Tony Heyward. the beset and beleaguered BP CEO who has become the public face of the oil company blamed for the devastating Gulf oil leak, took the weekend off to attend a yacht race off the Isle of Wight. For this he is being pummeled with more criticism, from Rahm Emanuel to Sen. Richard Shelby to angry bloggers on the Left, Right, and Center. Is going to a yacht race really that wrong, in ethical terms? Does it breach any duties or obligations? Here is the score card on what’s right, or at least “not wrong” about his conduct, and what is worthy of legitimate criticism. Continue reading
responsibility
The Incredibly Unethical BP Boycott
Readers of Ethics Alarms know that I think boycotting is at best economic bullying, at worst a non-violent form of terrorism, and generally unethical except in cases so rare that they are difficult to imagine. The current BP boycott is close to the worst variety, blunt and destructive mob anger akin to the reaction of the excitable citizens of Homer Simpson’s Springfield, whose solution to every crisis seems to be a riot.
BP was outrageously and perhaps criminally negligent in creating the conditions that led to the Gulf oil spill, and it is right and just that the burden of accountability and responsibility has fallen on them. And it certainly has fallen on them: as much as every citizen of the United States may want to personally kick the company while it is prone, the fact is that the dire consequences of its misconduct are already overwhelming, both long and short-term. Right now, the Gulf states are still dependent on the diligence and expertise of the company to try to limit the damage it has caused, and the company is, if only for its own survival, doing the best it can to succeed. This fact alone would make a public boycott of BP at this time senseless and counter-productive.
The boycott is also unfair. Continue reading
Ethics Quote of the Week: Abby Sunderland
“Since when does age create gigantic waves and storms?”
—16-year-old sailor Abby Sunderland, blogging from the ship that rescued her from her failed attempt to sail around the world, and responding to critics of her parents for permitting the adventure,
This may not be an ethics quote as much as it proves an ethics point. Abby’s quote is pure teen logic, and shows that her wisdom and judgment are not sufficiently sophisticated or developed to make decisions that could cost her life. No, Abby, your age didn’t create the waves and storms. It’s just that a sixteen-year-old shouldn’t be placed in a situation—or be allowed to place herself in a situation— where those age-ignorant waves and storms might kill her. Age doesn’t create rapists, drug pushers, unwanted pregnancies, drunk drivers or other perils either, but that doesn’t mean that it is responsible for parents to allow their children to be harmed by them.
When I tell my son he can’t do something that I think is too risky, he is likely to come up with an argument just as naive and irrational as Abby’s. The fact that his mind works like that shows how immature he is, and why I need to fulfill my duty to him as a parent, by protecting him from his own bad judgment.
Abby’s quote doesn’t prove the critics of her parents wrong. It proves them right.
Sharron Angle, Responsible Leadership, and the Unforgivable
It all comes down to trust.
There are some things candidates for office do or say that render them permanently untrustworthy, and no apologies, however well-crafted and sincere, can change it. That is because there are some ethical boundaries a trustworthy individual literally will never cross. For example, Richard Blumenthal’s repeated claims that he was a Vietnam combat veteran fall below the minimum level of integrity, respect and honesty required for trustworthiness. Former Senator John Edwards has lied so often in public and private that no reasonable person should trust him to hold a leadership position.
Sharron Angle, the Tea Party darling who will be opposing Sen. Harry Reid for the Nevada Senate seat in November, also falls beneath that minimum level. This is not because of her hard, hard right positions advocating the abolishment of government-run Social Security, Medicare and the Department of Education. Those are legitimate topics for debate. But a recent interview with conservative radio talk show host Lars Larson has come to light in which Angle, then the longest of shots to win the Nevada Republican primary, said this: Continue reading
The Ethics of Rejecting Clemency
A strange tale in the New York Times, told by reporter Adam Liptak, raises a persistent problem of executive ethics. Is it unethical for a state governor to reject a recommendation of clemency based on strong evidence?
