Texas schoolteacher Gwen Patterson in Dallas found $470 cash and turned it in to the police as lost. The police said they would make the usual efforts to locate the owner. Gwen assumed she would hear if the money was claimed, and if it was not, that she would be contacted to pick up the cash herself. “I didn’t plan a big party, but I thought I could donate to some animal charities, and a relative is out of work,” she said. After four months of futile calls and being given the runaround, she was told that Dallas’ official policy is not to return lost money and valuables to the honest finder who turned it in, but to keep it. Continue reading
The Golden Rule
A Strong Consequentialist Argument for Steve Jobs’ Liver…But Is It Right?
Steve Jobs and friend
Back in June of 2009, when “Ethics Alarms” was but a twinkle in my eye, there was a momentary controversy when ailing Apple CEO Steve Jobs was able to use his enormous wealth to land on multiple regional organ transplant lists, thus vastly improving his chances of getting a precious liver transplant in time to save his life. The California native ultimately got a Tennessee liver, but critics cried ethics foul. The organ transplant distribution system is not supposed to be based on wealth: otherwise, why not just auction off livers to the highest bidders? Because most insurance companies won’t cover multiple listings, only the richest patients can afford to employ this strategy, meaning that a system that is supposed to be means-neutral favors the wealthy after all. Continue reading
Comment of the Day: “The Cabbie and the Jewelry”
Prodigal Commenter Penn re-entered the ethics fray with two anecdotes about ethics and Japanese culture in reaction to the Ethics Alarms quiz, “The Cabbie and the Jewelry.” This was the second COTD to be inspired by that story of the ethical—or pragmatic—cabbie who rescued $100,000 worth of jewelry left in his cab by a careless fare.
Here is Penn’s “Comment of the Day”:
“70s, Tokyo, 2 anecdotes: Continue reading
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
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