fairness

Ethics Quiz: Fairness to AOC

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

Ethics Alarms only covers a fraction of the statements by prominent people that prompt the response, “What, if anything, were they thinking?” For example, I was torn today whether to mention Kamala Harris saying in a recent interview (with Axis journalist Kara Swisher, whom I have been calling out for her hackery for 30 years) on her book tour (What were they thinking to send Kamala out on a book tour?), that “some have said” that she was “the most qualified candidate ever to run for President.” Because Swisher is such a hack, she didn’t have the integrity to burst out laughing and tell Harris, “Oh, Kamala, you are so funny!” Yeah, and some have said, “I am the Lizard King!” and “Of course dogs can talk, they just don’t have anything to say!” Maybe, MAYBE, and I am giving her the benefit of the doubt here, Harris was only the second least qualified Presidential candidate of a major party in U.S. history. But I digress.

In last night’s predictably horrifying town hall meeting on CNN featuring American communist Bernie Sanders and Dunning-Kruger victim Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), AOC went for the Gold and may have said the stupidest thing that not only she has ever said in public but perhaps the stupidest thing any elected official has said in public, though Rep. Hank Johnson expressing a fear that so much U.S. military personnel and equipment on the island of Guam might cause it to “tip over” creates a daunting challenge.

Ranting in her usual pop-eyed hysterical style about how evil corporations were polluting the nation and that “rivers were on fire” because they were “pouring chemicals” into waterways and killing people, AOC was quick to name the first corporate villain to pop into what she audaciously calls her “mind.” Was it Monsanto, mayhap? Dow Chemical? Dupont? LyondellBasell Industries, the largest U.S. chemical company? Oh no. The Congresswoman, regarded by many pundits as the rising leader of the Democratic Party, has bigger game in her sights, and she immediately, without hesitation, named the vile polluter.

“Deloitte.”

Yes, the accounting firm. I’ve been trying to think of a company that she could have named that would be less guilty of pollution. The Boston Red Sox? I dunno, the team flies a lot. Hey, but anyone can make a mistake. Right? It was just a “speako.” It isn’t really evidence that Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t know what the hell she is talking about half the time, is it?

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day:

Is it unfair to hold such an obvious brain fart against AOC?

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Baseball, Ted Williams and Ethics Zugzwang

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Baseball has an potential ethics problem involving baseball legend (and Red Sox icon)Ted Williams that I don’t think can be resolved.

Williams, or “Teddy Ballgame” as he liked to call himself (He also called himself “Ted Fucking Williams the Greatest Fucking Hitter Who Ever Lived”) is renowned as the Last of the Four-Hundred Hitters, Batting .406 in 1941. (He also lost the MVP vote that year to Joe DiMaggio because Joltin’ Joe hit in 56 straight games, a statistical anomaly.) That .406 average looks especially impressive in 2025, when only one player in the National League, Trea Turner, even managed to hit .300.

But just for fun, let’s imagine that Turner hit exactly .400. Ted Williams would no longer be the last of the .400 hitters, right? But there is a problem. When Ted hit .406, baseball counted sacrifice flies—when a batter makes an out with a fly ball that is deep enough that a runner on third base can tag up after the catch and score—like any other out. They counted against a player’s average. In 1953, though, baseball changed the rule so a “sac fly” didn’t count as an out. If Williams’ sac flies had been hit under the new (and current) rules, his average (he had 8 that year), would have been .413. If Turner were playing under the 1941 rules—-he hit 2 sac flies this season—those two outs would drop him below the .400 mark.

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Ethics Quiz: The Non-Star All-Star Game Selection

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

This is fun: a different kind of MLB annual All-Star Game ethics controversy! We’ve never seen this one before: usually the controversies over baseball’s “mid-summer classic” (This is All-Star Game week, with the teams taking a break around Wednesday’s game televised on Fox News.) involve fairness in the selections (there are always more deserving players than the limited rosters can hold, whether every team should have at least one representative even when that means selecting a mediocre player having a so-so season, whether there was bias in the selection of the reserves, whether aging great players should be included on the squad because they really are the players the fans want to see, whether the fan voting system is absurd, stuff like that. (Some past controversies are discussed here,)

Never this, however: MLB added Milwaukee Brewers rookie Jacob Misiorowski to the National League All-Star team last week. “Who?”you well may ask? Misiorowski is a highly touted rookie who has only been in the major leagues for about a month. He’s been the starting pitcher in just five games, and now holds the record for fewest games ever played in by a player making an All-Star team—by a lot. Wails Yahoo Sports,

“The main goal of the Midsummer Classic is to recognize the players who have performed at a high level through the first half of the MLB season. With that, it also allows fans to see the stars of the game they might not watch on a regular basis. But by adding Misiorowski to the NL All-Star roster, MLB has sent a message to players that not only does the game not matter, but performance doesn’t matter, either.”

Misiorowski is what baseball jargon refers to as a “phenom.”

He’s viewed as a future superstar, and has looked like it, beginning his career with 11 perfect innings, no hits, no walks. Nobody had done that in the history of the game, He regularly tops 100 mph on his fastball, which has been clocked as speedy as 103. Yes, he’s an exciting newcomer who may do great things…eventually.

