Character

“It’s A Wonderful Life” Ethics, Part 2 (of 3)

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

When we last saw George Bailey, he was defending his father’s dubious loan practices. In this, Part 2 of the three installments of  “It’s A Wonderful Life” Ethics, we take the saga up the fateful Christmas Eve when George Bailey meets his guardian angel.

6. George’s Fork in the Road

George Bailey’s decision to give up his plans to go to college to save the Savings and Loan is clearly not motivated by his personal dedication to the institution; he doesn’t like the place. He says so over and over again. He admires his father’s motivations for starting it. Had Potter not sparked his resentment with his nasty comments about George’s late father, George would have been out the door. But his passionate speech in rebuttal of Potter’s words put him on the spot: after those sentiments, turning down the Board’s appointment of him to be the new operating manager of the S&L would have made George a hypocrite in his own eyes, and rendered his passion  laughable. If George had integrity, then he had to accept the appointment.

It is one of the most interesting ethical moments in the film, because it represents a realistically complex ethical decision. George does what he does for selfish reasons as well as altruistic ones, and irrational reasons as well as considered ones. He wants to respect himself; he fears what might happen to his family and the community if Potter becomes the only financial power in town, and knows he will feel guilty if the consequences are bad. He feels like not staying will be taking Potter’s side over his father’s—completely irrational, since his father had given his blessing to George’s college plans, and wasn’t alive to be harmed by whatever he chose to do anyway. A large proportion of George’s decision seems to be motivated by non-ethical considerations, for he doesn’t like Potter—even hates him, perhaps—and wants to stick it to the old tycoon by foiling his victory. There are few ethical decisions in real life that are made purely on the basis of ethics, and Capra makes George’s decision wonderfully impure. Continue reading →

“It’s A Wonderful Life” Ethics, Part I (of 3)

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

“It’s A Wonderful Life” made its now traditional holiday season appearance on network television, and naturally, I watched it. The movie is one of the great ethics movies of all time, as well as being one of the great American movies of all time, perhaps director Frank Capra’s masterpiece. One of the markers of a classic film is how one can find new things in it upon every viewing, and that is certainly true of “It’s A Wonderful Life.” I was struck this time around by how many ethics issues are raised in the screenplay, some, no doubt, unintentionally.

1. “If It’s About Ethics, God Must Be Involved”

The movie begins in heaven, represented by twinkling stars. There is no way around this, as divine intervention isat the core of the fantasy; heaven and angels were big in Hollywood in the Forties. Nevertheless, the framing of the tale advances the anti-ethical idea, central to many religions, that good behavior on earth will be rewarded in the hereafter, bolstering the theory that without God and eternal rewards, doing good is pointless.

We are introduced to George Bailey, who, we are told, is in trouble and has prayed for help. He’s going to get it, too, or at least the heavenly authorities will make the effort. They are assigning an Angel 2nd Class, Clarence Oddbody, to the job. He is, we learn later, something of a second rate angel as well as a 2nd Class one, so it is interesting that whether or not George is in fact saved will be entrusted to less than heaven’s best. Some lack of commitment, there—then again, George says he’s “not a praying man.” This will teach him—sub-par service! Continue reading →

What’s Fair To Herman Cain Now?

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

I love this Cain-trapped-in-amber image, except that the idea of a future entrepreneur creating an island attraction where former disgraced presidential candidates are cloned from their preserved DNA to roam free is terrifying.

Herman Cain has withdrawn from the GOP presidential nomination competition in the wake of Ginger White’s claims that he and she engaged in a 13-year long romantic affair. He withdrew in a particularly deceitful way, saying that his campaign was being suspended. Like most of his recent conduct and statements lately, this resort to face-saving euphemism does not speak well of his character. Yes, it’s true, his quest for the White House is suspended. It is also what is technically called toast. A more honest, courageous, candid and accountable man would have said so. I think we can safety say that one way or the other, this campaign took the measure of Herman Cain, and found him to be as wanting in character as he is inexperience and diligence. The system, ugly as it is, worked.

What else can we now fairly say of Herman Cain? I believe we can fairly conclude that… Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Week: David Argenter, of the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

"Yes, she's my legal secretary. Yes, she's exactly what I advertised for. Why are you looking at me like that? What??"

