Comment of the Day: Ethics Quiz: “The Cabbie and the Jewelry”…Ethics or Pragmatism?

Karl Penny puts the perfect topping on this post, about the praise being heaped on the NYC cabbie who returned $100,000 in jewels to an absent-minded fare, when he could have made a dash for the Bahamas. I obviously couldn’t say it better myself, because I didn’t.

Here is Karl, a long-time and cherished reader, on Ethics Quiz: “The Cabbie and the Jewelry”…Ethics or Pragmatism?

“Well, it would be a pretty swell world if everyone did the right thing in cases like these, simply because it never occurred to them to do it any other way.  But that’s not the world we live in.  But, in either type of world, people like Mr. Jalloh should be highly praised:  in the world as it is, because he becomes an exemplar of the way things should be; and in the better world, because virtue never goes out of style and should be reaffirmed whenever an example of it occurs.”

Ethics Quiz: “The Cabbie and the Jewelry”…Ethics or Pragmatism?

Cable news, the New york press and the blogosphere are singing the praises of Big Apple cabbie Zubiru Jalloh, who, when he discovered that an absent-minded passenger, John James, had left a bag containing about $100,000 worth of jewelry in his back seat (“Doh!”) of his cab, rescued the bag from the next passenger, took it home for safekeeping, and eventually got it back to its rightful owner. Continue reading

Unethical Website of the Month: Lovely-Faces.Com

If the Guinness World Record for smugness and arrogance-holding creators of Lovely-Faces.com’s “logic” became acceptable, kidnapping President Obama would be a dandy way to demonstrate that the Secret Service was incompetent, and triggering a “fire sale” crash of technology-based U.S. systems would be a fine way to show that they are insufficiently protected. Paolo Cirio, a media artist, and Alessandro Ludovico, media critic and editor-in- chief of Neural magazine, claim that their goal of showing how Facebook makes identity theft too easy justifies their means of proving it:  stealing 250,000 Facebook member profiles and organizing them into a new dating site—without the members’ permission, of course. Continue reading

Planned Parenthood Gets The ACORN Treatment

Taking its inspiration from James O’Keefe’s infamous ACORN stunt, and anti-abortion group called Live Action videotaped actors as they asked Planned Parenthood staff at a New Jersey clinic for advice while disguised as a pimp and one of his prostitutes. Sure enough, just like in the incident that helped destroy ACORN, the eager-to-please Planned Parenthood staff member cooperated, advising the couple how to get abortions and other services for the “pimp’s” prostitutes, some of them described as illegal immigrants and girls as young as 14.

The episode raises several ethical issues: Continue reading

Where We Miss Morality: The Unmarried Mothers Disaster

USA Today included an editorial yesterday about the explosion of births to unmarried mothers in America that has exacerbated many societal problems. It’s a stunning story : in 1960,  the figure was 5.3%; by 1970, in the teeth of the cultural upheaval launched in the late 60’s, it had  more than doubled to 10.7%.   In 2009, 41% of children born in the USA were born to unmarried mothers,  including a frightening 73% of non-Hispanic black children.  The editorial suggested that reversing the trend is a priority, but was short on ideas for how to address it. Notably absent was the method of social control that had served the United States well since 1776, and had been effective world-wide since the institution of marriage: calling it wrong. Continue reading

Becoming a Society Without Empathy

Attorney, blogger and legal ethicist Franco Tarulli has a thoughtful post on The Ethical Lawyer about the results of a recent study I had missed, and now that I know about it, I almost wish I was still missing it. The findings are ominous. Continue reading

Eliot Spitzer, Playing to Form

The buzz out of CNN is that its struggling “Spitzer-Parker” talking heads show is on the ropes, and will soon be re-tooled, de-Parkered, or dropped altogether. Nobody who has tried to watch this virtually unwatchable program will be surprised to hear it, nor will anyone be surprised to see the show re-emerge as just “Spitzer” or perhaps “Spitz!” If that is the solution, it will be one more instance in which unethical conduct prevails over its good twin. This is show biz, after all.

It won’t prevail for long. Eliot Spitzer has revealed himself on the show as a selfish, unmannered bully, as well as an old-fashioned male chauvinist pig. Continue reading

The Second Annual Ethics Alarms Awards: The BEST of Ethics 2010

The Best in Ethics 2010. Not nearly long enough…but still a lot of men, women and deeds worth celebrating.

Most Important Ethical Act of the Year: Continue reading

“Books for Christmas?!” A Christmas YouTube Ethics Lesson…For Parents

Last year, a three-year old opened a Christmas present and told off his parents when he discovered a book instead of a toy. So amuses were the parents at their offspring’s absence of gratitude and manners that they put the video of his disappointed response on YouTube. This Christmas, the video has gone suddenly viral, and there are dozens of web posts all over cyberspace holding the little ingrate up as an exemplar of all that’s wrong with Christmas, children, America, materialism, and more. Many commenters are suggesting just desserts for this budding illiterate, like no Christmas presents at all, nothing but books as presents from now until puberty, or nothing but books by Dean Koonzt, Sarah Palin, or  Marcel Proust. That’ll teach him. Continue reading

Rush, E-Cigarettes and the Niggardly Principle

Rush Limbaugh was enjoying himself hugely yesterday, as he usually does, relating one more way that he has devised to tweak America’s Enemies of Freedom.

The radio talk show king’s topic was electronic cigarettes, those increasingly popular devices that deliver a nicotine jolt while emitting faux “smoke” (it’s only odorless water vapor), all while looking like a real cigarette—the tip even glows red when you puff it. Rush keeps the things handy, he explains, to provide a balm to his nicotine cravings when he is in public places, but even more so, it seems, to annoy anti-smoking zealots. Rush gets a rush when he pulls out the plastic devices and observes reflexive coughs and frowns from those in his vicinity who regard cigarettes as the equivalent of rotting cats. Continue reading