“WILL OBAMA RETURN $994,795 IN GOLDMAN SACHS CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS?” screams the Drudge Report, in response to the Obama Administration’s charges of fraud and corruption at Goldman Sachs.
What exactly is this headline trying to imply? Continue reading
The site BravoBox has a provocative post on an ever-present ethical issue on print journalism that has been with us for decades and seems to be intensifying: manipulative photo-journalism. Ethics watch-dogs come down hard on images that are photoshopped or deceptively cropped, but a publication’s choice of photo can be equally unfair when the picture hasn’t been altered at all.
A photo doesn’t have to be manipulated to be manipulative. If a picture is indeed “worth a thousand words”—and many are— responsible journalists and editor have a duty to choose those words with as much attention to even-handedness and fairness as the words that appear in type.
—–New York Times sports columnist William Rhoden, explaining how teams seek to draft players “with character,” a.k.a. “who don’t commit felonies off the field,” unless, of course, the player is especially talented and they need what he has to offer on the field in order to win.
This intellectually dishonest standard is not restricted to pro football. Voters want ethical and honest elected representatives, unless they keep taxes low and deliver goodies to their neighborhoods. Corporations want executives with character too, unless a manipulative, deceitful, scheming whiz makes the company’s profits soar. The student with great promise will be excused or merely admonished for offenses that a school will suspend lesser students for.
The well-documented human tendency to endure unethical conduct from high-level performers while holding less gifted and accomplished individuals to higher standards of character serves to undermine ethics generally, confirming as it does the principle that the prettier, smarter, richer, more powerful, more famous you are, the less obligated you are to care about others, do the right things, or obey the rules.
For this is the Star Syndrome. In the coming months and years, Ethics Alarms and its readers will encounter it often. Continue reading
When a writer posits an intriguing theory and then fails to support it credibly, there are only a few alternate conclusions the reader can reach. One is that it is a viable theory, but the advocate didn’t have the skills to explain it. Another is that it is a mistaken theory, and the advocate is wrong. A third is that the failure of the writer to make a case for his theory shows how wrong it is.
A recent article in The Guardian is in the last category, I suspect. It is an argument so inadequate and dominated by flaccid rationalizations that it nearly disproves the proposition it is supposedly defending. The thesis: “Immortality isn’t unethical.” Continue reading
I am not 100% certain that the University of Wisconsin’s complaint about Nike’s responsibilities is fair. The important thing is that the University has thought the matter through, decided what the right thing to do is after serious analysis, and is taking principled action.
The Universityhas cancelled its licensing agreement with Nike to protest what it considers Nike’s inadequate efforts to help laid off workers in Honduras factories that make Nike products. Two factories that abruptly closed, both Nike sub-contractors, have not paid the $2.6 million in severance required by Honduras law.Under The school’s Code of Conduct commits the 500 companies that make products bearing the University of Wisconsin logo to take responsibility for their subcontractors’ actions. In rejecting Nike, Wisconsin will be forfeiting royalty income from its Wisconsin products. Continue reading
The Wall Street Journal blog “Best of the Web” suggests that Move-On.Org’s latest fund appeal is hypocritical. Why? Well, the progressive organization is now promoting the version of health care reform that finally passed, although during the endless debates and bill-drafting it opposed the same bill, saying…
“America needs real health care reform–not a massive giveaway to the insurance companies. Senator Bernie Sanders and other progressives should block this bill until it’s fixed.”
Is Move-On talking out of both sides of its metaphorical mouth? Continue reading
I’m sure you, like me, are eagerly anticipating the resolution of the case in New Britain Connecticut, in which one elderly sister is suing the other for a share of a 2005 Powerball jackpot of a half million dollars. The result, however, will be determined by technical legal issues, such as whether thee was there a valid contract between the sisters to split all gambling winnings, as the suing sis insists. There has already been one interesting wrinkle: gambling contracts are typically unenforceable, and so was this one until it applied to Powerball, which is state lottery and therefore, unlike other gambling in Connecticut, legal…just one more little bonus from of state governments taking over the numbers racket.
Yet the more important question, for those of us other than the sisters, Rose Bakaysa and her younger sister Theresa Sokaitis, is why some application of ethical values didn’t stop the lawsuit from getting to court. The situation is this: Rose and Theresa were always close, and in their retirement, the two began gambling regularly, taking trips to casinos and playing the lottery. They made a deal, years ago (Rose is 87 and Theresa is 84) that if either of them won anything, they would split it 50-50.
In 2004, right before Rose hit the jackpot, the sisters had an argument over–what else?—some money, and stopped speaking to each other. Rose tore up the notorized contract, but Theresa kept it safe, just in case. This is why they are in court. Continue reading
Sometimes the application of the Golden Rule actually leads us away from an ethical result.
The suicide of a 15-year-old South Hadley, Mass girls who had been the victim of bullying and web attacks by fellow students continues to be framed as the failure of school administrators to protect the girl. What the school knew and when they knew it is the object of current investigation and controversy, but there is an inherent public and media bias in such cases that is rooted in laudable ethical motivations, indeed, it is rooted in the Golden Rule. But that bias often results in unfairness and injustice. Continue reading
Ah, another Sunday, another chapter in the crusade of Randy Cohen, a.k.a “The Ethicist,” to redefine the definition of “ethical.” I used to read “The Ethicist” column in The New York Times magazine out of professional curiosity, later, bemusement, and now I read it as a diagnostic exercise. Where did Randy acquire his bizarre fondness for certain forms of dishonesty? For the record, Cohen’s batting average of actually giving ethical, rather than unethical, advice appears to be holding steady at .750, which means that he advocates unethical means one out of every four inquiries. I’d say Charley Rangel would do better, and nobody’s likely to call him “The Ethicist” any time soon.
This Sunday, Randy is endorsing web piracy…really. Continue reading
Kal Raustiala, a Professor at UCLA Law School and the UCLA International Institute, and Chris Sprigman, a Professor at the University of Virginia Law School, are counterfeiting and intellectual property experts who hang out at the Freakonomics blog, and their latest post discusses how the world of stand-up comedy deals with joke theft. Some of the commentary will remind you of the Monty Python sketch in which a professor dryly lectures (with demonstrations) on the art of slapstick, but their observation is important: professional comics have developed a series of standards, enforced informally by such methods as shunning, shaming, and confrontation (and the occasional punch in the face) to discourage theft of a form of intellectual property that cannot be efficiently protested by copyright or trademark law. Continue reading
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