Category: ethics

Andrew Adds Insight To One Of My Posts

On By southwerkIn ethics

I posted a few days ago about listening and indirectly my lack of social skills. That earlier post may be found here.

My friend, Andrew, has some additional thoughts. They are quite thoughtful and I am pleased to share them with you.

Without further ado, I present Andrew –

For a question like this, I normally turn to Thomas Hobbes. His social contract theory of ethics seems, to me, to be the most practical way of determining the who/what/when/where/why of our moral responsibility to society.

I believe our moral responsibility to support the group and participate in its endeavors only extend to those activities which help maintain the existence and integrity of the group. For instance, its our moral responsibility to vote because that is how we elect our leaders and how we keep our system of government/society going.

So, taking this further, it seems that the action itself is not important. What is important, and determines the level of moral responsibility, is the purpose for the action. Lets take listening as an example.

Hypothetically, say you are the President of the United States (or any elected official for that matter). Part of your job is to listen to the needs and wants of your constituents. This is how we function as a nation of the people, by the people, and for the people. If you, as an elected official, stop listening to the people, then the system cant work as designed, thus increasing the potential for the entire society to be put in jeopardy.

Next, consider any social event. In that setting, your ability or inability to listen to petty gossip and casual conversation is not overly detrimental to the group at all. You might not make any friends, but its not going to bring about the apocalypse either.

In the first case, I think its safe to say that it is your moral responsibility to listen. Whereas, in the second case, you are not morally obliged to listen.

Andrew Comments On “Suggested-Rules-For-Corporate-Moral-Decision-Making.”

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Corporate Social Responsibility, Economic measurement, ethics, Philosophy of Business, shareholder

Andrew has once again offered his insights and, as usual, I am more than pleased to post them. I want you, gentle reader, to understand that if I get a post of more than two or three paragraphs (and it is thoughtful and on point), it is going to appear as a blog post. This blog isn’t just about me. If I didn’t think you were intelligent and perceptive, I wouldn’t write this thing.

Andrew is commenting on my blog entry, Suggested Rules for Corporate “Moral” decision making.

(I don’t post Andrew’s last name, his e-mail, etc. He has not directly given me permission and I am loath to volunteer such data.)

Here’s what he has to say –

Mr. Badaracco seems to put much stock into the idea that what is popular is best. 2 of the 3 steps in his quick process revolves around how others will perceive the decision. I think this is a shallow and intellectually hollow way of developing a system of ethics.

The “Golden Rule Test”, I think, warrants some merit, but it also has a flaw. Sometimes the best decision for a company will involve a negative impact to one or more individuals. If one utilizes this rule and thinks “what if I were the one being laid off or fired?”, then it could lead the CEO to make a decision that, while compassionate, is detrimental to the company as a whole.

I find the long method to be more intellectually and morally stable. Of course, its not perfect either. I agree that #1 is a good place to start, and that it alone is not sufficient. #2 is a fairly simple question in my mind. The rights of the people involved are usually determined by the overall society that the corporation resides in. This can, of course, vary from society to society. The value and character of the organization should be paramount. To preserve that, the leader must act in accordance with the organizations set of values. If he does this, then he needs not worry about how his character is perceived. The character of the organization is inevitably linked to the character of its leader.

My Excellent Students

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Economic measurement, ethics

One of the things I like to teach my students is that they have no intellectual inferiority in regard to the Ivy League schools.

On the face of it, that may sound ridiculous, but it is not.

A great many of these heavily lauded (and immensely well paid) graduates of the schools blessed by the establishment have participated wholly and happily in the greatest financial debacle in history. Their well honed degrees disguised their incompetence, their stupidity, their lack of intellectual depth and their overwhelming sense of entitlement.

My student are minimally superior in that they have not severely damaged the economic structure of their nation.

The fact that so many of these Ivy Leaguers journey off to cash in their degrees and their honor in various financial firms is a black mark against our educational system. You see, we depend on this system to produce the scholars, the politicians, and all those various professions which make nations function with honor and purpose. Instead we get a rush of graduates toward a predatory system of financial institutions.

Many of my students, quite possibly all, will have a larger purpose in their lives than playing with other people’s money. Of course, it is likely that there will be a few bad apples, but that is true among all large groups of people.

Are the elite schools creators of the best and brightest? I don’t believe that any more. They are often the leaders of the nation? But the current situations is hardly a testament to capability and well balanced education.

But my students would try to take care of their fellow citizens never forgetting where they came from and the struggle they must make to simply get a job in the current market. They deserve better. Nevertheless, from this crop is my hope, that these people, these individuals working to better themselves will be the leaders of tomorrow, not the children of the elite, not the well favored few, but my students.

