There are good reasons to be skeptical of all studies purporting to analyze what people think according to how they fit into common ideological categories. In 2003, a study purported to portray conservatism as a kind of mental disorder. In 2008, another series of studies was packaged to make the case that liberals were compassionate in words only, that when it came to putting one’s money where one’s conscience was, it was those mean old conservatives who opened their wallets. Now comes a study called “Do Green Products Make Us Better People?”published in the latest edition of the “Journal of Psychological Science.” Its authors, Canadian psychologists Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong, did a series of experiments comparing the behavior of patrons of “green” products and the conduct of the less environmentally correct. Continue reading
Science & Technology
Philly’s “Webcamgate”: No Ethics Controversy, Just Unethical
Ethics Alarms has not discussed the Lower Merion School District’s “Webcamgate” scandal, in part because its facts are still somewhat in doubt, and because I found it difficult to believe that what had been reported was true. High school student Blake Robbins sued the District after officials reprimanded for him for conduct inside his Pennsylvania Valley home. Apparently he was caught on the webcam of the Apple MacBook that the district supplies to its 2,300 high school students. Following an investigation by the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office and the FBI, it was confirmed that the cameras were programmed to be turned on remotely by school officials, but, say those officials, only to track down stolen computers, not to spy on students, their friends and their parents. Continue reading
Ethics Hero (sort of, maybe, a bit): Google
Google is a little like the turncoat in an action movie who almost sinks the hero but then makes a surprise return at the climax to save the day. In 2006, many of us were disgusted when Google agreed to help the oppressive Chinese government censor speech and information in exchange for getting a crack at the biggest market on the planet. We heard the company’s rationalizations about compromising their principles now to help open up Chinese society, but the truth always was that “Do no evil” Google was willing to do evil for four years in exchange for a lot of yen. At last the company finally decided that it couldn’t look at itself in its virtual mirror anymore, abandoned its agreement to help China control what its people could read and say, and moved its server to Hong Kong.
Google has garnered a lot of praise on-line and elsewhere for its decision. The company did the right thing, it is true, but it would have been far more admirable if it had taken the same position four years earlier, and refused to play the part of China’s cyber-muzzle in its quest for big bucks.
That feckless guy in the action movie who comes back in the last reel isn’t really a hero, you know. The only reason he is in a position to act like one is that he did the wrong thing in the first place. We’re glad he had a change of heart, sure. But let’s not get carried away.
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Update: In the category of getting “carried away,” here is a stunning example from “Op-Ed News”:
“…again Google has found itself in a situation where its ethics are being challenged by one of the most oppressive governments (In our opinion) in the Global Community, and rather than backing down, Google has chosen to stand-up for their belief that moral values and ethics trump corporate profit, an occurrence so rare these days that we believe Google deserves special recognition for refusing to compromise their core ethics of “Don’t be Evil,” even in a situation where it could result in the loss of huge profits in China’s booming economy and what may one day be one of the largest Internet markets in the world…”
The author, William Cormier, conveniently ignores the fact that Google’s decision that “moral values and ethics trump corporate profit” has only come after four years of letting profit trump its values. What does he think Google has been doing the last four years? Does he really believe China just started censoring Google searches? You can read his entire, hilarious hosanna to Google here.
Provocative Ethics Reading for a Sunday
If your endangered Sunday newspaper is as shrunken from cost-cutting as mine, you may need some extra reading material as you wait breathless for the results of the House vote on health care reform. Here are some provocative ethics pieces from around the web:
- Final Verdict on ACORN: As a nice wrap-up of the flurry of ACORN material here, New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt finally gets to the meat of the matter: Continue reading
E-mails Aren’t Private? Oh-oh…
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled in the case of Rehberg v. Paulk that one who sends an e-mail has no “expectation of privacy” in its content, once it is sent to a third party—-and that third party can even be the internet service provider. Which means, in essence, that e-mails aren’t private any more, if this ruling stands.
