obligations

Ethics Quiz: Is An Online Dating Service Ethically Obligated to Screen for Sex Offenders?

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Your perfect computer match!

Hollywood screenwriter and author Carole Markin sued the leading Internet matchmaker,Match.com, for not screening its applicants to eliminate sexual predators. She was raped by one that the online dating service had designated as her “perfect match.” This week the company settled the lawsuit  by promising to perform security background checks on all current and future Match.com members.

Markin, who is an Ethics Hero, said “If I save one woman from getting attacked, then I’m happy.” She waived monetary compensation and gave up all rights to pursue Match.com with further claims. Continue reading →

Unraveling the Ethical Dilemma of the Unappreciated Treasure

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

“I’m passing this on to you, son. You know how how much I loved old Nibbles.”

As I have mentioned here before, I give ethics advice to inquirers on AllExperts.com, when the rare individual can actually find “ethics” among the categories—it’s buried somewhere under “philosophy,” which is doubtlessly why so many of my questions are from students who want me to write their homework essays for them. (I decline, but a lot of experts on the site don’t. A topic for another time…)

Today I received a question on one of those difficult family problems that any of us could face. The writer’s elderly father, with some ceremony, gave his only son one of the father’s most cherished possessions, something that had sentimental value to the father that far exceeded its monetary value, which was considerable. “I recently moved into an apartment,” the writer explained, “and after rent and bills, I only have about $200 a month to live on.” He said he could barely afford food, and had an urgent need for clothes, shoes, and other essentials, so he sold the heirloom for a pretty penny.

Now his father is heartbroken, and his mother is furious, demanding that he get the heirloom back, or else she won’t speak to him again. He wrote that he was depressed, and doesn’t know what to do. Continue reading →

“Give Back” Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Excellent! But is he giving, or "giving back"?

John Stossel, the ABC house conservative who yielded to the inevitable and finally migrated to Fox News, takes issue with what he sees as corporate America’s capitulating to the distorting rhetoric of capitalism-bashing. On his website, Stossel cites with approval this letter, sent by George Mason University  Economics Professor Don Boudreaux to the Ritz-Carlton hotel chain:

“Dear Ritz-Carlton:

“Thanks for your e-mail celebrating your and your employees’ participation in “Give Back Getaways” – activities in which you and your employees (along with some of your customers) “give back to the community.”

“Have you taken something that doesn’t belong to you?  If so, by all means give it back!…If, though, you’ve not taken anything that doesn’t belong to you, you possess nothing that you can give BACK. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Eugene Delgaudio, Homophobe

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Eugene Deguadio, a Loudoun County, Va. lawmaker, told his 100,00 followers in the conservative nonprofit Public Advocate of the United States that the airport feel-up pat-downs (of which Ethics Alarms readers know I am so fond) are really meant to complete a Transportation Security-assisted “homosexual agenda.” “That means the next TSA official that gives you an enhanced pat-down could be a practicing homosexual secretly getting pleasure from your submission,” he wrote to the group, which he leads in his spare time. Continue reading →

Child Support Enforcement Is Not Unethical

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

It is unusual to see a woman defending non-payment of child support, but that is just what blogger Elaine Doxie does in a recent post. She argues that enforcing child support may be unethical when the non-paying parent has legitimate reasons for non-payment.  Her arguments that child support enforcement can be unethical show a serious misunderstanding of what an obligation is.

Speaking of “deadbeat dads”, Doxie writes, “They may be unemployed, hospitalized, in jail or even a prisoner of war, and are all treated as if they got into the situation they are in just to get out of paying child support.” The logic behind child support is that a parent’s obligations do not change just because he or she is not living with the child.  An unemployed father in a family still has to feed and clothe and otherwise care for the needs of his children; he can’t just take care of himself and argue, “Hey, times are tough!” Continue reading →

Obama’s Ethics Foul: A False Pledge

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Lost in the furor over the insulting “small  people” characterization by BP’s hapless Chairman was a seriously unethical statement by President Obama. If the President is lucky, nobody will remember it. He hasn’t been very lucky lately, however.

As with Hurricane Katrina and President Bush, the Gulf oil spill has subjected President Obama to some unfair public expectations, some of which stem from a basic misunderstanding of Presidential power. (There have also been his genuine failures to meet reasonable expectations based on correct assumptions about Presidential leadership—but that is another topic.) Unfortunately, President Obama brings this upon himself by habitually over-stating his influence over people and events that he can not really control. He did this again, when he announced BP’s agreement to establish a 20 billion dollar fund to address the leaking oil’s damage to the Gulf region, its businesses and its inhabitants: Continue reading →

Breaking Promises to the Dying and the Dead

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

"Bye, Marilyn...it was nice lying over you."

My Dad detested wakes and viewings, and used to say that after he died, he wanted to be exhibited sitting up, eyes open, with a tape recording that would be triggered every time anyone stood in front of him. The recording would be of my father saying, “Hello! Thanks for coming! Hope to see you at my funeral!” Luckily, Dad didn’t make me promise to do anything that bizarre, although it would not have been out of character for him to do so. His recent death caused me to wonder: what if he had? Would I be obligated to keep my promise? Would I be justified in making such a promise, if I knew it wouldn’t be kept? Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Joe Girardi

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

I’m a life-time Boston Red Sox fan, and the New York Yankees winning anything is like a knife to my heart. Nevertheless, fair is fair. Joe Girardi, the Yankee manager, is an Ethics Hero for November.

Driving home from the Stadium after winning the World Series last night, Girardi stopped to help a motorist who had lost control of his car on the Cross Country Parkway and had crashed into a wall.

Girardi could have passed the buck, as most of us do in those situations. Lots of other cars would have an opportunity to help the driver, and Girardi had every reason to think he had done enough that night—a historic victory, a celebration, and now it was time to go home. It would have been easy to drive on. Nobody would know, nobody would criticize.

He did the right thing: Joe Girardi stopped to help a fellow human being in trouble. His choice had nothing to do with his being a New York celebrity, the manager of baseball’s most famous team and recently-crowned champion. It had to do with fulfilling his obligations as a citizen and a human being.

Today you’re my hero, Joe.

Just don’t expect me to be a Yankee fan.