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
fairness
Ethics Dunce: the North Carolina State Personnel Commission
In a video that I prefer not to link to, North Carolina Highway Patrolman Charles Jones is shown hanging his K-9 partner, Ricoh, off the ground and brutally kicking him because the dog would not release his hold on a chew toy. That video (and another similar one) got him fired, but the State Personnel Commission just reversed the decision, saying that Jones’s conduct did not sink to a level justifying dismissal for cause, only discipline for “unsatisfactory job performance.” Continue reading
The Ethics of Voluntary Mortgage Default
Friend and reader Loren Platzman alerted me to the article, “Walk Away From Your Mortgage!” in the Sunday Times Magazine ( the magazine was, in fact, sitting unopened by my desk at the time. Some days, I just know that reading Randy Cohen’s “The Ethicist” column is going to ruin my weekend.) The thrust of the article, an installment in the “The Way We Live Now” series, is that American cultural tradition has reinforced the belief that there is something unethical and shameful about voluntarily letting the bank foreclose on a property when falling property values have placed the mortgage “under water,” meaning that the home is worth less than the amount still owed on it. Continue reading
Steele, Reid, and “Tit-for-Tat” Ethics
Nobody will believe it on Capitol Hill, but the fact that someone did something unfair to you doesn’t make it right for you to do the same thing to them. Is it possible all of none of our elected leaders were taught that two wrongs don’t make a right? Continue reading
Now For Something Completely Different: Conjoined Twin Ethical Dilemmas!
I am officially mint-green with envy: Daniel Engber, who writes “The Explainer” column over at Slate, has written an informative, off-beat, thought-provoking column on just the sort of ethical/legal hypothetical I adore. The topic: If a Siamese twin commits murder, does his brother get punished too?
He does a terrific job. his essay also reminded me of a classic “Tales from the Crypt” episode involving a fictional pair of conjoined twins that one could imagine getting into such a dilemma.
Ethics and the Suicidal Student
Ethics often comes down to answering the basic question, “What is the right thing to do?” Sometimes the wrong option will be easy to identify, but finding the right action is nearly impossible, complicated by diverse stakeholders, conflicting values and legal entanglements. This is the situation universities face when a student becomes suicidal. What action is in the best interest of the student, as well as the other students and the institution itself? Continue reading
Reverse the Curse of Norman Mineta
The aftermath of the failed underwear bomber has profiling up for debate again, with all the predictable participants taking their predictable stances. Meanwhile, the U.S. has finally crossed the divide into a form of profiling, designating travelers from specific hotbeds of terrorist activity as subject to a “full-body pat down.” Over on the “Newt Gingrich Letter at Human Events.com, Newt Gingrich proclaims that “it’s time to profile.”
Gingrich is wrong. It has been time to profile for nine years. Continue reading
Ethics Quote of the Week
“A lot of our folks have second and third homes and alimony payments and other obligations that require substantial current cash.”
—-A banker quoted anonymously by Stephen Brill in his essay, “What’s a Bailed-Out Banker Worth?” in the Jan.3 New York Times Magazine. The article discusses that financial industry’s rationale (or rationalizations) for its compensation culture.
Remembering Ted Kennedy Fairly
Today, on the Sunday before the new year, the New York Times Magazine has its annual issue of brief profiles of famous, important, and not-so-famous-but-still-important people who breathed their last in the past twelve months. It is always a fascinating collection; for me, the exercise is a slap in the face, focusing my wandering attention upon how many remarkable lives and achievements have escaped my awareness and proper appreciation—and this is only a small, random collection. The last of the profiles, however, was about a life I knew a lot about: Ted Kennedy. In my view, the piece fails an ethical imperative. It doesn’t mention Mary-Jo Kopechne. Continue reading
Illinois: A Clash of Law, Ethics, Christmas and Festivus
Any one with lingering doubts about whether law is capable of navigating the nuances of ethics should ponder the Christmas display at the Illinois State Capital, where an effort to avoid state support of religion has resulted in an offensive mockery of it that is inappropriate for any season.
The collision of the Constitution’s Establishment Clause (and the Supreme Court’s broad interpretation of it) with the cultural, traditional. historical, artistic and commercial aspects of Christmas have created an annual fiasco that looks silly, irritates everyone, and accomplishes nothing constructive. It would be better to have no Christmas display at all, and that fact proves the limitation of law, and the subordination of ethics. Continue reading