As Liptak tells it, it had been 28 years since Ronald Kempfert had seen his father, imprisoned in an Arizona prison in 1975 for a 1962 double murder, when a lawyer contacted Kempfert and told him that his father had been framed—by his mother. Nearly the entire case against the father, William Macumber, had been based on his wife’s testimony that he had confessed the murders to her. Kempfert, knowing his mother, and knowing the toxic state of their marital discord at the time of her testimony, agreed that she was quite capable of doing such a thing, and after doing some digging on his own, concluded that his father, now elderly and ailing, had been wrongly sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
There was more. Continue reading
Breach of Duty: Hallmark Capitulates to the Race Card
Every time an individual or a corporation meekly submits to the demands of bullies, it harms the rest of society by giving that bully more power and credibility. It doesn’t matter if the bullies are jihad-minded Islamic extremists threatening the creators of “South Park,” an extortion-minded Congresswoman threatening NBC of dire consequences if it doesn’t start meeting her racial quotas, or a schoolyard bully intent on stealing lunch money. Give a bullies what they want, and they will continue to abuse their power until someone else does his or her ethical duty, which is to confront bullying and stop it. I call this “The Duty to Confront,” and it is a responsibility of citizenship and being a member of society. Corporations will hold symposiums and issue bold words about their commitment to good citizenship and corporate responsibility, but when it comes to a citizen’s duty to oppose bullies, they are worse than the meekest. weakest wimp in the school yard. Exhibit A: the disgraceful example of Hallmark, which has capitulated to the N.A.A.C.P.’s most ridiculous and embarrassing accusation of racism yet, which is quite an accomplishment. Continue reading
Abuse of Power in the Schools, Part 2: “Beat the Jew”
Seven seniors at a high school at a La Quinta, California high school have been suspended for three to five days, causing some of them to miss graduation, because they participated in a role-playing game, organized on Facebook, after school during their own personal time. The school administrators found the game objectionable, which you will be able to understand. But nobody was hurt, and no laws were broken.
That is all we really need to know. That the seniors were disciplined by the school for an activity completely unrelated to school is a pure abuse of power. This is an outrageous extension of school and government authority into the private lives of the students involved. It should not matter what the game was…not to the school. The governments of La Quinta, California and the United States couldn’t outlaw the game, nor could they forbid citizens to play it, not could they punish citizens that did.
Now, because you may be curious, here’s a description of the game. Continue reading
Abuse of Power in the Schools, Part 1: Pimping the Kids
Blogger-mom Laura Wellington is making the talk show rounds after a post last month on her blog aroused interest and commentary from various newspapers. In the post, she indignantly described a fundraising drive by her child’s school that understandably raised her ire:
“…the letter [my daughter] handed me stated my daughter was to accomplish chores around the house with the goal of being paid by me for those chores the sum of $20. She would then have to hand the full $20 over to the school to make up for the shortfall in their overall budget which, ultimately, disallowed the kids to go on yet another class trip. Participation was mandatory according to what my daughter told me and the letter seemingly conveyed (however, on a later phone call, my daughter’s teacher altered the word “mandatory” to be “suggested” despite all evidence to the contrary)…”
Wellington’s complaint is that schools need to exercise fiscal responsibility, and she is joining a rising chorus of protest among parents across the country who feel that their tax dollars should not have to be supplemented with constant arm-twisting from schools urging them to buy and sell over-priced cookies or provide additional contributions. This is a fiscal policy issue; the ethical issue should be less controversial. When did schools get the authority to dictate what children do outside school? How do they justify requiring unpaid labor for the school’s benefit? Continue reading
Ethics Hero: Umpire Jim Joyce
The irony is that a less honest and courageous umpire would have made the correct call. Continue reading
Unethical Quote of the Week: Charles Blow
“Such has been the narrative of his presidency: being treated like the janitor in chief — mopping up messes made by others and being chastised for leaving streaks.”
—New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow, discussing the public’s impatience with President Obama’s response to the Gulf oil spill.
Blow’s revolting comment, buried toward the end of an article calling for President Obama to display more emotion [Translation: “Act!”] over the Gulf catastrophe, is nothing short of despicable, but perhaps we should be grateful for it nonetheless. Now we know the drill: no matter what the issue, no matter what the provocation, biased, race-baiting commentators like Blow will judge any criticism of President Obama to be motivated by bigotry, and refuse to accord his critics the respect they expect to be given themselves. Continue reading
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