Ford’s Hypothetical Ethical Dilemma

January 14, 2014January 14, 2014 / Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

“Oh-oh…Lindsay’s behind the wheel again…”

Ford’s Global VP/Marketing and Sales, Jim Farley, was waxing on about data privacy as a participant in a panel discussion at an electronics trade show in Las Vegas. He was making a point regrading how much data Ford has on its customers, and its possible uses, and stunned audience members when he said, “We know everyone who breaks the law, we know when you’re doing it. We have GPS in your car, so we know what you’re doing. By the way, we don’t supply that data to anyone.” Ford knows when drivers of its automobiles break the law? That raises all kinds of concerns, and obviously Ford’s PR folks and lawyers didn’t care to deal with them. The next day, after a lot of publicity, Farley “clarified” his statements, saying, “I absolutely left the wrong impression about how Ford operates. We do not track our customers in their cars without their approval or their consent. The statement I made in my eyes was hypothetical and I want to clear this up.”

Well, you know how much I like hypotheticals. Besides, how will we be sure that Ford, if it can monitor our driving, won’t monitor our driving, or at least someone’s driving? Constitutional law specialist and blogger Eugene Volokh has an interesting post about the legal and liability implication’s of Ford’s peculiar spying ability. Introducing his analysis, he writes, Continue reading →

Here’s Something A-Rod Is NOT Doing Wrong

January 14, 2014 / Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

The Don had his flaws, but he knew the difference between personal and professional.

Alex Rodriguez has done a lot of bad things, but everything he does isn’t wrong. Kudos to lawyer/baseball pundit Craig Calcaterra for flagging a typical bit of pundit idiocy.

Yesterday, the news was that Rodriguez, rather than accept his season-long suspension as a result of the arbitration panel’s final decision regarding the disciplinary action against him taken by Major League Baseball, is suing MLB, and the players union for not properly defending him. This involves allegations that the union’s late Executive Director, Michael Weiner (who perished last year of an inoperable brain tumor) failed in his duty to A-Rod, a member in good standing, though a slimy one. This, to various sportswriters, broadcasters and bloggers, was the smoking gun proof that Alex’s heart is as black as a Mamba: how dare he impugn the character of a dead man, a beloved family man who died before his time? For example, here is Yahoo Sports’ indignant Jeff Passon:

“Alex Rodriguez is a sad, desperate man, and sad, desperate men do sad, desperate things like blame their sad, desperate circumstances on a beloved, deceased man. Of the many layers of pathetic A-Rod has peeled back in trying to excuse his own wretched choices, never had he spoken ill of the dead, not until Monday when his failing defense found a new nadir.”

Rodriguez may well be a sad, desperate man as well as a certified rotter, but his treatment of Weiner is not one of his many transgressions. Continue reading →

Signature Significance: The Sick Little Girl’s Stolen Puppy

January 14, 2014January 14, 2014 / Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

If you ever want to explain the concept of signature significance in ethics—how one act can be sufficient evidence to make a fair and valid judgment about someone’s character—to a friend or colleague, this story should do the trick.

In California, a kind woman named Shawna Hamon heard about a 7-year-old girl with leukemia whose Christmas wish was for Santa to bring her a pug puppy. So Hamon bought a pug puppy, and gave it to a friend who promised to deliver the little dog to the girl in Sacramento in time for the holidays.

The puppy never arrived, however. The friend decided to keep it for herself. Hamon sent an animal delivery service and an attorney to the woman’s Los Angeles home, but the woman refused to give the dog back. Then Hamon filed a theft complaint and police got a search warrant to search the home, but found no pug puppy. After searching some other nearby homes, they eventually found the little dog at a neighbor’s house, where the pug-napper had hidden it.

Hamon now has the dog back, and learned her lesson. She will deliver it herself this time, a bit late, to the sick little girl. The child is currently receiving experimental treatment for leukemia in Philadelphia.

Now, what are the chances that the woman who took the dog, a desperately sick child’s Christmas gift, for herself, and foiled the compassionate act of a friend in the process, was just having a bad day, just made one mistake, really is a fine, upstanding, trustworthy individual and can’t be judged conclusively as an unethical cur (no offense, puppy…) based on this one incident, because a single episode has no statistical and predictive significance?

None.

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Pointer: Fark

Facts and graphic: NBC

I Don’t Care For This Ethics Lesson, Professor…

January 14, 2014 / Jack Marshall / 38 Comments

You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it does….