My students have a sense of inferiority to these people. But these graduates of these “special” schools have no advantage in learning or intelligence. They thrive on their contacts. They prosper based on economics that favors what they do as more important than the producers of this nation, the people that actually make things.

It is not a matter of free will or gumption that keeps my students from being as successful as those. It is a well ingrained attitude, a lack of expectations, and a consistent contempt and suspicion of the educated. We can do better. We, the citizens, have a responsibility to our children to act the part of guides and supporters. I do not mean the blind support given whatever the merits. I mean a willingness to encourage excellence and the hard, difficult job of not submitting to the idea that some people are better. They are better when they prove it. My student can prove their excellence.

But learning is not just a matter of schooling. It is a life long endeavor. Most people stop when they put that piece of paper on the wall. But that is all they are, paper, wood pulp. If my students are to change this state, this country, and this world, there must be support and dedication to a lifetime of learning. A person who continues the task of development, of becoming, is inferior to no learner on earth, whatever their degree.

There are books and as long as there are books – as long as the great works of mankind – are readily available, any human being can become educated and developed. Any individual can build the power of understanding, a basic command of the ideas that govern this society, and a sense of purpose in their lives. But we have to believe. My students need that. My students need to walk in a community where people believe they are just as good, just as smart and just as capable as students from anywhere in the world.

My students cannot get into Harvard or Yale. They do not have parents who give hundreds of thousands of dollars to these institutions. Their parents did not go and thus they can’t get in as a “legacy.” (A legacy means that no matter how pitiful a student was, if he graduates, his children automatically get in. Well, fish rot from the head.)

All they have is the power of their minds and the determination of their hearts. If they only believe.

James Pilant

The Commentariat

On By southwerkIn ethics

This passage is from Glenn Greenwald’s column on Salon. I hope that I hold my commentators in as much esteem as Mr. Greenwald. He’s right over and over again. You learn a lot from those who comment. They have thoughts and ideas you hadn’t considered. If this blog gains readership and becomes more and more successful, a great deal of success will be due my critics and commentators.

James Pilant

This is the essay from Glen Greenwald’s column –

This, for me, underscores how truly valuable is a vibrant comment section. The effort to find a compelling title had been a fairly futile one notwithstanding the efforts of multiple people who do this sort of thing professionally. But by expanding the effort to thousands of people, the number of great ideas increased dramatically. That’s a microcosm of how a smart, engaged readership and commentariat can substantially improve the value of what one writes. I’m periodically mocked for my propensity to add multiple updates to my posts, but so often, my doing so is because readers/commenters point out added ideas, evidence, arguments, objections, etc. that I didn’t know or think of and which deserve attention or a response. The ability to interact and engage with readers, rather than speak to them in monologue form, has always been one of the things that has most appealed to me about writing a blog. Several of the posts I’ve written which received the most attention, made the biggest impact, came directly from readers/commenters.

For those reasons, I’m amazed when journalists scorn their comment sections and treat them like a nuisance or worse. The interactive aspect of writing on the Internet — being able immediately to hear from smart, opinionated, engaged readers who often know things that the writer doesn’t know — is one of the forum’s biggest advantages. It provides a crucial check (no factual, logical or grammatical errors remain undetected for very long), and the ability to quickly access the knowledge base of thousands and thousands of people at once is an irreplaceable resource. Of course, commenters (like every group) can sometimes be annoying, and for the thin-skinned, the criticisms to which one is continuously subjected render the entire process undesirable. But as this highly successful search for a creative book title reveals, the benefits so far outweigh the burdens that it’s not even a close call. Smart journalists see their readership as a great resource to be tapped, not as a passive audience to be ignored.

Learn About The Magic Word – PREEMPTION

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Economic measurement, ethics, Government Failure1 Comment

Preemption is a legal device that gets rid of state regulation by replacing it with federal regulation. Without preemption, a corporation might have to be worried about multiple lawsuits and criminal prosecutions. By preempting the states, the feds make state regulation of corporations impossible.

The America I Grew Up In

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Economic measurement, ethics, Government Failure

This is a quote from Rogue Columnist –

I grew up in an America that had created the greatest middle class in the history of the world, a great civilization not just a great market. Where people were citizens, not consumers. Where we landed men on the moon and would always be on the forefront. Where Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream…” And we worked for that. But we’ve become a different America and different Americans. For King warned, “A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.”

I fully agree. I believe in the unity of citizenship and a cooperative ethic recognizing that we are all in this together particularly in these very bad times.

James Pilant

Suggested Rules For Corporate “Moral” Decision Making

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Corporate Social Responsibility, ethics, Philosophy of Business3 Comments

Badaracco is presenting a theory of ethics that I have seen in textbooks before. I’m not impressed. The first has got to be the shallowest possible interpretation of Utilitarianism as well as an equally inadequate exposition of the principle of rights. Then there is “what will people think.” My reputation is all. And we can’t live in a fantasyland. Wow, I betcha that Bible and the Western Civilization stuff got nailed there.

