The Senate race in Massachusetts has now deteriorated to the “anything goes” stage, with both Democrats and Republicans using intellectually indefensible and unprincipled arguments to get the decisive edge in a neck-and-neck battle. Continue reading
Health and Medicine
Obamacare Ethics: Prof. Gruber’s Conflict and Democratic Deceit
Professor John Gruber, meet Armstrong Williams. Obama Democrats, meet the Bush Republicans. The names and faces may change, but the unethical tricks remain the same. Continue reading
On Hoaxes, Avatar, and More Late Night Ethics
Hoax Update
- Singer, model, television personality and inexplicable celebrity Tia Tequila announced in December that she was engaged to the heiress to the Johnson and Johnson fortune, Casey Johnson. The troubled Johnson turned up dead in squalid circumstances in January, prompting a grief-stricken online statement from Tia in which she spelled her beloved’s name wrong. Shortly after this, it was revealed that the engagement was a publicity stunt by Tequila, who barely knew Johnson. Fake romances for publicity purposes are as old as the Tudors, but this sort of thing further trivializes truth for an entire generation. Continue reading
On Frozen Tongues and the No-Accountability Culture
A Siro, Oklahoma school bus driver, who is also a teacher, leaves a fifth-grade student stuck by the side of the road with her tongue frozen fast to a metal pole. The bus driver tells the girl that she doesn’t have time to help her, and drives away, forcing the girl to free herself by slowly chewing her way off the pole. The school discusses the situation with the driver and others who are charged with transporting the children, and declares the problem solved. The bus driver, the school says, will continue in both her duties.
Enough.
It is time for everyone to resist the increasing cultural pressure to create an accountability-free society. Continue reading
Mark McGwire’s Steroid Confession, Part 1
Former slugging first baseman Mark McGwire finally admitted yesterday that he indeed was a steroid-user while playing. Telling the truth, even, as in McGwire’s case, when it is done too late and in a self-serving manner, is a good thing. Nevertheless, his admission should have no bearing at all on the judgment of him as unworthy of post-career honors. McGwire cheated, and his use of steroids damaged his fellow players and the game. Nothing he said changes any of that. Continue reading
Internet on the Dashboard: When Ethics is Impossible
What rationalizations does a computer company use to justify the development of a new dashboard device that is certain to cause accidents and take lives? The same ones, I suspect, that are employed by auto manufacturers to justify selling cars with the feature. Continue reading
New York’s Junkie Primer: Unethical and Absurd
The New York Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene, has a new brochure out for heroin addicts. It’s goal: help them break the law, become addicted, abandon their responsibilities and eventually kill themselves as safely as possible.
I’m not kidding. Continue reading
Ethics and the Suicidal Student
Ethics often comes down to answering the basic question, “What is the right thing to do?” Sometimes the wrong option will be easy to identify, but finding the right action is nearly impossible, complicated by diverse stakeholders, conflicting values and legal entanglements. This is the situation universities face when a student becomes suicidal. What action is in the best interest of the student, as well as the other students and the institution itself? Continue reading
Well, It’s Better Than Senator Burris’s Version…
[An Ethics Alarms reflection on the Christmas Eve Senate vote passing that esteemed body’s version of health care reform…in the tradition of “A Visit From Saint Nicholas,” because 1) you haven’t read enough parodies of that poem this year, 2) it seemed appropriate, but mostly 3) the version Sen. Burris read on the Senate floor was so terrible that I had to get its taste out of my mouth.]
Punishing Pregnant Soldiers
The outrage expressed by women’s groups over the Army’s announced intention to discipline and even court-martial female soldiers who become pregnant in war zones was as predictable as a sunrise. It also carries political firepower, and public appeal.
The complaints are, however, ethically nonsensical. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 