The program is “Boston Med,” an eight part documentary filmed by ABC. The newspaper article from the Boston Globe quotes George Annas and Arthur L. Caplan. Both express ethical concerns about the program suggesting that the program is inappropriate and exploitative. Inappropriate because filming changes the acts of the filmed. Exploitative because these patients did not come to the hospital with the intent of being in a film.
Now, the tricky part, is this ethical or unethical based on my judgment? After all, that is what the gentleman asked me. I will discuss the two kinds of objects posed by the critics quoted by the Globe. Is the filming inappropriate or exploitative?
I do not believe such filming is inappropriate. Being filmed is rapidly becoming a constant. Cameras are located at businesses and parking areas. There are also cameras at public facilities likes parks and bridges. I could go on listing where business or government cameras might be found. In addition, personal cameras either individually or part of a another apparatus like a cell phone are also very common. So, my first claim is that being filmed is a cultural phenomenon. I believe that we are in a sea change period of cultural change in which it is rapidly becoming accepted behavior. That does not totally resolve the issue. We are not totally accustomed to being filmed yet. So, the next element is consent.
It is clear from the articles that the institutions, the professionals and the patients had signed waivers. It is entirely possible to improperly influence all of the different levels of personnel and patients to get their consent. However, a television network has enormous experience in these matters and with what can be only described as an alert and experienced legal department. My opinion is that no lawyer would allow the program to go forward with his strong participation and with all possible safeguards.
Does being filmed change human behavior? I would say almost certainly. We always do things differently if we are being observed. We care what other people think. We can become self-conscious. Strangely that really isn’t the ethical question here. The ethical question is, “Does this change technical competence or medical judgment for the worse?” I know of no such evidence. My personal experience is that when watched, I am more careful, take greater pains and think more about what I am doing. (If anyone reading this post has any study or data that suggests that being filmed is detrimental to performance, I want to know where to find that study. I want to read it and thoroughly understand it. That study would be vital and would undoubtedly change the procedures of knowingly filmed observations.)
Exploitation is more difficult. Where do you cross the line between objective reporting and using people? The network will make a great deal of money from these programs. The hospital and the doctors as part of the hospital are essentially participating in public relations program which will enhance the reputation and thus, the value of the institution.
The patients are not part of this. They do not profit and their stories, the intimate details of their medical records and and procedures, are used by the network to make money. This is exploitation. These patients are not a routine participants. The very nature of the television strongly suggests that the reason they would choose these particular stories is that they are not routine. And even if their stories are in some sense routine, they are still individual stories, critical elements of their life stories.
You could argue that in our strange celebrity culture, the very fact of appearing on television is in some sense compensation. “In some sense” doesn’t cut it. There are people who genuinely enjoy their jobs, they like what they do and many enjoy being seen doing it. They still expect to get paid. There is a difference between the urge to appear on Jerry Springer and having a serious medical problem brought before the public.
The patients should be paid or compensated in some other way. There should be some value given for the value that was taken. It is not the custom to share our medical problems, treatments and individual stories with millions of strangers. These stories are the personal property of the patients, not the hospital and not the doctors. As a society we have already acknowledged the vital nature of medical record privacy in the form of HIPAA, The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996.
It is obvious from these accounts that the patients voluntarily signed away their rights and allowed the network access to their stories. What has been done here and is being done is legal. But being in compliance with the law is not the measure of ethical responsibility or, what is most important, what is right and wrong.
Dylan Ratigan has a interesting essay in the Huffington Post. As is usual with his writing, the indignation boils over. I find this very pleasing. My indignation boils over from time to time. I have long been struck by the beltway commentator constant refrain, “free market.” It is used over and over as a cure for every economic malady. I can’t help but believe they don’t know the subject. Little industrial or financial business in the United States can be considered free market in any traditional sense: Our agricultural products are heavily subsidized; our financial industry is favored by a host of friendly laws as well as being able to borrow money from the Federal Reserve at zero percent interest.
What’s free market about any of that?
Here’s a quote from Ratigan’s essay – Here we find ourselves today in a similar situation, where six industries have a stranglehold over Washington. And the draining of our current and future wealth will only continue as both the media and the political class not only tolerates but spreads the phrase “free market” when the reality doesn’t match the rhetoric.
Our politicians continue to take money from massive corporations to subsidize them in a rigged marketplace that only cares about protecting the incumbent structure. At the same time, the American people are drowning in a red sea of debt caused by perpetuating banking, health care, energy and defense systems that are expensive, ineffective and protected from competition.
