Leadership

The Unethical Ethicist And Yale: If Bill Cosby Were A Famous Ethicist, He’d Be Prof. Thomas Pogge

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments
The Accuser and the Ethicist

The Accuser and the Ethicist

Here is the short version:

Yale’s Thomas Pogge is a world famous Yale professor of philosophy and ethics who is especially renowned for condemning the terrible human rights effects caused by disparity of resources between rich countries and poor ones. His books, lectures and a well-recieved TED talk argue that the power imbalance between rich countries and poor countries is so great that poor countries cannot reasonably be said to “consent” to agreements between them. Pogge has also accumulated many credible accusations of exploiting, harassing, and taking sexual liberties with his female students in multiple institutions. In the case that has led to this contrast becoming public, Yale offered a female accuser, a Yale graduate named Fernanda Lopez Aguilar, $2000 in exchange for ending the matter and keeping the story out of the news media.

The long version is here. Because the publisher is BuzzFeed, which is not widely regarded as a sterling source of trustworthy journalism (to say the least), the detailed and apparently well-researched report will be easy for Pogge and Yale to ignore and shrug off. However, other publications, including the Yale Daily News, have investigated the work of author Kaitie J.M. Baker, and so far it has held up to scrutiny.

Pogge has responded, less than convincingly, I would say, to the Lopez Aguilar allegations here. I say unconvincingly because he does not address the previous accusations made against him at Columbia University, and if there is one common characteristic of sexual harassers and abusers that stands out above all others, it is that they are habitual and repeat offenders. Anyone who has spent any time in academia (like me) is well aware that the culture permitting professors, especially male professors, to use the student body and bodies as a sexual perk of the job is widespread and only weakly restrained, if at all. Does that prove that Pogge is one of the professors who partakes in the lusty opportunities presented to him as an object of trust and admiration? No. There is, however a lot of smoke surrounding him, and the smoke has been issuing for a long time.

Yale’s institutional conduct is more than smoke. Yale appears to be another example of a trusted institution deciding that it is preferable to cover up the possible, likely or proven misconduct of a valuable employee than to risk damaging the reputation of that institution, or alienating the loyalties of other employees, by addressing it openly and decisively. I’m sure you can name other infamous examples of this phenomenon, broadly covered by the rationalizations “The King’s Pass” and “The Saint’s Excuse” on the Rationalizations List. Among the most infamous of these are the Catholic Church’s decades, perhaps centuries-long enabling of child sexual predators in the priesthood, the Watergate cover-up by the White House, and Penn State’s failure to stop a known child predator from using the school’s football program and its campus as a base of operations. Yale’s particular variety of this unethical choice is an especially unsavory one, closer to the Joe Paterno/ Sandusky and “Spotlight”scandals, because it intentionally  places future innocent victims at risk of harm.

I accept that there is a possibility that Pogee is an impeccable  professional and as pure as the driven snow, and thus himself a victim of a smear, though this seems unlikely. What I am more interested in now is to address the questions asked in the BuzzFeed piece, which relate to how we should regard unethical ethicists as well as other prominent figures who defy, in their actions, the wisdom they are celebrated for dispensing to others—the Bill Cosbys of the world.

I have some additional questions of my own, but for now I will restrict myself now to those posed in the article. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day (And Response): “MORE Gender Issues Confusion Monday, PART 3:The New York Times’ Hit Piece On Donald Trump And Women”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

I am late posting this provocative and wide-ranging comment from repeat-Comment of the Day author Chris Marschner. Chris attempts to explain, and even defend, the unwillingness of  Donald Trump supporters to find literally any misconduct or verbal outrage sufficient reason to reject him. On the way, he touches on affirmative action, SNAP, voter ID laws, the transgender bathroom controversy, and more.