But picking him for the All-Star Game is like, oh, let’s pick an absurd hypothetical, like giving a Nobel Peace Prize to a newly elected U.S. President before he’s actually done anything related to peace at all. Not that such a thing could ever happen….

Your Ethics Alarms All-Star Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Is it unethical for Misiorowski to be selected for the All-Star Game?

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“The Ethical Dilemma Of The Successful, Failing, Local Small Business,” the Sequel

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

In 2016, I posted about a dilemma I faced regarding a neighborhood carry-out restaurant. “It opened the same year my wife and I moved into the neighborhood,” the post began. “It quickly became our reflex fall-back when we were too tired to make dinner or wanted a treat for lunch….The food was consistently delicious, fresh and authentic… the little Greek lady greeted you with a knowing smile when you walked in the door, and you knew you were going to be treated like a neighbor.”

Then, I explained, a long-time employee who had worked in various jobs there over the years took the restaurant over. He was a nice guy, and I knew him, but though his new, ambitious version of the place seemed to be thriving, the food declined noticeably. After several months of disappointing experiences with our old standby, my wife and I resolved that the next bad meal there would be our last. A carry-out so-called gyro sandwich came covered in a ton of shredded lettuce without onions or the mandatory tzatziki sauce. The young woman who was running the kitchen that night argued with my wife about what the order was supposed to include, saying “That’s the way we always make a  “jy-row,” causing my wife to correctly note that NOBODY makes gyros buried in lettuce and with no sauce. “Well, maybe you should find another restaurant then!” she said. Bingo! We resolved never to go back to the place again.

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Again, Hall of Fame Ethics, and Again, Ethically Inert Sportswriters Want To Elect Steroid Cheats

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

I know I’ve written a ridiculous number of posts about the logical, institutional and ethical absurdity of electing baseballs’s steroid cheats to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, but I have sworn to slap this down every time it rears its metaphorical ugly head until my dying day.

The 2025 Baseball Writers’ Association of America voted Ichiro Suzuki (one vote shy of being a unanimous selection), CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner into the Hall. Three quick ethics notes on this. First, whoever it was who left Suzuki off his ballot should be kicked out of the association using the equivilent of the Ethics Alarms “Stupidity Rule.” He is not only a qualified Hall of Famer, but belongs among the upper echelon of Hall of Famers with the likes of Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams and Rogers Hornsby.

Second, I have no problem with CC Sabathia making the Hall, but that he was elected just a couple of months after Red Sox star Luis Tiant was rejected by a veteran’s committee, probably ending his Hall of Fame chances for good, shows just how arbitrarily the standards for Hall admission are applied. Tiant was objectively better than Sabathia, a bigger star, and while CC was a flashy presence on the mound, Tiant was more so. Luis (or “Loooooie!” as he was known in Fenway Park) died last year, and had said that if they weren’t going to let him into the Hall while he was alive, they shouldn’t bother after he was dead. Maybe the voters were just honoring his wishes…

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Ethics Quiz: Being Fair To Kamala Harris

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

This is a short one, but not am easy one, because bias is so likely to be involved.

Althouse posted the [I almost wrote “horrifying,” but that would be biasing you]clip above that has “surfaced” from a podcast earlier this year. (Isn’t it fascinating that virtually no one was paying attention to Harris most of the time until she was suddenly anointed?).

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day:

Is it fair to conclude that Harris is an idiot from that response?

Or can her supposed endorsement of astrology (which in my view is about like saying you worship the Greek gods) be excused as just typical politician pandering to a substantial voting block? Althouse links to a list of ten leaders who supposedly believed in astrology, a collection which I would take with about about a truckload of salt. The claim that Ronald Reagan “leaned on astrology for guidance” is particularly weak: he met with an astrologer once, and he indulged Nancy’s interest in the nonsense, as most loving spouses would.

One question that occurred to me as I looked at the list: what is the cut-off point before which it is fair to attribute an individual’s belief in astrology to the absence of scientific knowledge generally?

I’m Curious: What Would You Call The Results of This Newsbusters Study In Addition To “Unethical”?

/ Jack Marshall / 40 Comments

Newsbusters has the results of a study it performed to examine the political orientation of Late Night TV Guests. It isn’t a surprise to me in the least, yet seeing the results still gave me a jolt. As I write this, I am trying to figure out what this obviously intentional practice of the networks and entertainment industry is, exactly. But first, the study…

It tallied the guest appearances on five daily late night comedy shows: ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and Comedy Central’s The Daily Show. The period examined was the nine months from October 2, 2023, to June 27, 2024.

In that period, progressive/Democrat guests outnumbered conservative/Republican guests 137 to 8, or 94% to 6%. If you just count partisan officials, the count was 34 Democrats to 5 Republicans.

Colbert—naturally—had the greatest cumulative discrepancy at 14-1. The Jimmy Kimmel balance count was 7-0. Seth Meyer’s was 3-0, and Jimmy Fallon, who is mostly apolitical (except in his monologues) was 1-0. Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show came in at 9-4.

