Business & Commercial

The Ethics Verdict on GQ’s “Glee” Spread: Ick

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

The watchdog group Parents Television Council is condemning the Gentleman’s Quarterly’s buzz-generating photo spread of actresses from “Glee”adopting sexually provocative poses more or less in character. Since their characters on the show are teenagers–minors—the Council equates the feature to pornography and pedophilia. “It is disturbing that GQ, which is explicitly written for adult men, is sexualizing the actresses who play high school-aged characters on Glee in this way. It borders on pedophilia,” said PTC President Tim Winter.

He’s right, of course. Continue reading →

Mitt Romney’s Legal, Clever…Deceitful and Unethical Speaking Deal

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Thank you. Mitt Romney. I mean it. I am grateful. I am frequently asked for an example of how a business tactic can be completely legal  and yet unethical all the same. Your brilliant double-deception is one for the ages.

Here is how it works: Continue reading →

A Law Firm Finds New Ways To Be Unethical

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Now remember, it’s only a complaint so far, and the law firm involved will have its own version of the story (though I’m betting on an out of court settlement before this becomes a law suit.) Still, this case suggests that there are still new vistas in unethical law firm conduct to be explored.

A “Mad Men”-style law firm required all of its female secretaries and non-legal personnel to wear high heels. One of them who was unaccustomed to wearing heels tripped on the carpeting, injuring her back. When she returned to work, the firm refused to make any accommodations for her due to the injury, such as not requiring her to lift heavy objects.

Nice.

“Yes, THESE Figures Were Outrageously Mistaken, But You Should Trust Our OTHER Figures Completely!”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Question: What ethical conclusions can one reach from this story about the great, environmentally responsible state of California?

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

“California grossly miscalculated pollution levels in a scientific analysis used to toughen the state’s clean-air standards…The pollution estimate in question was too high – by 340 percent, according to the California Air Resources Board, the state agency charged with researching and adopting air quality standards. The estimate was a key part in the creation of a regulation adopted by the Air Resources Board in 2007, a rule that forces businesses to cut diesel emissions by replacing or making costly upgrades to heavy-duty, diesel-fueled off-road vehicles used in construction and other industries. Continue reading →

Unethical Website of the Month: Domainscalping.com

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

We haven’t had a good example of an unethical website for a while, but here’s a classic.

Describing itself as the doorway to a “sneaky but ethical” way to make lots of money fast, with no talent or benefit to society while going by a name—domainscalping—that accurately describes its so-called business for the slimy and unethical practice it is, this site wins multiple prizes for forthright sleaze and ethical ignorance. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Week: Former NFL agent Josh Luchs

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment
“That night I sat in my hotel room making a list of pros and cons in my head. Sure, it was breaking NCAA rules, but I would be helping Kanavis out. How would I feel if my mom was sick and I didn’t have money to help her? I went through this for hours and finally decided to do it. The next morning I went to the bank, pulled out some of my bar mitzvah money, $2,500 in cash, showed up at Kanavis’s door and told him, “Kanavis, I gave this a lot of thought, and I want to help you out. I know how I would feel if it was my mom.”

—Former registered NFL player agent Josh Luchs, describing to Sports Illustrated one of thirty incidents in which he gave money to college players to persuade them to sign up as clients.
………..
Yes, if it was Luchs’s mom, and he thought he could con an agent into handing over illicit cash using her as an excuse, he might have tried this too. Thus do we see how a profession that is faced with many ethical dilemmas is completely unprepared to apply even rudimentary ethics analysis to come to a correct decision. Luchs frames his dilemma to make him out to be a good guy, but what he was actually doing is exploiting a college kid’s personal problems to reel him in, breaking NCAA rules on the way and jeopardizing the player’s career. Did Luchs explain that accepting the money might lead to sanctions for both the player and his college? Apparently not. More importantly, Luchs wasn’t giving money to the athlete to help his family out; he was giving the money as the quid in an implied quid pro quo arrangement: “I help your mother, you sign with me. Deal?” Continue reading →

What’s the Matter With Direct TV?

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Okay, you Direct TV defenders…if you can stop rolling on the floor with hilarity over people being tasered by police officers and having their food adulterated by redneck waitresses for a second, explain this one to me.

In a current Direct TV commercial about the joys of paying your satellite bill online, a woman enthusiastically chirps, “No more “borrowing” stamps from the office!” Yes, not only does Direct TV assume that everyone steals stamps from their work place, but they think it’s no big deal. If it was anything to be ashamed of, the ad wouldn’t accuse its potential customers of doing it, now would they?

Stealing stamps or anything else of value from your job isn’t cute, and it isn’t right. Who are these people? How did they get this way? This time, they don’t even have the excuse that it’s just for laughs, because this commercial is all business. I think Direct TV’s ads show a company with an ethically corrupt culture, so much so that its management and staff just assumes everyone is just as dishonest and selfish as they are. If they’ll steal stamps, they’ll pad my bill.

So please explain to me, Direct TV fans, why accusing us of stamp stealing is all in good fun.  Otherwise, I think I’ll be going back to cable. It is beginning to look like there is something seriously wrong with this company.

Leona Gage: A Celebrity Liar Ahead of Her Time

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Leona Gage died last week, and there are people who love her and will miss her. But Gage’s obituary would have never been deemed worth of mention in major newspapers had it not been for a series of lies she concocted in 1957 because “she needed the money.” She was Miss USA that year, until contest organizers discovered that, contrary to what she had said,  she wasn’t single ( a requirement then); wasn’t waiting “until she was 26” to have a boyfriend (she had been married twice at 14, and already had a child), and wasn’t 21…she was just 18. Continue reading →

A Real Estate Appraiser Discovers “the Appearance of Impropriety”

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

You won’t find a better example of the ethical breach known as “the appearance of impropriety” than this, a question from a real estate appraiser posted on appraisersforum.com. (Note: This is one of the infuriating websites that won’t allow you to post a reply or a comment until you register, and then informs you that it may be a day or more before the registration is approved, so you still can’t post a comment. Yes, the site is so crucial that I will hold my comment…or maybe write it down and save it in a file labeled “pending Appraisers Forum comments”—and wait with palpitating anticipation while my plea to be allowed to interact with a bunch of real estate appraisers is evaluated for worthiness. )

Here is the question: Continue reading →

Unavoidable Bias in the Embryonic Stem Cell Research Controversy

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

In the embryonic stem cell research ethics debate, I come out on the “pro” side. Nonetheless, a New York Times article this morning shows clearly how thoroughly and unavoidably biased scientists and researchers in the field are, leading to the conclusion that the decision whether stem cell research is ethical or not, and whether, or to what extent, it should be permitted, cannot be left to them.

The article, by Amy Harmon, begins,

“Rushing to work at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center one recent morning, Jason Spence, 33, grabbed a moment during breakfast to type “stem cells” into Google and click for the last 24 hours of news. It is a routine he has performed daily in the six weeks since a Federal District Court ruling put the future of his research in jeopardy. “It’s always at the front of my brain when I wake up,” said Dr. Spence, who has spent four years training to turn stem cells derived from human embryos into pancreatic tissue in the hope of helping diabetes patients. “You have this career plan to do all of this research, and the thought that they could just shut it off is pretty nerve-racking.” Continue reading →