I’ll have some substantial comments at the end. for for now, here is Chris Marschner’s Comment of the Day on the post, MORE Gender Issues Confusion Monday, PART 3:The New York Times’ Hit Piece On Donald Trump And Women:

[Commenter Humble Talent] stated, “Pundits don’t understand why saying dumb things about women or minorities doesn’t skewer him. I do: His voters don’t care. His voters don’t care where people pee, they don’t care how many abortions the lady down the street gets, they don’t care about racism, sexism or whatever-phobias. They care about taking care of their families. They care about jobs. This is the demographic Bernie and Trump tapped into. People not like us. Uneducated people. People living day to day. Bills to pay and mouths to feed, when nothing in the world is free.”

First let me say that I find Trump’s rhetoric distasteful and I did not vote for him in the Maryland primary.

Labeling all Trump supporters as “uneducated and unlike us” may be too simplistic. Actually many do care where people pee or how many abortions take place. You might want to consider that it is just a matter of priorities when faced with the possibility that a progressive candidate like Hillary Clinton might get elected leading to further stagnation of their upward mobility while forcing them to succumb to even more government intrusion into their lives.

Perhaps there is also a group of educated voting taxpayers who are tired of being labeled as social misanthropes when engaging in reasonable debate over a variety of issues. Many well educated people who earn more than the median income but less than that which is necessary to be absolutely financially independent understand the economic repercussions of challenging some progressive ideas that are at odds with their own reasoned thinking. How exactly does a conservative faculty member debate a topic when he/she runs the risk of being labeled a racist, Uncle Tom, misogynist or other type of person in what could be called the “Hater” segment of society for not towing the employer’s or the group’s normative thinking. How many business owners publically regurgitate the progressive ideology or opt for a low profile to avoid the onslaught of protesters that can threaten that which they may have spent a lifetime working long hours to build

I could also argue that many private corporate cultures are an outgrowth of weighing the economic pros and cons of taking an ideological stand and often opt for the culture that prevents further costly governmental intrusion into their operating policies. Only a few have challenged the government’s desire to dictate corporate culture and policy.

Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments
"Hey, when you leave, will you ask the bar rep with the gun outside my office what a good job I did for you? I can get bonus credit!"

“Hey, when you leave, will you tell the bar rep with the gun outside my office what a good job I did for you? I can get bonus credit!”

Speaking before an audience at the American Law Institute, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor said that she advocated mandatory pro bono service ( that is, for no compensation) to poor citizens by all lawyers. “If I had my way, I would make pro bono service a requirement,” she said.

“I believe in forced labor.”

This is the quality of thought that we get on the highest court in the land, that must decided our most difficult, controversial and society-molding legal. This is what we end up with when a Justice is appointed in order to check off group identify boxes for “diversity” rather than on the basis of ability.

Sotomayor made the comment at the American Law Institute’s annual meeting in Washington, in response to a question from institute director Richard Revesz about the problem of improving access to low-cost and effective legal services for low-income individuals. I’m pretty sure the “forced labor” comment was delivered as a joke, but it looks terrible in print, and immediately drew a predictable response from conservative pundits. “YOU BELONG TO THE STATE” quipped Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds.
Continue reading →

The “Lying Hillary” Smoking Gun Video

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

I know it’s viral now, and perhaps not news. Indeed, the fact that Hillary Clinton is one of the most prolific, shameless, media-enabled and successful serial liars in United States political history is certainly not news, and is undeniable by anyone not yet corrupted by her scorched earth march to power. Nonetheless, this is an ethics blog, and one that has devoted an extensive effort, much criticized as obsessive, to document why the words “ethical” and “Hillary Clinton” must never be used in close proximity to each other. I have to post this.

Does it prove she is spectacularly untrustworthy? Of course it does. Does it prove she is unfit to be President? Yes, except in the horrible hypothetical circumstance that someone even more unfit is running against her, such as, oh, let’s pick someone that no sane and patriotic American would ever consider as a potential President, like Jessica Simps…no, worse, like Alec Baldwi…no, still not bad enough. Okay, let’s say..I know, I know, it’s ridiculous, but…Donald Trump. (I almost said Justin Bieber.)

