Month: December 2009

The Ethics of Ignorance and Apathy: Gore’s Million Degree Gaffe

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

I didn’t watch Al Gore when he appeared on the Tonight Show a couple weeks ago. What he said then while hobnobbing with Conan should be old news, but in fact it was no news at all, because virtually no news media gave it more than a passing mention. Then, by purest accident, I heard a talk-radio host ranting about a shocking statement Gore had made on the show, and I checked to see if he could possibly be quoting the former Vice-President correctly.

He was. Here is the exchange: Continue reading →

Strange But True: Judge Rules That a Defendant’s FACE is Prejudicial

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

And now, from Reuters, an instance of the American justice system violating principles of honesty, logic and common sense in order to be “fair.”

As a neo-Nazi gang member prepared to go  on trial for murder, he got himself some new tattoos:  a swastika, barbed wire, and an obscene word. On his face! Continue reading →

Protest Ethics: Christmas, the ACLU, and Ignorance

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

A silly e-mail is circulating again, as it has this time of year since 2005, encouraging recipients to engage in a pointless and ignorant protest against the American Civil Liberties Union.

It reads: Continue reading →

The Ethics of Ghost-blogging and Ghost-tweeting

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

A year ago, the term “ghost-tweeting” would have been nonsense. Today, it’s an occupation.

Susan Esparza has posted an opinion that while ghost-writing articles and books for traditional publications is ethical, having someone author one’s blog posts and tweets is deceptive and wrong. Continue reading →

The Savage Saga: Wrong Embryo Ethics Unresolved

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

The disturbing story of Carolyn and Sean Savage’s pregnancy was a hot topic in September, but it is barely remembered now. I am hoping that bioethicists and legal specialists are still cogitating over it, however, because the ethical and legal issues aren’t going away. They are probably just around the corner. Continue reading →

Breaking Promises to the Dying and the Dead

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

"Bye, Marilyn...it was nice lying over you."

My Dad detested wakes and viewings, and used to say that after he died, he wanted to be exhibited sitting up, eyes open, with a tape recording that would be triggered every time anyone stood in front of him. The recording would be of my father saying, “Hello! Thanks for coming! Hope to see you at my funeral!” Luckily, Dad didn’t make me promise to do anything that bizarre, although it would not have been out of character for him to do so. His recent death caused me to wonder: what if he had? Would I be obligated to keep my promise? Would I be justified in making such a promise, if I knew it wouldn’t be kept? Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Week

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

“If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”

—- Google CEO Eric Schmidt to CNBC interviewer Maria Bartiromo

Bingo!

The Arnie Becker Rule [Updated 12/11/16]

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

For about 20 years, the consensus has been building in the legal profession that a lawyer sleeping with his clients is not only a bad idea, but also should be prohibited by the formal ethics rules. States like California, Oregon and New York quickly adopted such a rule while other bars resisted; when the ABA added the “no sex with clients” provision to is Model Rule 1.8 in 2003, more states followed suit. Now Virginia, one of the most respected bars in the country, is considering its first  pronouncement on the subject, in the form of a formal ethics opinion. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce (and Dead Canary): Desiree Rogers

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Ah, yes…the Desiree Rogers saga!

Desiree Rogers is the White House Social Secretary. She screwed up in her job. The odds are that 99% of the time, her particular lapse wouldn’t have had any tangible effect. She was unlucky, however, and it did.

It did because the Secret Service picked the same night to get sloppy, so a couple of professional cons obsessed with becoming the next Andy Warhol Stupid Celebrities of the Quarter Hour brazened their way into a White House state dinner, where, if they had been Ninjas or Steven Segal in disguise, they pretty much could have killed anyone they wanted to, including President Obama. They weren’t Ninjas; not all of Desiree’s luck was bad. They were only self-obsessed idiots. Continue reading →

Tiger Woods Ethics, Part II: Yes. It Matters

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

There are two main strains among the culturally corrosive arguments in support of Tiger Woods. One, discussed in Part I, is the “great athletes don’t need to be great human beings,” a contention that chooses to ignore the inescapable fact that they are paid to behave like great human beings, whether they are or not. While this argument is mostly obtuse, the second strain is the more ethically offensive. Washington Post columnist Michael Wilbon embraced it with both arms in his defense of Woods entitled, “Some context on Tiger.” Its thesis: virtually all big-time athletes cheat on their wives, and if you had the opportunities and temptations they do, you’d cheat too. Translation: “It’s no big deal”: Continue reading →