Category: ethics

Ethics: Where are you? part 11 (via Life is what you make it)

On By southwerkIn business ethics, ethics, Teaching

Denise Scammon is looking for the answers. She describes her thoughts on virtue ethics in this recent post and there are apparently ten more before it, explaining previous stages in her search. She’s obviously smart. The work is disjointed but she’s developing a pattern for her ideas and it takes a bit. We’re looking at someone not afraid to put her thinking down and let other see how far she has gotten. It’s nice work, give it a look!

“Ethics: Where are you? part 11”
Both deontological theories and utilitarian theories contribute to virtue ethics because “virtue ethics and theories of right action complement each other” but “virtue ethics emphasizes right being over right action” (Boss, 2008, p. 400). Kant explains “the importance of good will” in his Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (p. 405). Mill believed that reflection and cultivation of a “benevolent disposition” led to virtue (p. 405). The main po … Read More

via Life is what you make it

bad business and ransom (via Answer Starts With You)

On By southwerkIn business ethics, ethics2 Comments

This is a brief meditation on the nature of those willing to work in firms or business that live to rip off. There’s a lot of compassion here. I admire that. I long ago decided I only had compassion for the victims. That’s pretty hardcore and not particularly ethical. This is probably a better person than me.

Every working day, I've been dealing with what I'll call one particular "bad business".  Those organizations who prey on consumers, or opportunities.  The best way to describe it is a company that I'd never be able to work at.  Its sad really.  Across my desk, I happened to see a letter sent out by said "bad business" signed by an employee and I wondered what poor soul could possibly feel comfortable working for an organization like that.  I goog … Read More

via Answer Starts With You

Newspaper Ethics Roundup 6/30/10

On By southwerkIn ethics

Loren Steffy wonders if British Petroleum naming a drilling rig, Crazy Horse (not the smartest move), decided to misrepresent to the tribes in Colorado the amount of oil it was getting out of the ground.

Jon Talton explains how the loss of manufacturing jobs makes the recovery more difficult and may cause long term damage as our position as a manufacturer deteriorates as opposed to other powers such as China.

Keith Chrostowski writes about creative capitalism.

Jay Hancock discusses the importance in the electronics field of an excellent knowledgeable sales force (particularly if you fired the ones you had).

Edward Lotterman discusses “external costs” and “imperfect information.” These are important and basic economic concepts. He discusses them accurately, simply and in a straightforward manner. If you read any of these pieces, read this one.

David Moon explains scientific research into where in the brain investment decisions are made and why we like to agree with others.

Business Ethics?

On By southwerkIn business ethics, ethics1 Comment

Chris MacDonald has some insightful comments on what is meant by business ethics. He points out that you could also use the topic of corporate citizenship, stakeholder theory, the triple bottom line, corporate sustainability, etc. All of these cover part of the matter at hand: what is the right thing to do ethically? I believe that he wishes the subject title, business ethics, to be the primary one to simplify the field. I also use the phrase, business ethics, as the title and the subject of my blog. But what part of the field does mine cover? I aim heavily at corporate crime and let my indignation flourish at times.

This blog and what I want to do with it evolve over time. Keep watching.

MacDonald suggests that the Oxford Handbook of Business Ethics will provide some clarity to the field.

I hope he’s right. Ethical clarity is relatively rare and a tighter definition of our terms could at least move us in that direction.

James Pilant

Arizona restaurant blasted for lion burgers

On By southwerkIn ethics

This blog is about business ethics and business crime. But sometimes something happens that catches your attention. This is it.

I laughed when I first heard this. Why the fuss, I thought, calling a fancy burger, a lion burger is hardly crime. Then I read the article. The burgers are 80% lion meat. I didn’t know you could get it. I can’t figure out why you would want to get it.

So, my second thought was, well maybe, a lion killed his sister and this is revenge. Not a good reason to eat lion, but better than nothing. Nope, no family losses to lions. What does that leave? Is he allergic to cats?

This is just a bad idea. Get a regular burger, call it a lion kill burger, a lion victory over some beefy animal. We have lots of beefy animals and very few lions.

James Pilant

Law schools and the legal job market (via Minding the Workplace)

On By southwerkIn business ethics, ethics, Teaching2 Comments

In difficult economic times, the market for lawyers tends to crashed. Well, it has crashed and it’s crashed for the four or five years at minimum. Are law schools adjusting to the changing demand by raising entrance requirements, cutting class sizes, and lowering tuition?

What do you think? Of course not. The law school business is immensely profitable. After all, they sell dreams of monetary success for the avaricious, justice for the inspired and job security for the frightened.

When times are good, law school graduates, tend to get some of those things. But times are not good and many of those dreams are going to be nothing more than a lifetime of debt and second rate jobs.

It is ethical for law schools, especially second tier, to keep on doing what they have been doing without the slightest deviation?
No.

Are they going to change?
No.

But this is a good discussion of the situation and I recommend you read it. I’m very impressed with the web site. The guy is honest to God idealist. Treasure him, there are not a lot left.

