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 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
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
“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.
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
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
[An Ethics Alarms reflection on the Christmas Eve Senate vote passing that esteemed body’s version of health care reform…in the tradition of “A Visit From Saint Nicholas,” because 1) you haven’t read enough parodies of that poem this year, 2) it seemed appropriate, but mostly 3) the version Sen. Burris read on the Senate floor was so terrible that I had to get its taste out of my mouth.]
The outrage expressed by women’s groups over the Army’s announced intention to discipline and even court-martial female soldiers who become pregnant in war zones was as predictable as a sunrise. It also carries political firepower, and public appeal.
The complaints are, however, ethically nonsensical. Continue reading
Florida Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson is what is clinically called “a piece of work.” He yields to no one in his defiance of basic civility in discourse, not even Rep. Joe “You Lie!” Wilson. Grayson is the Congressman whose explanation of the GOP position on health care was that “they want you to die.” He said that Dick Cheney speaks with “blood dripping from his teeth.” His mode of debate and persuasion, in other words, is insult and hyperbole. Respect for opposing views: zilch. Civility grade: F. Continue reading
A popular, effective and unethical prosecutorial practice among federal investigators is to coerce businesses and individuals into waiving the attorney client privilege by threatening indictments. The privilege of having absolutely private communications with one’s attorneys in order to get legal advice is a linchpin of the justice system and each citizen’s access to fair treatment under the law. Forcing individuals to give the privilege up under threat of prosecution is and has always been wrong; after all, a waiver made under a threat is hardly “voluntary.” U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott, (D-Va.), has now introduced H.R. 4326, complementing legislation filed in the Senate earlier this year by U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, to bar this practice. Continue reading
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