clothing consumption as constitutive of sources of (in)action that encourage or inhibit virtuous, sustainable behaviour. We find that pleasure and/or shame or guilt (pain) are key to enabling virtuous moral decision-making towards reuse and sustainability. We furthermore argue that seduction and conversion, hand in hand with pleasure, act as levers supporting such moral decision-making, mitigating aversions and wayward desires that obstruct good moral intentions to consume second-hand clothing. By engaging empirically with moral decision-making, our research theoretically advances scholarship on virtue ethics and second-hand clothing consumption, whilst contributing to an ethically informed vision of the circular economy. We conclude with implications for charity retail practices in support of circularity and sustainability informed by a virtue ethics perspective, as well as suggestions for future research.

Keywords: Virtue ethics; Moral development; Second-hand consumption; Charity shop; Sustainable fashion; Pleasure; Circular economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1007/s10551-024-05874-x

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