self-awareness

Ethics Alarms Presents: The Top Ten Thought Fallacies That Undermine Our Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Don't expect this list from Dave. ESPECIALLY not from Dave...

Today I’m teaching two ethics seminars for The Washington Non-Profit Tax Conference in D.C. One is on accounting ethics, the other is for lawyers. One segment in the accountants’ program involves the sub-conscious and genetically programmed human tendencies that can interfere with our better judgment and perceptions, warping our ethics, and causing our ethics alarms to sound faintly, if at all. There are a lot of them:  I have a list of more than thirty, and it’s growing. Here are my current Top Ten to be especially alert to, in your own thinking, and for understanding the behavior of others: Continue reading →

Ethics Alarm: Are You A Potential Jerk?

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Eric Schwitzgebel, Professor of Philosophy at University of California at Riverside, posted an essay on his terrific blog, “The Splintered Mind,”in which he speculates on the phenomenology of being a jerk, giving all of us some tools to determine whether we are jerks, or in imminent danger of jerkhood.

His method centers on two key features of a jerk mindset, both of which lead to the rationalization of unethical behavior: Continue reading →

Try the “Ethicability” Test!

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

British “corporate philosopher” Roger Steere has developed an on-line “Ethicability” test that is worth the time to take. (I know…I hate the title too.)  Of course, self-evaluations of ethical conduct are notoriously suspect, as the Gallup Poll proves every year. (Most Americans think they are the most ethical individuals they know.) This one focuses on integrity, however, and the computer-generated scores and the personal assessment are thought-provoking. I took it; I think anyone who knew me well would have been more accurate, but it wasn’t wildly off the mark.

See how you do, and if you have a couple more minutes, post your reactions at Ethics Alarms. Is this sort of thing useful?

The test is here.