“Often, issues of ethics and professionalism raise complicated questions, involve shades of grey, and require serious thought and contemplation to resolve.  Sometimes, however, all it takes to figure out whether a given action or decision is the right one is to ask: ‘Is this stupid?'”

—David Argenter, attorney and member of the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism, commenting on the mind-boggling case of a lawyer recently suspended from the practice of law for one year for several ethics violations, including one that will live in legal ethics infamy.

Hold onto your hat.

The lawyer in question sought secretarial assistance for his law office on Craigslist.  Oddly, he posted his ad in the “Adult Gigs” section of the site, with the heading “Loop lawyers hiring secretary/legal assistant.” The ad continued…

“Loop law firm looking to hire am [sic] energetic woman for their open secretary/legal assistant position. Duties will include general secretarial work, some paralegal work and additional duties for two lawyers in the firm. No experience required, training will be provided. Generous annual salary and benefits will be provided, including medical, dental, life, disability, 401(k) etc.”

The ad also requested asked for “a few pictures along with a description of your physical features, including measurements.”

Hmmm!

When an applicant  responded with an e-mail inquiring about the “additional duties” referred to in the ad, the lawyer responded,

“As this is posted in the “adult gigs” section, in addition to the legal work, you would be required to have sexual interaction with me and my partner, sometimes together sometimes separate. This part of the job would require sexy dressing and flirtatious interaction with me and my partner, as well as sexual interaction. You will have to be comfortable doing this with us.” Continue reading →

The Murderer and the Governor

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

When a politician announces that he is taking a "moral stand," watch out.

Guess who has more integrity: Gary Haugen, the convicted double murderer whose scheduled execution in Oregon had been scheduled for next week, or Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber, who blocked his execution?

It’s Haugen. The resident of Oregon’s death row had waived his appeals and was voluntarily submitting to his court-decreed fate when Kitzhaber stepped in, declaring his moral objections to capital punishment. But like many politicians’ objections to that other divisive social policy issue, abortion, Kitzhaber’s supposedly moral stand has more fine print than a gym membership. He didn’t commute Haugen’s sentence, or end the death sentences of the other men who have been condemned. The Governor went half way, essentially staying the executions for the term of his governorship, and pledging to seek reforms of what he called a “broken system” in 2013. Why 2013? It’s after the election, of course. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Sports Grid Blogger Dan Fogarty

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Civility is doomed. Civilization is doomed. Propriety is doomed.

What's the concerned father of the injured cheerleader thinking about? Why, what any cool dad would think about---how good her butt looks!

And Taylor Young, a cheerleader for the Michigan State Spartans, may well be doomed, as it is impossible to tell how badly her character, values and common sense have been warped by being brought up in a household containing her father, Charles. After Young took a hard fall during the halftime show in a game against Florida State, requiring her to receive medical attention (she was OK), her father posted this astounding Facebook comment, which, naturally, has gone viral:

“I’m glad to see your booty isn’t gettin big ….. no one likes a chick with a big butt ….. love you.”

Idiotic? Check. Sexist? Check. Insulting to women? Check. Embarrassing to his daughter? Double check. Demonstrating a stunning lack of understanding of the internet? Check. Displaying a disturbing tendency to sexualize his own daughter?

Check, and Yuck.

But to Dan Fogarty, writing on Sports Grid, this offensive post proves that Young is a “cool Dad,” and Young goes on to cite other “experts” who believe this is “quite possibly the funniest ‘Dad Moment’ in Facebook history.”

Really? Is this really the current state of the culture? A father makes salacious comments about his daughter’s “booty,” suggests that “chicks” without similar booty quality are unloved and unlovable, and that’s cool?

If Fogarty is in step with the culture and I’m not, 1) then American society is coarsening faster than I thought, and 2) which way to Mars?

My condolences to Taylor Young for the boorish conduct of her father, and if she sees nothing wrong with it either, she has my intense condolences—because she has been severely damaged.

As, perhaps, have we all, if Fogarty is right.

Now THIS Is What They Used To Call “Appearance of Impropriety”…

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

"So, Miss Scarlet!! At last you confess your guilt in this heinous crime! Now that that's over with, would you care to join me for dinner tonight?"