The stunning thing about the video is that it isn’t nearly complete. For example,  it does not include that dozens, indeed hundreds, maybe thousands, of  instances when Clinton employed deceit, the family specialty. Of course, if it did, the video would be 13 hours long. Days, maybe.

I do have some questions and observations for Hillary Clinton supporters in light of the above. Continue reading →

Another Day, More Lies From Donald And Hillary. Whose Are Worse? How Will Their Supporters Excuse Them This Time?

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Donald and Hillary

This election is going to be something to watch, with two compulsive, shameless liars each backed by ethically inert loyalists, fighting for the biggest prize in politics. I’m stocking up on Pepto.

Today’s edition of Lying Donald vs. Lying Hillary:

First let’s look at Trump’s lie, because it’s funnier: from the Washington Post:

“A recording obtained by The Washington Post captures what New York reporters and editors who covered Trump’s early career experienced in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s: calls from Trump’s Manhattan office that resulted in conversations with “John Miller” or “John Barron” — public-relations men who sound precisely like Trump himself — who indeed are Trump, masquerading as an unusually helpful and boastful advocate for himself, according to the journalists and several of Trump’s top aides.”

This is, of course, an early result of the Post’s “Let’s dig up embarrassing stuff on Trump” project, which Bob Woodward talked about this week. There is nothing wrong with the Post doing this with Trump; what is despicable is that they didn’t do it with Obama in 2008.

On the fake publicist story, the Post has Trump cold. He even confirmed that he masqueraded as “John Miller” and “John Barron” under oath in a lawsuit, and forensic experts have confirmed the voice is Trump’s. Never mind. Now he’s not under oath, so he’s denying it all. Trump  hung up on two Washington Post reporters when they asked him this afternoon about  masquerading as his own publicist in interviews and he lied directly to USA Today, saying: Continue reading →

Unethical Tweet Of The Month: Hillary Clinton (Or Someone Authorized To Pretend To Be Her)

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Hillary Trump tweet

The horror! Paying people according to their productivity, competence, diligence and effectiveness, rather than according to what victim-mongering group they belong to! Can you imagine?

Dilbert’s Scott Adams thinks that this is an unwitting pro-Trump tweet.  I disagree:It’s an unwitting anti-Hillary tweet. Perhaps this is what having to run against a Socialist who opposes basic American values of personal responsibility and merit has done to her. Now she feels she has to endorse the socialist concept of wages unrelated to economic worth.  All that matters are the hours, man!

The tweet is also an insult to those of her supporters who are intelligent, and manages to blunder into one of the squishy Achilles heels (yes, it has many heels) of the equal pay for equal work scam. Hmmm, is a female fire fighter who can’t pass the strength requirements really worth the same compensation as a male firefighter who can? (Answer: Of course not.) Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Rueful Observations On Obama’s Speechwriters Laughing About Writing Lies To Pass Obamacare”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

TRump fans

Chris Marschner tackled the difficult issue of how we should regard the supporters of Donald Trump, in light of so much abuse and blame being heaped on them by pundits, the news media, and, yes, me. He chose a post to do so that discussed the cynical attitude of former  Obama speechwriters regarding how easy it was to manipulate the public and the press. Chris has done as good a job at this as can be done,  and thus earned his Comment of the Day distinction. I believe, however, that explaining the various factors activating Trump supporters, such as the arrogance of power-brokers like the Obama speechwriters, does not in any way excuse Trump voters, justify them, or relieve them from accusations of recklessness and ignorance.

I suppose I should be grateful to Trump and his supporters, because they have clinched two long-standing arguments in my favor. The first is one that has often surfaced on Ethics Alarms: does a responsible voter vote for the character of a leader, or the positions the candidate espouses? Trump proves my point in spectacular fashion. If the candidate doesn’t have a trustworthy character, it doesn’t matter what he or she says.

