Year: 2011

Comment of the Day:”Yes Julea,You Have A Right To Your Beliefs; You Just Don’t Have A Right…”

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

An Ethics Alarms heartfelt thank you and “I owe you one!” to Ethics Sage, for cutting to the other core ethical point about what was wrong with Julea Ward’s refusal to counsel a gay student, and why she should have been dismissed from the university course as a consequence. It wasn’t just failure of responsibility, which my post was fixated on, but also failure of caring, compassion, and our shared duty as human beings to help each other even if our religion encourages us to regard those human beings as immoral.

Ethics Sage shows his handle ain’t just horn-blowin’ with this Comment of the Day, on the post “Yes Julea,You Have A Right To Your Beliefs; You Just Don’t Have A Right…”

“Julea Ward’s refusal to counsel a gay student is despicable on many levels. What if the student’s life had been threatened and he went to counseling to get some advice? How can anyone not act to help a person in that kind of situation or others we can think of that may or may not have anything to do with being gay? By refusing to counsel the gay student, Ward failed miserably not only to meet the requirements of the course but to act as a human being with compassion for another.”

Yes Julea,You Have A Right To Your Beliefs; You Just Don’t Have A Right To A Job That Your Beliefs Won’t Let You Do. Why Is This Not Obvious?

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

There are some issues where conservatives are just ethically, logically and legally misguided, and the issue of exercising “religious conscience” in the course of performing specific duties and services is one of them.

Julea Ward was dismissed for failing to meet the requirements of her course when she  refused to counsel a gay student while studying counseling at Eastern Michigan University. Ward later sued, saying that she told her supervisor at EMU she believes homosexuality is immoral and being gay is a choice, and that she could not in good conscience counsel a gay client. A federal court dismissed the case in July, but Ward’s lawyers have asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth District to step in. She claims that her right to worship as she pleases is being infringed. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Rep. Dennis Kucinich

/ Jack Marshall / 33 Comments

Muslim women, in ethical garb

During last week’s hearings on the alleged radicalization of Muslim-Americans, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, protesting that the hearings were an example of prosecution and bigotry, said:

“Islam is a religion based upon peace, goodwill and the ethical treatment of all people on this planet.”

Politics involves advocacy, and zealous advocacy sometimes metastasizes into exaggerations, overstatements, and lies. Determined governors are called dictators and criminals; those questioning global warming models are compared to Holocaust deniers. Believing that an attack on an enemy nation is in the best interests of America, leaders who should be saying, “We have good reason to believe that this nation has weapons of mass destruction and is inclined to use them,” say instead, “We know where the weapons are and the threat is imminent.” Other leaders who are trying to get important health care reforms passed say, “Don’t worry—if you like your current plan, you’ll be able to keep it!”, neglecting to add the caveat that that plan you like may be forced out of existence if the bill is passed.

These excesses range from deceitful to outright lying, but they are all unethical, all disrespectful of the truth and the public that has a right to it, all aimed at manipulating public opinion with falsity.

I find Kucinich’s statement especially indefensible, because the degree of his presumably misstatement of the truth was completely unnecessary if his motives were good. Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: Who Deserved To Be Fired—Beck or The Duck?

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Tough quiz today, ethics fans. Be on your toes!

Our quiz for today: Who most deserved to be fired—Glenn Beck, Gilbert Gottfried (the voice of the Aflac duck),  neither, or both?

The Mad Prophet of Fox, Glenn Beck returned to his radio program with this reflection:

“I’m not saying God is, you know, causing earthquakes. I’m not not saying that either… but there’s a message being sent. And that is, ‘Hey, you know that stuff we’re doing? Not really working out real well. Maybe we should stop doing some of it.’ I’m just saying.”

Yes, Glenn Beck said that the devastation of Japan just may be a message from God. Continue reading →

The Bi-Partisan and Unethical Niggerizing of Political Discourse

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Marl Levin, virtuoso niggerizer

The ethics problem with the use of “nigger,” or “bitch,” or “fag,” or any of the other culturally disapproved denigrating labels for human beings belonging to particular groups, is not that they are insulting—adults should be able to  handle mere insults—but that they unfairly diminish the status of individuals, their character, opinions and deeds before they have had the opportunity to be judged on their merits. It isn’t the words, but the effect, in essence sticking a foot out to trip a runner at the beginning of the race—and the race may be a job, an election, a debate, an argument, or policy deliberations.

The No-Labels movement focuses on characterizations and civility, but these are far too vague as concepts to enforce culturally, and subject to easy manipulation for political ends. John Avlon, a leader of No-Labels, still calls politicians he disagrees with “wingnuts.” Why? Because, well, they are wingnuts! Just ask John. Niggerizing, however, goes well beyond labels, and fair people should reject it from either side of the political spectrum. It is a bully tactic, and it is a dishonest debating technique, completely delegitimizing an adversary before addressing his arguments, or giving them an objective hearing. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “The Tears of Keith Ellison”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Less to do with the original post and more concerned with weightier matters is this thoughtful comment by blameblakeart, the Comment of the Day:

“This event in Japan has crystalized for me Jack – we as Humanity, as Earthlings – are all in this together, side of the aisle being probably the least of our worries. We need to use our smarts and our will to manifest a better, more abundant, more perfect world, all together, not just for a chosen few.

