The Cleveland Plain Dealer made one of those fateful first steps that ends in a journey to ethics no-man’s land when it decided to check the e-mail address of a repeat anonymous commenter on the paper’s website. “lawmiss” had been especially abusive in comments about one of the newspaper’s reporters, so instead of just deleting the comment for violating the site’s rules against personal attacks, an enterprising editor tracked down its source. Continue reading
rationalizations
The Marcelas Owens Bias Test: What’s Wrong With This Picture?
The photo in question, which you can see here, shows young Marcelas Owens being embraced by Vice President Joe Wash-My-Mouth-Out -With-Soap Biden as President Obama signs the health care reform bill.
If you see nothing wrong with using an 11-year-old boy who has lost his mother as a PR prop, go to the back of the ethics class. Sure, Marcelas probably enjoyed the trip to Washington and all the attention. Those microcephalics (pin-heads, in carny-speak) who used to be exhibited in circus freak shows enjoyed the attention too. But an 11-year-old cannot give consent to being used as a cynical political “freak” to tug at the heart strings and convince easily swayed people with an intellectually dishonest inference. Continue reading
Proof of Faulty Ethics Alarms in the Business World
We tend to think that unethical conduct by individuals in business arises from “bad” individuals, people who either have no ethics alarms at all, or those whose alarms are merrily ringing loudly while they go about their corrupt ways. Certainly there are people like this, but it is increasingly clear to me that most people behave unethically because they have been completely confused by the rationalizations and unethical arguments all around them. Combine this with the absence of ethics training in the schools, and you have a large segment of the public with ethics alarms that are like digital alarm clocks carelessly set to go off at 7 PM instead of 7 AM. (An analogy that occurs to me now because that’s exactly what I did last night.)
A stark example was on display over the weekend at Computer World, where Mark Gibbs helpfully presented an ethics quiz to his readers entitled “Seven ethical questions.” Continue reading
“The Ethicist” vs. Citizenship
Anyone who reads Randy Cohen’s New York Times Magazine column “The Ethicist” quickly discovers that one of Cohen’s biases is an intense distrust of law enforcement that would be right at home in the Berkeley campus of 1967. The problem with this attitude for an ethicist is that citizenship is a core ethical value, and assisting and cooperating with law enforcement efforts are among the duties of a citizen to society. Thus the Ethicist’s advice tends to become unethical when a correspondent asks about matters involving the police. This week’s column contained a prime example.
A restaurant owner discovered that an employee was stealing from the establishment, and confronted him. The thief offered to pay back what he had stolen, and was fired. The owner asked Cohen if he should report the crime to the police; some of his friends had argues that “losing his job was punishment enough” for the light-fingered ex-worker. Can you guess Randy’s answer? I swear: I composed it in my head before I checked. I was right on the money. Continue reading
So Much For “Don’t Be Evil”: YouTube and Google Ethics on Display
The Business Insider has posted evidence gathered by Viacom in its lawsuit against Google, consisting primarily of e-mails and instant messages. It is far from conclusive on the legal issues, which revolve around YouTube and Google’s unauthorized use of copyrighted material. It is very conclusive, however, regarding how often any ethics alarms went off with various Google and YouTube executives as they contemplated bottom line issues: rarely.
Here is a startling example. In a 2005 e-mail exchange YouTube co-founder Steve Chen reasoned thusly: Continue reading
Tiger Woods’ Mother in the Ethics Rough
“You know what? I’m so proud to be his mother. Period. This thing, it teaches him, just like golf. When he changes a swing… he wants to get better… He will start getting better… it’s just like that. Golf is just like life, when you make a mistake, you learn from your mistake and move on stronger. That’s the way he is. As a human being everyone has faults, makes mistakes and sins. We all do. But, we move on when we make a mistake and learn from it. I am upset the way media treated him like he’s a criminal…he didn’t kill anybody, he didn’t do anything illegal… They’ve being carrying on from thanksgiving until now, that’s not right! People don’t understand that Tiger has a very good heart and soul. Sometimes I think there is a complete double standard… He tried to improve himself. The tabloids and newspapers just killed him, held him back.. To me it looked like a double standard…When you make a mistake you learn from it and move on, that’s the way life is, that’s a human being. We’re not God, and he never claimed he was God. If anyone tells me to condemn him, I say look at yourself first.. .. I would … look in their eyes and tell them you’re not God! This thing is a family matter… It’s not easy to be him. … (People) go to work 8 to 5 and go home to have a life with the family. Tiger can’t do that.”
—————Katilda Woods, Tiger’s mother, in remarks to the press following Woods’ statement and apology today, his first public appearance since a series of revelations about his multiple affairs.
Where to begin? I’m glad Mrs. Woods is proud of her son. That’s what mothers are for, in times like these. If only she had stopped there, before she plunged deep into the ethics rough. For example, I think Tiger’s been swinging enough, don’t you?
But Mrs. Woods decided to promote three of my least favorite rationalizations for terrible conduct, and then added one I had neglected. Now that she mentions it, however, I hate that one too. Continue reading
One More Reason to Distrust Banks
National Public Radio did a feature on foreclosure auctions, following one real estate investor as he sought a bargain at an auction in Boston. The auction held a surprise for the investor, the reporter, and me. After the young man who was being followed by the NPR correspondent won a lively bidding battle for a $300,000 house at the bargain price of $84,000, the bank refused to sell it to him. The reason: the auction was a “reserve” auction rather than an “absolute” auction, meaning that there was an unpublished price at which the bank would sell the property, but winning bids below that amount could be rejected. The investor was angry. The NPR reporter was confused.
The auction was rigged. Continue reading
Wising Up to The Cognitive Dissonance Game
Wade Rathke, ACORN’s founder, is using his blog to attack James O’Keefe, whose bizarre pimp-and-prostitute charade exposed the culture of corruption in the organization he created. O’Keefe, who was arrested for trying another sting on a U.S. Senator, certainly deserves criticism. But it is safe to say that Rathke’s purpose is a little different than that of most pundits, for O’Keefe’s stunt hurt his baby. Rathke’s intent, other than revenge, is to use the power of cognitive dissonance to make ACORN’s ethical failings seem less serious by making making O’Keefe look worse. Continue reading
Final Ethics Alarms on the Coakley-Brown Race: Fairness and Honesty Take a Holiday
Some concluding Ethics Alarms from the Brown-Coakley Senate race, many with the same dispiriting lesson: hyper-partisan zealotry is causing many Americans to abandon their senses of fairness, proportion, and common sense : Continue reading
“The Ethicist” Jumps the Rails!
An ethical dilemma is a situation that requires us to choose between an ethical course and one that fulfills a non-ethical want or need, like getting a promotion, winning the love of our soul-mate, or improving our financial status. Choosing the ethical option often has negative consequences, but it is still the ethical option. Thus it is more than a little disheartening to read the advice columnist who calls himself “The Ethicist” supporting the unethical option—the one that rejects an ethical value in favor of self-interest. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 