Science & Technology

More Tebow Ad Ethics: Allred’s Complaint

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The much-anticipated Super Bowl ad telling the story of how quarterback Tim Tebow was born because his mother rejected a doctor’s advice to have him aborted for medical reasons is spinning off ethical issues at a dizzying rate.

Some are easily settled, as Ethics Alarms has already noted. There is nothing wrong with a Super Bowl ad raising substantive issues in the middle of beer commercials and tackles, as some have (incredibly) argued. There is nothing unethical about CBS changing its policy regarding issue-oriented commercials.  The fact that the network rejected such ads in the past does not make it hypocritical now. CBS, having ended a blanket prohibition, must now be fair and reasonable in deciding which issue ads to accept. Let’s see how it goes before we cry foul.

And there is nothing “anti-choice” about a woman’s story of how she chose not to abort her son, and is glad she did. It is not even an anti-abortion ad, unless the pro-abortion movement literally believes that it is wrong not to have an abortion. She had a choice, and she made it. The message of the ad does encourage thought about the consequences of having the procedure, which is unequivocally good.

Now, however, Hollywood lawyer and woman’s rights advocate Gloria Allred has suggested that Tebow and his mother are spinning a tale that is inspiring, powerful, and full of baloney, and she has sent CBS a letter of protest. Continue reading →

Dr. Tiller’s Executioner: Martyr, Monster or Ethical Murderer?

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Scott Roeder was guilty of first degree murder by any legal definition. He decided that Dr. George R. Tiller had to die. He bought a gun and practiced shooting it. He studied his target, learned his habits, knew where he lived and where he went to church. It was inside that church where he finally killed Dr. Tiller after a full year of planning, shooting him in the forehead last May 31. He admitted all of this to the jury, and said he was not sorry. Short of jury nullification, a “not guilty” verdict was impossible, and there was no nullification. Roeder broke the law and was found guilty. He will probably be sentenced to life imprisonment.

I have no objections to this result. Society cannot have citizens performing executions or carrying out their own brand of vigilante justice. Scott Roeder, however, while not denying that he performed an illegal act, maintains that his act was an ethical one.

He has a point. Continue reading →

PETA Flunks the Duty of Respectability

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have an important mission. It also is a very difficult mission, because most people try to think about cruelty to animals as little as possible. We like our veal and chicken dishes; we like our pets; we want to find cures for dread diseases, and that may require animal testing. The facts about what animals experience, feel and think are not comforting to these wants and needs, so an organization dedicated to changing our attitudes toward the non-human inhabitants of Earth has to be careful, nuanced, articulate, and most of all, respectable.The duty of respectability comes with accepting such an important mission. We do not trust those we do not respect. If PETA doesn’t command respect, its mission, and the innocent and vulnerable animals it seeks to protect, are at risk. Continue reading →

Ethics and Valleywag’s Apple Tablet Scavenger Hunt

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Today is the day Apple will unveil its long-awaited tablet device, destined to be the most culture-altering advancement since, well, the Segway or something. Apple’s excited about it, anyway, and as is usual for that company, it has fiercely guarded against premature leaks regarding its newest innovation. In the process, it threatened to sue the proudly sleazy website “Gawker,” which had one of its misbegotten offspring, the Silicon Valley gossip site “Valleywag,” announce the “Apple Tablet Scavenger Hunt,” which dangled cash prizes for anyone who would uncover and leak tablet information to the website before January 27. Saying said it had “had enough of trying to follow all the speculation,” Valleywag published a bounty list describing what it would pay for and how much, ranging from $10,000 for photos to $100,000 for anyone who could put the tablet in its editors hands.

Apple’s lawyers responded with a cease and desist letter, saying that the scavenger hunt scheme violated trade-secret law and induced others to breach their confidentiality agreements with the company. Naturally, Gawker cried “First Amendment!”

It appears that the lawsuit won’t go forward, since the tablet announcement date is here; a pity, because a lawsuit couldn’t happen to a more deserving operation, and because a court decision would have clarified an interesting issue. We all know the media happily acts as information-launderers, accepting documents and secrets from lawyers, government officials and corporate whistleblowers who could be fired, disciplined, sued or prosecuted for leaking them, and publishing the illicitly acquired information with self-righteous pride, not to mention confidence, since the Constitution says the press can print anything. The issue is this: if the media can publish such leaks, can it also induce them directly with cash? Continue reading →

Sexting Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting in Philadelphia, is taking on the question of whether it was appropriate to prosecute teenagers under child pornography laws for sending naked or otherwise sexually provocative photographs of themselves over the internet, sending the photos to friends via cellphone. or posting them on their Facebook pages. The practice is called sexting, a sort of cyber-flashing, and it is, as my grandmother used to say, “all the rage.” Except that she was talking about the jitterbug. Continue reading →

Obamacare Ethics: Prof. Gruber’s Conflict and Democratic Deceit

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

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

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

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 →

Mark McGwire’s Steroid Confession, Part 2: Neyer and the Rationalizations

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The worst thing about Mark McGwire’s belated confession is that I once again have to listen to and read the absurd, hackneyed, illogical and ethically obtuse arguments for ignoring his conduct. Like… Continue reading →

Mark McGwire’s Steroid Confession, Part 1

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

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

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

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 →