“10000+ years ago there were hundreds of species that basically cease to exist. What the 8.9 Japanese earthquake tells at least me is that life is tremendously fleeting, but intensely beautiful, magic, and precious, of all things, Human and Of this Earth. I don’t know why there are those out there trying to distract us from these simple truths with all these bogus, hateful, incendiary tactics.”

Read This To Your Mother…or Somebody’s Mother

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The Nigerian Prince wants to meet your mother.

As my sister and I try to unravel the details and records of my mother’s nearly 90 years, we both have concluded that she would have been an easy mark for scammers and frauds if she didn’t have two lawyer offspring reviewing her decisions. The number of elderly, mentally-failing Americans who lose their life’s savings to these predators is a national tragedy. They are particularly prominent on the internet. I was very frustrated with my mother’s resistance to e-mail and the Web…now I’m not sure it wasn’t too dangerous for her to navigate.

The F.B.I. has an excellent and informative web page that should be shown, read to, and explained to every senior in your life. From the introduction:

“Senior citizens are most likely to have a “nest egg,” to own their home, and/or to have excellent credit—all of which make them attractive to con artists...People who grew up in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s were generally raised to be polite and trusting. Con artists exploit these traits, knowing that it is difficult or impossible for these individuals to say “no” or just hang up the telephone. Older Americans are less likely to report a fraud because they don’t know who to report it to, are too ashamed at having been scammed, or don’t know they have been scammed. Elderly victims may not report crimes, for example, because they are concerned that relatives may think the victims no longer have the mental capacity to take care of their own financial affairs.”

The site goes on to describe how various scams work and how to spot them; indeed, you don’t need to be a senior to be vulnerable. The list is daunting: Continue reading →

The Tears of Keith Ellison

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

The grand drama at Rep. Peter King’s Congressional hearings investigating the radicalization of American Muslims last week was provided by Rep. Keith Ellison, who broke down crying while telling the story of a Muslim-American hero, Mohammed Salman Hamdani, who rushed to lower Manhattan on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 to assist in rescue efforts, and died in the collapse of the World Trade Center. Ellison said:

After the tragedy some people tried to smear his character solely because of his Islamic faith. Some people spread false rumors and speculated that he was in league with the attackers only because he was Muslim. It was only when his remains were identified that these lies were fully exposed. Mohammed Salman Hamdani was a fellow American who gave his life for other Americans. His life should not be defined as a member of an ethnic group or a member of a religion, but as an American who gave everything for his fellow citizens.

I found the performance odd and vaguely troubling, and now that I’ve thought about it for a few days, I know why. The statement by Ellison, who converted to Islam, and the tears that accompanied it, raise a few ethical issues, beginning with the Ethics Alarms standard, “What’s going on here?” Continue reading →

She-Hulk Legal Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

One of the most creative websites around, Law and the Multiverse, discusses the legal issues that would arise in a parallel existence in which super-heroes were real. The site finally delved into the topic of legal ethics a couple of weeks ago, and the post is both fun and informative on the issue of lawyer solicitation.

She-Hulk’s alter-ego, Jennifer Walters (who, unlike She-Hulk, is not green) is a practicing attorney. (So is Daredevil, and if anyone knows why they never formed a firm, let me know.) The post involves the propriety of She-Hulk’s soliciting legal business at the scene of a rescue. The issue is pretty straightforward. It does not, however, deal with the question of whether She-Hulk can ethically practice law when she is not Jennifer Walters. Does Walters’ license still apply to She-Hulk, who looks different, sounds different, thinks differently and has a different personality? The question is similar to the issue of whether Dr. Hyde can legally. practice medicine.

Oh well, maybe they’ll take that one up another time. You can read about She-Hulk’s legal ethics problem here.

The Times’ New Ethicist Commits Malpractice

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

The new Times "Ethicst" shows her dark side.

Randy Cohen’s replacement as “The Ethicist” in the New York Times Magazine, Ariel Kaminer, had a flawless maiden flight last week, but crashes and burns on her first question this week. As was too often true of Cohen, she messes up in the area of honesty and legal ethics.

The inquirer, an applicant for law school, had asked a former professor to write a recommendation.  The professor, an apparent creep, said she was too busy—Honestly: writing recommendations for students applying to graduate students is part of her job, and how long does it take?—but if that if the student would write it, she would gladly “edit as needed” and submit it under her own name. Ariel’s inquirer felt uncomfortable writing her own letter of recommendation, but did not “wish to jeopardize my chances of being accepted into my top-choice school by being overly conscientious.” Ariel’s question to answer: is it ethical to draft the letter? Continue reading →