In the category of journalists and celebrities, the slant was 104 progressives to 3 conservatives.

Colbert was again the most biased at 34-0. The Daily Show was second in bias at 29-1. Meyers had a 21-0 progressive imbalance, Fallon’s was 11-1, and Kimmel’s was 7-1. No journalists from conservative publications or platforms were allowed: here are the outlets represented:

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I Guess It’s Time For Another “Ad Hominem” Lesson

/ Jack Marshall / 51 Comments

There are few topics I have vowed to flag every time they raise their ugly metaphorical heads. The fake statistic about women earning only “76 cents” for every dollar a man earns for the same job. The implication that lawyers are endorsing the conduct or character of their clients. The lie that Al Gore won the 2000 election but that the Supreme Court “handed” the Presidency to George Bush. “Hands up, don’t shoot!” More recently, I have resolved to not let media hacks get away with the statement that the claim that the 2020 election was “rigged” is “baseless.” The rampant misuse of the term “ad hominem” is another one.

The annoying issue came up again in the exchange with an EA reader I referenced in this post (#7). He accused me of being a “phony ethicist” because I criticized Clarence Thomas’s flagrant breach of ethics in his accepting (and not disclosing) copious gifts and financial benefits from a well-known conservative billionaire, and yet, he claimed, didn’t criticize Present Biden’s complicity in the profitable influence peddling of his ne’re-do-well son. Of course, I have done the latter, multiple times, and in response to my tart message back that he didn’t know what he was talking about and couldn’t tell an ethic from a writing desk, he shifted his argument to saying I was a “fake ethicist” because I never wrote about Justice Sotomayor’s failure to recuse herself in Greenspan v. Random House.

I didn’t recall whether I had commented on that case or not (the complainer didn’t know either), but it didn’t matter. I resent being told that I am neglecting my mission because I didn’t write about what some reader wanted me to write about. My two standard answers to that complaint are 1) “Start your own damn blog!” and 2) “Bite me.” As I explained in my response,

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A Proportionality Test That I Fear About Half the Nation Would Flunk

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

On the Josephson Institute’s Pillars of Character, one of the values comprising the fourth pillar, Fairness, is proportionality. Proportionality is essential to perspective, and understanding te need to maintain a broad perspective is essential to fairness, a core ethical value.

When I first started watching that video meme above, my immediate reaction was, “Oh, please. This is ridiculous. Then I saw the pay-off, and laughed out loud. I would have laughed just as hardily if the two men had been reversed.

Being unable to appreciate good-natured, puckish satire when it is aimed at your favorite politician, party, elected official, organization is a sign of a closed mind and an absence of proportionality and perspective. That video makes both candidates look silly, and that’s just fine.

If you can’t see the humor, I feel sorry for you. And I fear you. You have lost all perspective, and that leads to fanaticism.

Ethics Dunce: University of California at Santa Cruz

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Yes, morons.

Just think: these are the people who run the high-priced institutions that are supposed to teach our rising generations critical thinking, logic and life skills.

Would you let this happen?

The University of California at Santa Cruz hired Amanda Reiterman to teach two 120-student lecture classes on classical texts and Greek history. Reiterman who holds a Ph.D. and has taught as a part-time lecturer at the university since 2020, was paid to design the course, do the lectures, and plan the discussion sessions. She recommended a former student of hers who had just earned her bachelor’s degree to be hired as her teaching assistant. Administrators began the hiring process and copied Reiterman…causing her to discover that thanks to a 2022 strike settlement after 48,000 graduate students, postdocs, and researchers in the University of California system walked off thee job to win pay increases and expanded benefits, many teaching assistants are earning more than lecturers, and in some cases, like this one, more than their supervisors and the instructors in their own classes. When Reiterman learned that her teaching assistant would earn $3,236 per month, $300 more than her own monthly pay, she quit. It was not about the money, she told the Chronicle of Higher Education, but the principle. “I felt like I could not teach a class under those circumstances.” Reiterman dropped out as instructor for one class and arranged to teach another class in a different department with fewer students and no teaching assistant.

Brava! No weenie she.

Why did no ethics alarms ring for these administrators? I suspect that when your entire sense of fairness and equity is being mangled and distorted by compensatory benefit theories and DEI cant, little matters like paying a subordinate more than a supervisor with far more experience and credentials just doesn’t resonate the way it once would have, before The Great Stupid spread its dark bat-wings across the horizon, blotting out the sun.

Decades ago, running a foundation where my supervisor negotiated salaries after I decided on who to hire, my first male staff member extracted a higher salary than his equivalent female member on my staff, who had been there longer. I immediately pointed this out to my boss, who agreed to raise the salaries of the women on the staff to the same level. I didn’t even have to argue with him: he knew immediately that it was the only just course.

It’s so disheartening. One has to fight, working in my field, not to conclude, “Not only is a majority of the public cripplingly stupid, ignorant and ethically obtuse, a frightening percentage of those who run our private and public organizations and institutions are also stupid, ignorant and ethically obtuse.” That way despair and madness lies.

But is it true?

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Pointer: TaxProf Blog