I think it’s time for a new ethicist to write “The Ethicist” column…

Kwame Anthony Appiah has been shaky all year, but he seems to be bottoming out. A disturbed inquirer who works in the I.T. department of a town government asked what he should do about his boss, who “frequently discusses bizarre ideas” including conspiracy theories about lizard people infiltrating the federal government and the Rothschilds as “vampiric blood drinkers.”

“It is not outside the realm of possibility that this alternate reality could compromise the director’s decision-making, potentially jeopardizing the security of our town’s sensitive information,” he writes, but although the concerned worker has gone “up the ladder” as we say in the ethics biz, none of the manager’s superiors think there is a problem.

“I am left in a difficult position, fearing not only for the security of our town’s data but also for my own job stability under a manager detached from reality. Is it ethical for someone in such a crucial role to openly espouse these beliefs at work?” he asks “The Ethicist.”

The last question is a legitimate one, so, naturally, Prof. Appiah virtually ignores it, only saying that because the Rothschild fantasy is a famous anti-Jewish libel, it “raises a workplace issue.” However, it is a workplace issue whether the manager is inflicting his opinions on the staff about the virtues of abortion or a plague of lizard people. The ethical policy is easy: co-workers should never proselytize others in the work place about anything and that goes triple for supervisors. Instead, “The Ethicist” turns in this direction:

“It also raises a judgment issue. Maybe their appetite for this stuff will have no effect on their professionalism, but why take the risk? People who harbor suspicions about vast conspiracies are, as we’ve learned, prone to being manipulated. The World Economic Forum’s Global Risk report for 2022 reported that 95 percent of cybersecurity failings were traceable to human error. People appear to be the weakest link in cybersecurity, and so a secure system depends on keeping track not just of hardware and software but of the people who interact with them as well. Given that you’ve tried getting senior management to do something about this, you’re entitled to act as a whistle-blower here and get the word out. I hope that you do.”

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I just returned from the funeral of my former boss, mentor, role-model, Most Unforgettable Character (well, one of them) and freind, Tom Donohue. He died earlier this month at 86. Consider this a prelude: as soon as I’m emotionally up to it, I’m going to compose and post his entry into the Ethics Alarms Hall of Heroes as an Ethics Hero Emeritus. Tom deserves the honor unquestionably as you will see; this isn’t a matter of me boosting my personal friends.

In fact, my first observation on this funeral—which, you will recall, I attended a week early, spawning this rueful post—is that Tom Donohue is an excellent example of how many great people move through American life without being sufficiently noticed, appreciated, and remembered. Tom had a wonderful life, as Clarence the Angel would have said, and it was a productive, important, consequential life that touched many hundred of lives in a positive way including mine. A movie about his life would be inspiring and entertaining. Tom walked among the powerful and famous: one of his weaknesses (that I had the guts to point out to him, I’m proud to say) was that he was, at least when I worked with him, excessively deferential and almost obsequious to celebrities, a sign, I believe, of his usually well-hidden insecurities. Maybe this flaw diminished once he landed his dream job, running the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a role that gave him real power and periodic national visibility. I remember finally snapping when I saw Tom fawning over Ed Meese, Ronald Reagan’s long-time consiglieri and eventual Attorney General. “Jesus, Tom, Ed Meese isn’t fit to carry your laundry,” I remember saying. “You should stop treating him like he’s royalty.” (Tom’s response: “I’ll think about that!”)

Tom’s death rated an obituary in the Times and the Post among other publications, but few Americans know who he was. Heck, few Americans know what the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is: they think it’s a government agency. It is, in fact, a huge and influential national organization created by the business community (at the behest of President Taft) to serve as the yin to organized labor’s yang, and to advise Congress and the White House regarding the private sector’s interests in policy, national and international. The President of the Chamber has more power ( if he knows how to use it, and Tom certainly did) than most members of the U.S. President’s cabinet. Tom held that job for more than two decades.

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