…I will be on NPR. live, around 11:45 Pacific time as part of a discussion about the Matt Cordle video confession, which I posted about here.
The Internet
Ethics Hero: DUI Manslaughter Killer Matt Cordle
The video is self-explanatory, I think.
I’m certain some will say that it is self-serving, that he made the video to try to minimize his punishment. This could be, and so what? The YouTube confession is still the best, most honest, most ethical, most courageous option that he had, once he had made the tragic and irresponsible decision to drive while intoxicated. Many, indeed most, and arguably all ethical acts have an element of self-serving in them. If they are right, they are right.
Imagine how much better society and the justice system would be if those who committed crimes fulfilled their societal duty to admit them, apologize, and accept their just punishment. Cordle, ironically, is not merely an Ethics Hero, but a role model.
Source: DNA
No, Mary, A Cure For Down Syndrome Isn’t Wrong, But Infecting Readers With Your Warped Ethical Reasoning Is
Let me know when Mary’s gone and it’s safe to take the boot off.
The internet can carry the contagion of horrible reasoning with astounding speed, especially since so many of us have been slow to accept that being published no longer creates any likelihood that a writer has a coherent thought worth reading. Even knowing this, I was still taken aback by the startling ethics illiteracy on display in blogger Mary Fischer’s post titled “Possible ‘Cure’ for Down Syndrome Seems So Wrong.” This is the kind of undisciplined, emotion-driven, bias and rationalization besotted thinking about life issues that Ethics Alarms was launched to combat, and yet reading Fischer’s sloppy substitute for thought, I still found myself wondering: How does someone get this way? How do they function in life if their method of determining right from wrong reaches conclusions like this? How many people read posts so devoid of anything resembling legitimate ethical analysis and allow it to become part of their belief system?
I’m not even sure that I want to know the answers to these questions. Continue reading
NYU Law Karaoke E-Shaming Ethics Verdict: Approved
Above the Law has posted an e-mail sent to the NYU law school community to reprimand and shame a law student’s dorm neighbors who kept the student awake into the wee hours on a week night, singing karaoke. Most e-shaming is excessive, vindictive and unfair, but I think this is an example of the best of the breed:
Date: Fri, Aug 30, 2013 at 4:20 AM
Subject: An Open Letter to the Occupants of Mercer #[redacted]
To: Law School Exchange Continue reading
Thanks, Lenddo, For A Brave, New…Crummy…World
I hate you, Jeff, and I hate your friends.
Some ideas that brilliant young people have in the technology field should have remained unthought, and if thought, promptly rejected on the grounds that however clever and profitable, they will make the world a crummier place. This is one of those ideas:
From CNN Money we learn that Lenddo, a new financial lending companies (apparently none of the brilliant young people work in the marketing department—Lenddo???) has figured out that one’s Facebook friends, and how friendly you are with them, are a revealing indicator of your credit worthiness. If one of those FB friends is late paying back a loan to Lenddo, their data indicates that it means you are more of a credit risk than if that friend was right on time. Not only that, if the delinquent friend is someone you frequently interact with on the social network, it means you are even more likely to be a deadbeat.
“It turns out humans are really good at knowing who is trustworthy and reliable in their community,” happily crows Jeff Stewart, a co-founder and CEO of Lenddo. “What’s new is that we’re now able to measure through massive computing power.” Fascinating, Jeff!
You suck. Continue reading
Ayo Kimathi And The Freedom To Hate
Ayo Kimathi, an African-American, is an acquisitions officer for Immigration and Customs Enforcement ( a section of the Department of Homeland Security), and has been, apparently without incident, since 2009. He also operates and authors a web site, War on the Horizon, which predicts an “unavoidable, inevitable clash with the white race,” and explains how to prepare for it.
The latter fact is none of the government’s business, nor yours, nor mine, and certainly not that of Sarah Palin, who in her own inimitable style of making ignorance catchy and cute, exclaimed on her Facebook page, “His side ‘job’ running the ‘War On the Horizon’ website was reportedly approved by supervisors. Really, Fed? Really? Unflippingbelievable!”
No, it’s not. You can scour the government regulations and ethics requirements all you want—I have (Palin hasn’t.) There is nothing in them that prohibits a government employee in the Executive branch from espousing any political position he pleases, or that bans outside activities that do not interfere with the duties of the employee or constitute a conflict of interest. Nor should there be. As I read the rules, Kimathi had no obligation to ask permission to run his website, because his supervisor had no authority to stop him.
It is called freedom of speech, my friends.
Deal with it. Or rather, cherish it. Continue reading
Ethics Verdict On Dr. Phil’s Media Mugging
You’re in the clear, Phil…this time.