Of course, I guess you have to make it simple for the masses of the corporate relativists in the crowd.

Oh, well, read it for what’s it is worth –

The conference’s concluding keynote speaker, Joseph Badaracco, Professor of Business Ethics at Harvard Business School, presented the assembled CIOs a practical guide to making ethical decisions—not in case of right versus wrong, because that’s easy—but in right versus right, because that’s hard.

Badaracco suggested four ways to think about each decision:

1. Will it produce the greatest good for the greatest number of people? That’s a good place to start, Badaracco said, but it’s not sufficient.
2. What are the rights of the people involved? For example, if a Nobel Prize winner, on the verge of discovering a cure for cancer, needs your heart, having it cut out of your chest against your will would, ultimately, produce a great deal of good for a great number of people, but it would certainly violate your rights. Not to mention establishing a grisly precedent.
3. What will the decision say about your values, your character, and the values and character of your organization? Leaders need to represent the values they hold dear. However, simply focusing on how the decision reflects upon you can be short-sighted at best, priggish at worst. Finally,
4. What will work in the real world? Leaders cannot afford to live in fantasyland.

All these questions eventually need to be answered, and one can spend a long time thinking about them. But say you don’t have a lot of time? Badaracco offered a quick three-step process:

1. The newspaper test. How will you feel if your decision hit the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper?
2. The Golden Rule. How would you feel if someone else made the decision about you?
3. The obituary test. How would you like the people you respect to look back at your decision?

Shareholder Power?

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Economic measurement, ethics, Government Failure, Philosophy of Business, shareholder

One again, I’m going to lament that the people who own the corporations don’t seem to have any actual control over them. Let me quote Nouriel Roubini from his excellent essay, Gordon Gecko Reborn.

There are also massive agency problems in the financial system, because principals (such as shareholders) cannot properly monitor the actions of agents (CEOs, managers, traders, bankers) that pursue their own interest. Moreover, the problem is not just that long-term shareholders are shafted by greedy short-term agents; even the shareholders have agency problems. If financial institutions do not have enough capital, and shareholders don’t have enough of their own skin in the game, they will push CEOs and bankers to take on too much leverage and risks, because their own net worth is not at stake.

At the same time, there is a double agency problem, as the ultimate shareholders – individual shareholders – don’t directly control boards and CEOs. These shareholders are represented by institutional investors (pension funds, etc.) whose interests, agendas, and cozy relationships often align them more closely with firms’ CEOs and managers. Thus, repeated financial crises are also the result of a failed system of corporate governance.

That’s what I think too.

Simple statement – We hear over and over again about property rights but start talking about actual shareholder control, power held by the actual property owners, howls of outrage cloud the horizon.

The people that own the corporations should have say about what they do.

James Pilant

Listening!?

On By southwerkIn ethics3 Comments

I went to a wedding on Saturday. My sister, Linda, married John Fricke. My sister is very pretty. Somehow my genetics failed in this particular area but if looks and genetics can be compared to gambling, Linda broke the house. John is tall and handsome. Since, his genetics are his own, I don’t feel quite so bad about that.

I’m not good at weddings. I am self conscious and worry a lot because my 17 year old son keeps saying, “Dad, you can’t say that.” He’s probably right.

So, what is the subject of which I write? Well, probably getting out of our (my) head once and a while would be a good thing. I deserve a little credit since I am a very fine listener. But there is one problem, I forget to turn it on.

Listening is a skill and a difficult one. I had the opportunity to practice almost every day as an adviser for a couple of years. But it’s still hard and I forget to turn it on. We would much rather coast through life than live it and I am not much of an exception. I have a serious problem with not living all the time. The ridiculous thing is that I tell my class that if they are awake and alive five percent of the time and they live to be a hundred years old, they’ve only actually lived five years. Than I call upon them to have some more life. As their teacher, I should not play such a hypocrite.

Is there a moral responsibility to pay attention to the group and try to take its tone? Well, Lord Chesterfield thought so. He used an example of a funeral as a place where high spirits would be out of place and made it a rule to take the same attitude of the group.

I only did that sota on Saturday. I suppose I could promise to do better but this would impose an intolerable burden on my sister. After all, I can’t ask my relatives to keep getting married until I get enough practice in.

What moral responsibility do we have to support and participate? I frankly am unaware of any rules. So, I am issuing a call. Are there any rules? And if so what are they?

All may participate!

James Pilant

Corporate Crime – Travesties Of Justice

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Economic measurement, ethics, Government Failure

Watch this video where Mokhiber explains how corporates avoid penalties for their crimes.