ethics

South Carolina’s Brilliant/Ridiculous Law

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

I haven’t decided if it is unethical for a state legislature to pass laws that are so ridiculous that they undermine the legitimacy of democratic government, but if it is, then South Carolina meets the standard.

A new law is now on the books there, called the “Subversive Activities Registration Act.” It requires terrorists in South Carolina to register with the S.C. Secretary of State’s office before they start plotting to violently overthrow the government, or risk a $25,000 fine:

“Every member of a subversive organization, or an organization subject to foreign control, every foreign agent and every person who advocates, teaches, advises or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States, of this State or of any political subdivision thereof by force or violence or other unlawful means, who resides, transacts any business or attempts to influence political action in this State, shall register with the Secretary of State on the forms and at the times prescribed by him.”

But never fear, you terrorists: all you have to do is fill out this form, and send in your $5.00 processing fee.

On reflection, I think the statute is unethical, because its description of subversive organizations is so broad and confusing that it would be prudent for any member of a political party or employee of a foreign corporation to pay the $5.00 just to avoid the hassle of having to prove that the law is unconstitutional. Thus South Carolina can pick up millions of dollars thanks to a badly (but perhaps intentionally badly?) written law of dubious legality.

[The theory behind the registration requirement might be a slightly inflated version of the classic Depression-era vaudeville sketch, “Pay the Two Dollars!”written by Billy K. Wells. A man is unjustly fined $2.00 for spitting on the subway, but his lawyer insists that he plead innocent. As the court battle keeps incurring increasing penalties and greater expense, the man keeps begging his lawyer, “Pay the two dollars!” ]

(Ethics Alarms thanks  Popehat for finding this.)

Ethics Trainwreck in Kermit, Texas

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

In the tiny west Texas town of Kermit, just north of Mexico, an ethics train wreck is underway that may have long-term consequences far beyond the Lone Star State.

Anne Mitchell, a nurse with an impeccable record, became disturbed at the conduct of a physician at the Winkler County hospital where she worked. After unsuccessfully attempting to get hospital administrators to deal with what she believed was a matter of patient endangerment, she sent an anonymous complaint to the Texas Medical Board. This was a classic whistle-blower situation, protected by law and encouraged by the ethics code governing nurses. Unless she trumped up her accusations for a personal vendetta, she did exactly what the medical profession says she has an obligation to do, a responsible act of medical system self-policing that all too few nurses are willing to follow. Continue reading →

“Professor”= Racist?

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

The academic world has its robes in a bunch because critics of President Obama are increasingly calling him “Professor,” and not as a compliment. Various blogs and academic websites are attributing this to the anti-intellectualism of the Right, the populist dislike of academic elites, contempt for higher education, and other motives that confirm the author’s own biases.

Silly me: I naively assumed that they called Obama “Professor” because he was one, and also because his demeanor, speaking style and fondness for lecturing are professorial. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote by an Ethics Hero: Adm. Mike Mullen

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

“No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.”

—U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Adm. Mike Mullen

Admiral Mullen made the statement testifying last week to the Senate Armed Services Committee, as he urged the repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that permitted the military to discharge gay personnel once their sexual orientation became known, by whatever means.

[Special thanks to the Institute for Global Ethics for reminding me (via its weekly e-mail bulletin] that I had neglected to give Mullen credit last week for a much-needed endorsement of this policy change from a military leader of impeccable credibility.]

Beware of Ethicist Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

On Ethics Alarms, as with its progenitor, The Ethics Scoreboard, commenters frequently accuse me of manipulating ethical arguments to endorse or support a political agenda. I often find such comments unfair, intellectually lazy and wrong, but please, keep making them. Avoiding a political or ideological slant is one of the most challenging tasks in rendering ethical analysis, and it is so easy (and tempting) to fall into the trap of letting bias rule reason that it helps to be regularly smacked upside the head.