The second argument the Trumpites win for me is my opposition to those who decry the low rate of voting in the U.S. and want to “fix it.” My reaction to their complaint has always been: the low rate of voting is GOOD. If you are apathetic, lazy,badly informed, ignorant, hateful, stupid, gullible and naive, your vote interferes with democracy, it doesn’t advance it. The Founders believed that civic literacy was essential to a functioning republic. They were right. The Republican primaries illustrated what can happen when a large bloc of voters who are unfit to exercise the franchise suddenly decide they care, but lack the basic cognitive skills and abilities to translate their concern into intelligent and responsible civic participation. They become sitting ducks for con artists, liars and frauds to manipulate and exploit.

Here is Chris Marschner’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Rueful Observations On Obama’s Speechwriters Laughing About Writing Lies To Pass Obamacare“:

[Quoting another commenter]

“Pundits don’t understand why saying dumb things about women or minorities doesn’t skewer him. I do: His voters don’t care. His voters don’t care where people pee, they don’t care how many abortions the lady down the street gets, they don’t care about racism, sexism or whatever-phobias. They care about taking care of their families. They care about jobs. This is the demographic Bernie and Trump tapped into. People not like us. Uneducated people. People living day to day. Bills to pay and mouths to feed, when nothing in the world is free.”

First let me say that I find Trump’s rhetoric distasteful and I did not vote for him in the MD primary.

Labeling all Trump supporters as “uneducated and unlike us” may be too simplistic. Actually many do care where people pee or how many abortions take place. You might want to consider that it is just a matter of priorities when faced with the possibility that a progressive candidate like Hillary Clinton might get elected leading to further stagnation of their upward mobility while forcing them to succumb to even more government intrusion into their lives.

Perhaps there is also a group of educated voting taxpayers who are tired of being labeled as social misanthropes when engaging in reasonable debate over a variety of issues. Many well educated people who earn more than the median income but less than that which is necessary to be absolutely financially independent understand the economic repercussions of challenging some progressive ideas that are at odds with their own reasoned thinking. How exactly does a conservative faculty member debate a topic when he/she runs the risk of being labeled a racist, Uncle Tom, misogynist or other type of person in what could be called the “Hater” segment of society for not towing the employer’s or the group’s normative thinking. How many business owners publicly regurgitate the progressive ideology or opt for a low profile to avoid the onslaught of protesters that can threaten that which they may have spent a lifetime working long hours to build

Continue reading →

Facebook Manipulation, Ben Rhodes And Hillary’s Tech Minion’s Missing Emails: Seeking A Path To Objective Analysis (PART 2 of 2)

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

suspicion

In Part I I examined the considerations involved in assessing whether the Ben Rhodes affair, which I also discussed here, is factual and justifies dire conclusions about our government.

Part Two will attempt to objectively assess the two other news stories that seem to compel progressives, in full confirmation bias mode, to deny, ignore, or trivialize, and conservatives, also driven by bias, to take as proof that conspiracies are afoot. Those stories both come down to suspicion and trust:

  • The claims from former Facebook employees that they were directed to suppress news stories of interest to conservative readers from the social network’s “trending” news section, while pushing stories with positive implications for progressive readers.
  • The State Department’s revelation that it can’t locate Bryan Pagliano’s emails from the time he served as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s senior information technology staffer during her tenure there.

First, the Facebook charges. From the Gizmodo “scoop”:

“Several former Facebook “news curators,” as they were known internally, also told Gizmodo that they were instructed to artificially “inject” selected stories into the trending news module, even if they weren’t popular enough to warrant inclusion—or in some cases weren’t trending at all. The former curators, all of whom worked as contractors, also said they were directed not to include news about Facebook itself in the trending module.

In other words, Facebook’s news section operates like a traditional newsroom, reflecting the biases of its workers and the institutional imperatives of the corporation. Imposing human editorial values onto the lists of topics an algorithm spits out is by no means a bad thing—but it is in stark contrast to the company’s claims that the trending module simply lists “topics that have recently become popular on Facebook.”