The prohibition against attorneys engaging in conduct that creates “the appearance of impropriety” was eliminated from the legal ethics rules (though not the judicial ethics rules) a long time ago, almost 30 years.  Periodically a case will arise in which its absence is felt. The nice thing about the appearance of impropriety category is that it was flexible enough to use to sanction lawyers who figured out ways to make the profession look slimy without running squarely afoul of other rules…like  San Diego prosecutor Ernie Marugg.

Marugg, it is alleged, used his defendants list as his little black book…seeking romantic relationships with the women he prosecuted after their trials were over. His habit was investigated one, but no specific ethical violation could be found. What would it be? Was he too easy on the women he was duty bound to prosecute zealously? One woman who pleaded guilty when Marugg prosecuted her  is now suing him, claiming that his personal  interest in her  caused him to be biased against her. Huh? How does that work? “You always hurt the one you love,” as the old song says? Continue reading →

Cain’s Mistress: Don’t Blame The Media This Time

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

One of the side-effects of the news media’s routinely displayed lack of fairness and integrity is that its motives can be challenged even when it does its job properly. The media itself is completely at fault for creating this opportunity for spin artists to confuse the public with blame-shifting arguments, but the blame-shifters are shameless and despicable.  Thus we have to listen to a conservative talk radio barrage of accusations that Ginger White, the woman who has surfaced with the tale of a 13-year long affair with Herman Cain, was “dug up” by “them” in a coordinated effort to “get” a rising black conservative. This morning, such claims were proliferating all over the AM dial.

Politico opened the door for this, of course, with its unsourced, anonymous, still detail-free account of sexual harassment complaints of an undefined nature filed against Cain and settled over a decade ago. The stories never should have run without names and facts, and the subsequent appearance of other Cain accusers can’t change that. Publishing such a story, in violation of basic journalistic ethics principles, was unfair, and did look like a media hit job, though when the media is involved, Hanlon’s Razor (“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”) applies. As William Jacobson wrote over the weekend, Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Wall Street Journal Blogger James Taranto

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Useful fact: Mitt Romney is running for President, and Maureen Dowd isn't. You can't use her to judge his ethics, just as you shouldn't use him to judge her hair.

Oh James, James. What am I going to do with you? For the third time this year you have barged into Ethics Dunce territory, surely a place one of the most consistently perceptive, witty and reasonable of conservative commentators never belongs.

But what is an ethicist to do when you attempt to trivialize an outrageously dishonest and misleading campaign ad by Mitt Romney, in which a statement by President Obama [ “Sen. McCain’s campaign actually said, and I quote: ‘If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose,’ “referring to the 2008 economy under Bush ] is edited to suggest something completely different [ “If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose,” implying that “we’ means the Democrats] from what he was really saying, by showing that other politicians and New York Times columnists play the same unethical game? So what? How do the unethical journalistic practices of the Times columnists you deftly expose on a regular basis in any way make Romney’s ad less reprehensible? Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Month: Herman Cain Attorney Lin Wood

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

What's that you say, Mr. Wood? Marital infidelity is irrelevant to a presidential candidate's qualifications? Did John Edwards tell you that?

“Mr. Cain has been informed today that your television station plans to broadcast a story this evening in which a female will make an accusation that she engaged in a 13-year long physical relationship with Mr. Cain. This is not an accusation of harassment in the workplace – this is not an accusation of an assault – which are subject matters of legitimate inquiry to a political candidate. Rather, this appears to be an accusation of private, alleged consensual conduct between adults – a subject matter which is not a proper subject of inquiry by the media or the public. No individual, whether a private citizen, a candidate for public office or a public official, should be questioned about his or her private sexual life. The public’s right to know and the media’s right to report has boundaries and most certainly those boundaries end outside of one’s bedroom door. Mr. Cain has alerted his wife to this new accusation and discussed it with her. He has no obligation to discuss these types of accusations publicly with the media and he will not do so even if his principled position is viewed unfavorably by members of the media.”

—Attorney Lin Wood, on behalf of his client Herman Cain, in a statement to Fox News in response to its  interview with a Georgia woman, Ginger White, who says she had a 13 year adulterous relationship with the Republican presidential contender.

Sorry, Mr. Wood. You are dead, dead wrong. Continue reading →