James Pilant

Law professor Brian Tamanaha (recently of St. John's University in New York; now at Washington University in St. Louis) challenged law professors at non-elite law schools in a blog post to consider the ethical implications of attracting thousands of students to pursue an expensive legal education at a time when the job market cannot provide them with meaningful employment.  Citing to angry, despairing posts on blogs by law students and recently g … Read More

via Minding the Workplace

The McChrystal Apology?

On By southwerkIn ethics

Lauren Bloom writing on her blog, discusses whether or not McChystal’s apology to the President should have been or could have been effective. She believes that the obvious contempt of his staff toward the President made the situation impossible for the general.

I quote: “For an apology to be effective, it has to be sincere. It’s hard to imagine how the general could made a sincerely humble apology after flaunting such arrogance in front of a reporter.”

World Cup Ethics And Flexible Ethics In The Wake Of The BP Disaster

On By southwerkIn business ethics, ethics

Two extremes, right? The title represents Chris MacDonald’s last two blog entries. His June 15th entry discusses worker productivity and the World Cup. Here MacDonald asks the question, “How should an important-but-time-consuming cultural event like the World Cup be integrated into the workplace?” You should give it a read.

His other entry is for June 14th. Here he discusses whether or not ethical obligations appear differently under conditions of stress, in this case, in the aftermath of BP’s contribution to the environmental movement. He makes comparison between the Katrina aftermath and the current gulf situation. He concludes with a pretty paragraph. Let me quote it in full.

Now there are of course differences in the two cases. In the Katrina and Haiti cases, people were literally fighting for survival — it was literally life-or-death. Presumably no one in the Gulf Coast tourism industry is literally going to starve to death. But still, the general question remains interesting: to what extent can ethical rules legitimately be bent, when someone’s interests are seriously threatened?

Not a Churchillian statement by any measure but a good summing up.

You could probably avoid a number of my posts by simply putting MacDonald in your favorites and checking him every couple of days.

James Pilant

The Supreme Court Is Right.

On By southwerkIn business ethics, ethics, Government Failure

I despise the Roberts court. After the Citizen’s United case in which the court addressed an issue that wasn’t even brought up in the case to give corporations the same rights as human beings meaning that they could spend unlimited amounts for advocacy. It seemed to me then and now that a paper entity and a citizen of the United States have striking differences.

Many, many people including me get upset when the obviously guilty walk free. I remember when Imelda Marcos evaded conviction with some anger and I could name some more. One of the most loathsome characters in the history of the United States and Canada is Lord Black also known as Conrad Black. This odious figure used a non-compete clause to enrich himself by many millions of dollars. Jeff Skilling, one of the architects of the Enron debacle, is also likely to walk free. It is difficult to contemplate any number of common criminal thefts and robberies that can close to Skillings incredible career of monetary destruction. Yet, it seems today that their convictions will be thrown out because of a Supreme Court decision.

Conrad Black should be in prison. He is a criminal.

Jeff Skilling is a criminal. He should be in prison.

But the Supreme court is right. The issue at question is the “honest services” law. Under the law if you fail to offer honest services you have committed a crime. The problem here is obvious – what are honest services? If you are late to work, are you late, stealing from your employer and thus liable under the law? The law gave enormous discretion to prosecutors, actually the word incredible come to mind. It was more a license to convict than a law. Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman was convicted under the law. His crime was to appoint a contributor to a position in exchange for his financial support for a campaign for a statewide lottery. It was a non-paying position that he had been appointed to several times under previous governors. That’s grounds for a federal prosecution?

What is worse about this whole stinking prosecutorial mess is that I believe that under the law, there were legitimate statutes under which to try most of these men, particularly simple fraud. The time is up for new criminal filings. Because the prosecutors opted for the easiest possible legal theory, there will be no convictions at all.

James Pilant

E-History!!

On By southwerkIn ethics

“We are persuaded that a signature under (state law) does not require a signor to physically handle a piece of paper and sign her name with a pen,” wrote Chief Justice Christine Durham for her colleagues on the state Supreme Court. “An electronic signature is sufficient to satisfy the election code.”

Generally speaking, you don’t see a historical statement in the news. This may be one. I am a proponent of using the internet to do many things that formerly required actual physical presence. These are signing petitions, shareholder meetings and voting. We should not have to be physically present to do organizational things.

At one time, we could only speak face to face, the best we could do to improve the range was to speak loudly. How many times a day do you communicate with words? And how many of those were face to face?

The world has changed. If you can buy thousands of dollars of whatever online with reasonable assurance of security, surely you can vote – surely you can vote to confirm the CEO’s pay package. Let’s have some democracy!

Once upon a time we lived in tiny communities in an agrarian society. We could meet in small groups and make our opinions known. Now we live in vast cities in a society that makes money by moving other people’s money. But we can use modern communication to shrink to that small world where we could make our opinions known. We live there once more in tiny communities. Because it will always be the committed and informed that are but small groups in our society. The wheel has turned. We have opportunity here to improve our lot from identical insects in a hive to more like human beings. It’s a good step. Our humanity is hard to project and hard to maintain. But it is a step and a step in the right direction.

James Pilant

[And it all started in Utah.]