Police reports say that Robby Burleigh, 42, and his pregnant fiancée—she’s 20— got in an argument last week over a text message he didn’t like and the fact that he doesn’t want her to have their baby. According to the fiancée, Burleigh grabbed her, threw her to the floor, pinned her down and broke her phone so, she claims, she couldn’t call for help. Then, she says, he dragged her across the floor to a safe where he keeps his gun, and said, chillingly, “You’re going to commit suicide today.”

Oh! I forgot the best part!

Burleigh teaches philosophy of religion, biomedical ethics, introduction to ethics and introduction to logic at Baton Rouge Community College, and his fiancée is a student of his. Clever ethics lesson, Professor! Continue reading →

Our Incompetent Media, Making America Ignorant, Case # 58755

January 13, 2014 / Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Sirius-XM’s Mike Ferrin, making up Constitutional law as he goes along…

Driving along, minding my own business, on the way to picking up some cranberry juice and dishwasher detergent, I chanced to turn on channel 89 on Sirius-XM, where, by no special intent of mine, the baseball show “Power Alley,” with hosts Mike Ferrin and Jim Duquette (the latter a former and probably future big league general manager) was covering the A-Rod suspension story, currently the hottest scandal in sports. Ferrin is a baseball commentator, and he was railing about the statement of a lawyer, quoted on the show, that it was Alex Rodriquez’s refusal to testify at his hearing before a union arbitrator that sealed his doom and resulted in his season long suspension by Major League Baseball being upheld.

“What about his Fifth Amendment rights?” Ferrin was saying. “I am very disturbed by this. Rodriguez doesn’t have to testify! He has every right to refuse! I find it very disturbing that we are being told that a man lost his livelihood because he asserted his rights as an American! It’s just wrong!”

At this point, my car is weaving all over the road as I try to find my cell phone to call the show (I had left it at home) and scream. The Fifth Amendment, which among other things protects citizens against compelled testimony against themselves under threat of government action, has nothing to do with Alex Rodriquez and his arbitration hearing—-Mike Ferrin, you incompetent, blathering fool. The Fifth Amendment does not apply to private proceedings, of which a labor grievance arbitration is one. Continue reading →

The Alex Rodriguez Suspension, Barry Bonds, And The Slippery Slope

January 12, 2014January 12, 2014 / Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

In a decision that further defines major league baseball’s cultural standards regarding performance enhancing drugs and the players who use them, New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez was suspended for the entire 2014 season and post-season by an arbitrator yesterday. Rodriguez, a long-time superstar who was once considered a lock to break baseball’s career home run record, and who is the highest paid player in the game, was suspended for illicit drug use without testing positive under the game’s union-negotiated testing system. He was, instead, suspended for a violation of the player’s Basic Agreement under baseball management’s right to police the game and do what is in its best interests.

The evidence that Rodriguez was a flagrant and long-time steroid abuser came from documents obtained from Biogenesis, a lab that developed drugs for athletes and others, as well as convincing testimony. Rodriguez had challenged the suspension in a grievance procedure after MLB handed down a 211 game suspension during the 2013 season. The arbitrator’s ruling, which is confidential, apparently concluded that the player not only cheated, but obstructed efforts to enforce baseball’s intensified anti-drug measures in the wake of the wide-spread use of PEDs in the 90’s and thereafter.

As expected, the result produced the usual complaints and rationalizations from the disturbingly large contingent of baseball fans and writers who remain obdurate regarding the offensiveness of steroid cheating, claiming that it was “a part of the game,” that the objections to it are inconsistent, and that baseball’s vilification of users is hypocritical. They had been practicing these and related arguments for months as they waited for the baseball Hall of Fame voting results announced last week, in which about 65% of the voters showed that they regarded steroid use as a disqualification for the honor, even when a player-user had excelled on the field. Rodriquez’s defeat deeply undermines the cause of the steroid defenders, and the likelihood that their argument will ever prevail. Continue reading →

Incompetent Elected Official Of The Month: Virginia Delegate Tom Garrett (R-Lynchburg)

January 10, 2014 / Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

It just doesn’t get much dumber than this, friends.

Why are Republicans still picking on Bill Clinton?

Delegate Garrett has proposed a bill that would make oral or anal sex with a minor a felony in Virginia. The state’s laws currently make regular, run of the mill sex between an adult and a 15-to-17-year-old a misdemeanor only, and designate sex between 15-to-17-year-olds as no crime at all. So, Professor Eugene Volokh points out, “if two 17-year-olds are choosing whether to have oral sex or genital sex, the law would push them towards the form of sex that is more likely to transmit disease, and more likely to cause unwanted pregnancy.” The law also covers prostitution, making oral sex with a prostitute a felony for both sides, while genital sex is only a misdemeanor.