Here you have a good example of how courts can re-define formal ethical standards on multiple planes with a few words. This means that one of the most influential Federal Courts has given the green light to any government agency or employer who chooses to read your e-mails. It may well be that lawyers who send documents containing confidential client information have breached their duty to protect confidences. It means that if your room-mate reads confidential messages on your laptop without your permission, the law says its your fault, not his.
This is the point where ethics, manners and the Golden Rule becomes more important than ever. The court case may change the law, and it may be legal to read other people’s e-mails without permission, but it’s still not right.
For an excellent scholarly dissent from the Eleventh Circuit’s ruling by Prof. Orrin Kerr, see his argument on the Volokh Conspiracy.
[Many thanks to Prof. Monroe Freedman whose post at the Legal Ethics Forum alerted me to both the case and Prof. Kerr’s critique.]
Astrology Ethics
Considering absurd hypotheticals can still be valuable. Consider this ridiculous question from a site with the tautological title, “Astrology or Superstition?” :
“Would it be unethical to use astrology to gain advantage over someone in the work environment?”
Obviously not, because astrology is a crock. But if it were not a crock, what would the answer to this question be? Continue reading
Public Privacy and the Ubiquitous Camera
Everybody has a camera…well, almost everybody. Thanks to cell phones, we can be recorded in still or video formats almost every second of the day. We are our own Big Brother. So much so, in fact, that it is hard to muster too much fright and indignation over increasing use of public cameras by the government. Boston police, for example, now have immediate access to street video of shootings, robberies, and homicides on many city streets, and use real time images to send information about the suspects and crimes to responding officers. Continue reading
Provocative Links for Ethical Weekend Reading
Here is a diverse selection of five ethics-related posts from cyberspace for your weekend reading pleasure:
- Christopher Hitchens analyzes, critiques and updates the Ten Commandments—and does an excellent job of all three, here.
- Over at the American Medical Association’s ethics shop, there is a discussion of the ethical issues in setting and reporting hours for residents.
- The ethical framework used by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount is the topic of a thorough analysis in the essay, “Ethical Dualism in the Sermon on the Mount.”
- Spiked has a useful essay on the ethical pitfalls, especially bias, in peer reviewed research, a key element of the climate change debate (though one side insists that there is no debate, and is pretty nasty about it, too.)
- Finally, a former Bush Justice Department official takes aim at the Republican attacks on the so-called “Al Qaeda Seven,” a despicable moniker apparently invented by Mary Cheney. There really is no debate here: the suggestion that attorneys who previously represented accused terrorists cannot be trusted to work in Justice is legally, ethically and logically ignorant. Still, it is good to have a Republican lawyer say so.
Al Gore’s Unethical New York Times Op-ed
I swear, this post has nothing to do with whether climate change is soon going to have the East Coast under water and the polar bears playing beach volleyball or not. The ethical issues raised by Al Gore’s last volley in the global warming wars are journalistic integrity, public honesty, and respect for the intelligence of the American public. Continue reading
TGIF Ethics Round-up: Killer Whales, Palin-Hatred, MagicJack and More
Brief ethics notes on a wild week…
- How dare the killer whale be a killer?…Tilikum, the killer whale who either playfully or maliciously killed his trainer at Orlando’s Sea World this week, will apparently stay in the facility. Some pundits (the ones I have heard were of the foaming-at-the-mouth conservative fanatic variety) regard it as absurd not to put down a murderous whale when a dog, bear or tiger that similarly ended a human life ( Tilikum may have ended three) would routinely be destroyed. One doesn’t have to be a PETA dues-payer to see this as advocacy for blatantly unfair retribution. Let’s see: Sea World takes a top-of-the-food-chain predator out of the oceans out of its natural environment, earns admission fees by making it perform tricks for the amusement of humans in a theme park, pays relatively tiny and fragile trainers to interact with the three ton beast, and when the predators does what it is naturally designed to do—kill—we blame the whale? Continue reading
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