If a brilliant scholar like Richard Dawkins can get himself in hot water trying to be provocative in 140 characters, you can imagine the scalding a phony expert like Dr. Phil can attract with his tweets. Sure enough, the Oprah Winfrey-spawned arbiter of troubled relationships is now being ground up in the maw of the blogosphere and news media for tweeting this question to his inexplicably large mass of Twitter followers:
“If a girl is drunk, is it okay to have sex with her? Reply yes or no to @drphil #teensaccused.”
He did not ask “If a girl is passed out drunk, is it okay to have sex with her?” Nor did he ask “If a girl is drunk, is it okay for me to have sex with her?” (The answers to both of these questions, obviously to me, you, and Dr. Phil, is emphatically no. But then, he didn’t ask either of them.) He also didn’t suggest that he doesn’t know the answer to the question he did ask. He posed a question for his followers, which it is reasonable to assume was done to get a sense of the majority response.
There was nothing wrong, unethical, “tone deaf,” insensitive, sinister, off-putting, icky, misogynistic or otherwise inappropriate about the tweet or its wording, whether it was sent by Dr. Phil or anyone else.
And yet (from the Washington Post)... Continue reading
Ethics Quote of the Week: Former Rep. Allen West (R-Fla)
“Three black teens shoot white jogger. Who will [Mr. Obama] identify w/ this time?”
—Allen West, African-American conservative and formerly a Republican Congressman, in a tweet chiding President Obama for his identification of black shooting victim Trayvon Martin with his hypothetical son and himself, because of their common race.
You will note that I didn’t say “ethical quote.” I don’t know that West’s quote is ethical. He is a metaphorical bomb-thrower, and exploiting this horrible story to say “how dya like it when its thrown right back at ya, sport?” to President Obama may be satisfying (and well-earned), but I’m not sure it’s productive or responsible. I detested the President’s two comments on the Martin case, and think that they were ill-considered and destructive, but this kind of tit for tat mockery doesn’t clarify why his comments were wrong.
On the other hand, West’s tweet raises some valid ethics points in a modicum of keystrokes. How do we know this killing was racist? Just because the assailants were black and the victim was white, there is no reason to assume that their motive of killing someone for the fun of it wasn’t race blind. Race isn’t always a factor just because the victim and perpetrator are different colors, just as it may not have been a factor in the Martin slaying—which is why a prudent and responsible President should have kept his self-centered musings to himself. Continue reading
How Dangerous Lies Become Accepted Truth: D.C. Theater Embraces The False Emmett Till-Trayvon Martin Comparison
If we want it to be true, then it will be true…
I awoke to find this in my Washington Post Style Section this morning, in the column devoted to notable events in D.C. theater. My personal Facebook page is fairly well linked to the Washington , D.C. theater community, so I decided to register my disgust there. I’m continuing it here, and in the interest of economy, will simply repeat what I just posted on Facebook.
I will just add this: I foolishly assumed that the irresponsible, and either ignorant or malign attempts to equate the killings of Emmett Till and Trayvon Martin were isolated examples of race-baiting excesses, and would be widely rejected and debunked by more responsible figures and authorities. Not only did this not happen, but that indefensible comparison, and the damaging falsehoods it is intended to plant, like a deadly virus, in our national fabric, is beginning to take hold as truth.
Anyone, regardless of race and political or ideological belief should be able see how intolerable this is. Everyone has an obligation to do what they can to stop it.
Here is my Facebook post. Continue reading
The Case Of The Extorted Critic: THIS Is A Good Ending?
“You want to give my store a bad review? Huh? You do? OK, you DO that! And just wait until you see what I am going to do to YOU!!!”
Washington Post writer Ron Charles sure has some funny ideas about what constitutes a happy ending, which is especially strange, since his is the Post’s fiction editor. (Insert joke about the role of such an editor at the Post here.)
He tells the story of a Brooklyn writer named D. Foy, who was awaiting the publication of his first novel and also preparing to be married. He contacted a New York tailor shop, with the intention of having a custom suit made for the big day. The men’s shop wouldn’t accommodate his efforts to make an appointment, and in frustration, he left the following complaint on the consumer site, Yelp, quoting the shop’s promotional boasts:
“This is not ’24-7 white glove service.’ This is not ‘unparalleled service,’ nor anything close. Contract this ‘business’ at your own risk, ladies and gentlemen.”
This aroused the torpid tailor, who sent Foy a ominous e-mail: “I was just made aware of your Yelp review. We wanted to answer your questions but felt you were more interested in a fray. When your book comes out on Amazon, I will personally make sure our entire staff reviews in kind.”
Translation: “You dared to criticize our lousy service, and now we’re going to hurt you!”
Ethics Alarms 