Just as children shouldn’t be allowed to play with sharp objects, weapons and matches, individuals as devoid of common sense and basic reasoning skills as Tom Garrett should never, ever be allowed to participate in law-making. OR play with sharp objects, weapons and matches.

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Pointer and Source: Volokh Conspiracy.

Just So We’re Clear: Some School Sexual Predators Are More Unethical Than Others

January 10, 2014 / Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Janelle Foley, 32, who works in the cafeteria of Chapman Middle School in Weymouth, Mass., was charged with four counts of statutory rape for having sexual relations with a 15 year old student at the school during the Thanksgiving and New Year holidays.

This is statutory rape, and wrong, but approximately half as wrong as when the sexual predator’s target is her (or his) student rather than someone she glops mashed potatoes for in the lunch line. True, every employee in a school has to be worthy of some level of trust, but a teacher is blatantly misusing her authority and blurring roles to the detriment of education as well as social development when she exploits the position of teacher/role model/ authority figure/mentor for the purposes of sexual gratification. A lunch lady is just picking up horny teens. One is a professional breach and a sleazy crime. The other is a sleazy crime, and nothing more.

On the other hand, the role betrayal involved when a friend’s mother seduces her son’s underage friend is every bit as reprehensible as the acts of a predator teacher. I tend to think the Sexual Predator Lunch Lady is not a serious threat in our schools.

And where does “The Summer of ’42” land along this spectrum?

I ‘m not certain, but closer to the lunch lady than to the teacher, I think.

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Pointer: Fark

Facts: Boston.com

The Fifth Annual Ethics Alarms Awards: The Worst of Ethics 2013 (Part Two of Three)

January 9, 2014January 9, 2014 / Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

The Ethics Alarms review of a truly disheartening year in ethics continues with fallen heroes, ficks, fools and follies with Part Two of the 2013 Worst of Ethics awards….and there’s one last section to come. Be afraid..be very afraid:

Fallen Hero of the Year

Edward Snowden, whose claim to civil disobedience was marred by his unwillingness to accept the consequences of his actions, whose pose as a whistle-blower was ruined by the disclosure that he took his job with the intention of exposing national secrets, and whose status as a freedom-defending patriot lies in ruins as he seeks harbor with not only America’s enemy, but a human rights-crushing enemy at that. The NSA’s over-reach and mismanagement is a scandal, but Snowden proved that he is no hero.

Unmitigated Gall of The Year

Minnesota divorce lawyer Thomas P. Lowes not only violated the bar’s ethics rules by having sex with his female client…he also billed her his hourly fee for the time they spent having sex , a breach of the legal profession’s rule against “unreasonable fees.” Yes, he was suspended. But for not long enough…

Jumbo Of The Year

(Awarded To The Most Futile And Obvious Lie)

“Now, if you had one of these plans before the Affordable Care Act came into law and you really liked that plan, what we said was you can keep it if it hasn’t changed since the law passed.”

—–President Obama

2013 Conflicts of Interest of the Year Continue reading →

The Strange Case Of The Brain Dead Mother-To-Be

January 9, 2014 / Jack Marshall / 92 Comments

In happier times; Mr. and Mrs. Munoz with their first child. And she really wanted her second child to die with her?

In happier times; Mr. and Mrs. Munoz with their first child. Did she really want her second child to die with her? Is that a respectable request, if she did?

Dead people are causing a lot of anguish in the ethics world lately. First, a family wants to force a hospital to keep their brain-dead, which is to say, dead, daughter on life support just in case a miracle occurs, while the rest of society pays for it. Now, in Texas, we have a true brain death dilemma that once again highlights the problem with U.S. abortion law and ethics.

Texan mother Marlise Munoz was 14 weeks pregnant with her second child when she collapsed and later died from a blood clot in her lungs. Her parents and husband told the intensive care unit at Fort Worth’s John Peter Smith Hospital to honor her stated wish not to be left on life support, but the hospital has so far refused to comply with their instructions. Texas is one of 31 states that prohibit medical officials from cutting off life support to a pregnant patient. Now, more than a month after her brain stopped functioning, the late Marlise Munoz is still connected to life-support machines, and her unborn child is now in its 20th week of development. Continue reading →

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