Even with repeated smacks, true objectivity is nearly impossible in ethics, because of the central role played by ethical conflicts—not the ethical problem of conflicts of interest, but the philosophical problem of designating priorities among competing ethical values. Ethical conflicts require choosing which ethical value yields to another: a doctor knows a patient is dying and that nothing can be done. Is the ethical course to be honest, or to be kind? In public policy, ethical conflicts abound, and often involve deciding between two different versions of the same ethical value. Which version of “fair” is fairer, for example: allowing a talented, hard-working individual to keep the money she earns for her and her family, or for her to have to share some of that money with others, perhaps less talented and hard working, but also perhaps less fortunate, who do not have enough to survive? Ethical problems pit compassion against accountability, responsibility against forgiveness, autonomy against fairness, equity against justice. Continue reading →

“Everybody’s Stupid”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Please. Make them stop.

It seemed that every conservative talk show host today was getting yuks from the irony of the Obama  Commerce Department announcing the launch of a new government climate change service in the middle of unprecedented snowfall in Washington, D.C. Underlying the hilarity was the persistent implication, and sometimes outright assertion, that the snowfall itself actually undermined the prevailing scientific findings of climate change research. If Hannity, Limbaugh and others who did this (and have done it before) really believe that one snowstorm, or twenty, can have any probative value at all in determining the accuracy of climate change science, then they are too ignorant to participate in policy debates about the issue.  If, on the other hand, the talk show pundits are deliberately pandering to the many science-illiterates among their listeners—and I think that is exactly what they are doing—then they are being dishonest and unfair. Continue reading →

NPR Shows How Bad Opinions Get Made

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Dan Ariely is a behavioral economist at Duke University who struck gold with his Malcolm Gladwell-esque airplane book, Predictably Irrational. The book discussed his work in human behavior and how apparently irrelevant or minor factors affect our behaviors in significant and surprising  ways. I like the book, and I like Professor Ariely, but I now suspect him of using the American public as his guinea pigs for Best Seller #2,  and of rigging the experiments in the process. Continue reading →

Unethical Website: www.r-word.org

/ Jack Marshall / 49 Comments

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, criticized for using the word “retarded’ during a private meeting last summer, has told advocates for the mentally disabled that he will join their campaign to help end the use of the word.

I’m sure he will. Emanuel, like too many politicians, is willing to throw Freedom of Speech and thought under the bus if it gets him out of hot water with the politically correct. But while the efforts of the Special Olympics to “end the r-word,” as its website http://www.r-word.org  puts it, are understandable and well-intentioned, they couldn’t be more wrong. Or dangerous. Continue reading →

More Outrageous Elementary School Abuse

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

An elementary school secretary, Jennifer Carter, has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor child abuse charge stemming from an October incident in which she bound an unruly 6-year-old child’s hands and covered the child’s mouth with masking tape.

The student’s mother has filed a  $500,000 lawsuit against the Denver Public Schools.

My thoughts on this have been adequately expressed in previous posts here, and here.

I will only add this: before the internet, such local incidents of child abuse by teachers and administrators seldom received national exposure. Now they do, and because they do, there is real cause for alarm. Too many individuals of wretched judgment and cruel instincts, who make Miss Hannigan look like Mr. Chips by comparison, are being hired by our school systems, and too many children are being terrorized as a result, It is time to stop canonizing teachers and instead to look more critically at the serious deficiencies in hiring, training, and oversight. Thanks to the fact that student abuse is now hard to hide, parents should be on notice. There is a real problem with discipline in our school, and but this time it isn’t the kids.

The Ethics of Workplace Personality Tests

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

If you have been in the workforce for any length of time at all, the chances are that you have taken one or more tests designed to determine your “personality type.” These tests, the most common of which is the Myers-Briggs, typically ask you to choose among various tasks, occupations, reactions to various situations and self-identified character traits, and then apply those choices to a formula that yields a particular workplace personality type. Myer-Briggs, for example, has sixteen categories; all of them are described in positive terms.

Thus test-takers whose answer reveal themselves as “ENTJ” personalities are…

Frank, decisive, assume leadership readily. Quickly see illogical and inefficient procedures and policies, develop and implement comprehensive systems to solve organizational problems. Enjoy long-term planning and goal setting. Usually well-informed, well read, enjoy expanding their knowledge and passing it on to others. Forceful in presenting their ideas.

The tests are often administered by the Human Resources staff, and are common features of retreats and team-building exercises, with everyone sharing their test results. More often than not, employees enjoy the tests, which are a little like finding your sign in astrology. They can be traps, however. Continue reading →