And, like a typical newsroom, Facebook’s bias is heavily weighted to the left. The Senate has announced that it is investigating news manipulation at Facebook, though I can’t see on what theory.

Facebook unequivocally denied the charges, saying in part,

“Facebook does not allow or advise our reviewers to systematically discriminate against sources of any ideological origin and we’ve designed our tools to make that technically not feasible. At the same time, our reviewers’ actions are logged and reviewed, and violating our guidelines is a fireable offense.”

Leaving aside confirmation bias and eschewing the six reactions to such stories I listed in Part I (I don’t believe it, AHA! I knew it!, So what?, ARGHHHH! We’re doomed!, Good, So how did the Mets do today?), we’re left with a “he said/they said” controversy that is either a stalemate, with the default judgment having to go to the side that actually has the guts to reveal its name, or a case of “Who do you trust?”

Does this seem like something Facebook would do? Well, let’s see, Facebook already admitted that it had performed unwilling experiments on random users to see if it could manipulate their moods. Facebook was credibly accused of restricting users from access to 30,322 emails and email attachments sent and received by Hillary Clinton during her tenure as Secretary of State.  Last month, a report found evidence of  Facebook censorship on pro-Trump and negative Hillary news, and a Facebook employee’s question about whether Facebook should actively take measures to impede Donald Trump was discussed here.  Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is a big Democratic donor. Facebook’s fellow social media giant Twitter has been censoring some high-profile conservative users lately.

Gee, are there any reasons not to trust these people? Continue reading →

Ethical Quote Of The Week: Conservative Humorist P. J. O’Rourke

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

ORourke

“I am endorsing Hillary, and all her lies and all her empty promises. It’s the second-worst thing that can happen to this country, but she’s way behind in second place. She’s wrong about absolutely everything, but she’s wrong within normal parameters.”

—- P.J. O’Rourke, on the NPR comedy game show “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!”

Exactly.

__________________

Pointer: Althouse

Comment of the Day: “Journalism Ethics: The Washington Post Enables Disinformation Regarding Hillary’s Email Machinations”

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments
"Hello, Dave. You have absolutely no clue how to deal with me, do you?"

“Hello, Dave. You have absolutely no clue how to deal with me, do you? Or even your email…“

Much-abused Ethics Alarms commenter Beth, a D.C. lawyer with impressively thick skin, provided a real service with her comment on today’s post on the widespread obscuring of the Clinton e-mail scandal. Scandal is the right word, even if somehow a plausible and fair conclusion is reached that Hillary didn’t breach national security laws. The incident is shameful, and Clinton’s refusal to acknowledge that is  one of the many ways this episode indicts her character. Beth focuses on a systemic problem of which Clinton is a symptom: the government isn’t keeping up with the challenges posed by its increasing dependence on technology, and it can’t do that.

The public, most of whose interactions with technology is restricted to e-mails, games, social media and videos, if anything, has no idea the degree of competence and care complex organizations and the professions must devote to technology. The challenge is daunting, getting harder by the day, and may be hopeless, which is terrifying. The Obama Administration’s technology disasters, including the Edward Snowden affair, the OPM hack, the ridiculous failure of the Obamacare website and who knows what else they have managed to cover up, far exceed those of any previous administration. Most insiders I talk to are certain that far worse is on the way, and they know enough to be terrified. The public doesn’t understand how important the problem is, and therefore the news media ignores what it perceives as being uninteresting.

Here is Beth’s Comment of the Day on the post Journalism Ethics: The Washington Post Enables Disinformation Regarding Hillary’s Email Machinations:

What Clinton did was atrocious — our agencies need to lead this nation by example, and she was the head of the agency. But, all of our agencies are doing an awful job. There are policies in place that aren’t followed. And I can’t stress this last piece enough. Agencies draft policies, put them on a shelf, and never bother to hire people to update or actually enforce the policies. Further, there are insufficient protections in place — as demonstrated by the OPM data breach.

Continue reading →