An Assumption About Certain Professions

Every business has a financial incentive to sell something, be it a product (a gaming console, coffee mug, or car) or a service (academic consulting, insect extermination, or a pedicure).  It could not remain in operation otherwise except at a loss.  Although this does not necessarily exclude honoring moral obligations, this is an inherent goal of business.  A selfish, irrationalistic business leader will probably be willing resort to deception, assumptions, hypocrisy, or unjust threats, and other forms of exploitation or corruption.  Coupled with the fact that one cannot know other minds, this means that someone can never truly know the intentions of a businessperson when making a purchase.

Perhaps the new computer is designed to break just outside the shrinking warranty period; perhaps the medicine prescribed only masks symptoms without eradicating the source of the malady, and purposefully so.  Planned obsolescence, intentional shortcomings in a function, or outright irrelevant products are all possible.  None of this means a given businessperson or product is problematic.  Possibility does not entail necessity of anything but the possibility itself (and that anything contrary to this possibility is false, of course).

Still, certain professions tend to be regarded with arbitrary or additional suspicion.  Why would a doctor actually heal someone when they could keep a patient coming back for more evaluations or prescriptions, some wonder?  Why would a mechanic actually just fix a car instead of at least tampering with something else to make another fix necessary?  It is not as if frustrated patients could not just stop seeing a maliciously useless doctor or just take their car to a different mechanic.  Yes, these service providers could financially benefit for a time, but even on a pragmatic level, deception or intended professional negligence could drive them out of business if enough people lose patience with them.

There is not any legitimate (left to itself) industry that is inherently more prone to such disregard for consumers/clients than others.  Due to cultural pressures, which can always be recognized and resisted, or individual personality and opportunity, they have become stereotyped over time by those who make assumptions.  No, a doctor is not necessarily trying to keep someone reliant on masking medications.  It is useful to be as familiar as one could be with something like medicine or car workings in order to avoid the more likely scams, not that sensory limitations, hearsay, and more do not stop someone from having knowledge of anything about these subjects (professionals included) beyond logical possibilities and subjective perceptions.

It does not follow that a customer is at fault for being taken advantage of.  To the contrary, like a victim of physical abuse or theft, it is never their fault for being mistreated, only that of the doer.  Perhaps to avoid feeling responsible for this but regardless of their exact motivation, some customers stereotype industries based on the actions of some, which could have gone differently as it is, and might suspect some professionals on irrelevant grounds for the mere possibility that they could be lying or worse.  As in all other cases, stereotypes are epistemologically invalid and metaphysically false.  Whether it is selective or made about all industries and businesses, assumptions are fallacious and often demonstrably false from reason alone.