So I have a challenge for those so-called free market Republicans who rode a wave of voter discontent into Washington. I challenge you to end massive corporate subsidies. To end tax loopholes. And to end rigged trade with China and release the true power of free markets.
This can no longer be simply a talking point to win votes. Because this broken system is not only costing American jobs… it’s costing us the very prosperity and freedoms that this country was founded on.
If we actually had an intelligent discussion about the economic future of this nation, the great mass of citizens would benefit. The kind of “single phrase” thinking currently in vogue only benefits the status quo. We can’t begin to address these issues until the appearance of intelligent thought is replaced by the real thing.
I read Chris MacDonald’s blog, The Business Ethics Blog, regularly but somehow I missed his definitions of business ethics and ethics. Mr. Olaghere spotted the definitions and kindly posted them. Thanks!
James Pilant
Chris MacDonald, Ph.D. of The Business Ethics Blog defines ethics and business ethics. He teaches Philosophy, including business ethics, at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Canada, and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at Duke University’s Kenan Institute for Ethics. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Business Ethics. He has been named one of the “100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics”, two years in a row. “Ethics” ca … Read More
I am what is call a compatibilist. Compatibilism is the belief that determinism and free will are compatible.
For many today, free will – free choices are terms of great import. “People should be able to fend for themselves.” “You shouldn’t count on the government.” “You should have read the fine print.” “They should have gone on the web and done their research like me.” “If only people would just get tough they could pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.”
These are all statements based on the hard concept of free will or, as it is more often termed, personal responsibility.
One writer to me said, “How come you can’t get it into your head that …” discussing another point of personal responsibility. You see, such choice seems self evident, it’s not.
Here are my objections –
1. The weight of culture, that is, parenting, schooling and the influence of one’s peers.
2. Advertising, several trillion dollars worth of it, ranging from political to mercantile.
3. Time and aptitude, for someone to make a choice, they must know there is one, they must have the time necessary to digest the data and have the mental capability and far more importantly the mental desire. By mental desire I mean a willingness and often a pleasure in thinking and deciding.
In my mind, individuals have free choices, but only a certain number of these individuals can make different choices. You see I was trained in statistics and when you are in that field you are taught (and realize that it is true) that you have very little chance of predicting what any one person will do but analyze several thousand instead of one and you have a very good grip on what most of them will do.
Who makes choices and what proportion of the population makes choices? If you go to the market and watch someone buy bread, you’ll note that only occasionally will someone spend any time making a decision, they decided at some point in time what bread they wanted to buy and they buy that kind of bread. Even at the bread level of thought there is an inertia about making a new decision. Now you can go into that supermarket and look at all the bread every time. In other words, choose not to make a decision in advance but re-study the problem every time new data (in this case, bread) comes in.
Now, you probably would agree with me that the second choice of deciding each time taking the new data into account is the better decision. Are you sure? You see, both of you are choosing from the same products limited by the store’s choices. So, you could argue (and quite intelligently) that by limiting yourself to what the store sells keeps you from making the best decision. On the other hand you might also argue that shopping outside that store poses problems of time and resources (and you would also be quite intelligent in presenting your argument).
So, here is my argument. Choosing between one alternative and another involves judgment. For most people in most situations there are physical, cultural or mental limits on making the full range of judgments. So, we don’t have a full range of decision making possibilities but only a limited set. Thus, for almost all situations, we limited by one of the three factors, have only limited choices we can make.
If we have limited instead of unlimited choices, the question of what judgments people makes moves from what is the best decision to a different one – what is the best decision that could have been made amongst the choices remaining?
This puts me in a world where I have to look at what people are likely to do.
Example – Someone puts a payday loan business in lower middle class community. The company carefully chooses an area where the education level is a low as possible say an average of tenth grade. I can statistically predict how much business they will get based on the population, the amount and interest of the loans, etc. I, personally, will be offended at what I consider the exploitation of a population already under terrible economic stress.
If you on the other hand, assume total, not limited choice, these people are just a bunch of imbeciles, who couldn’t find their ass with a flashlight.
I believe that in this country there are a wide variety of legitimate choices in many fields, in many places, all the time. I work hard to give people the opportunity to make choices and I like to make them myself. But as long as I live in a world where the rule is limited choice not total, I’m going to sympathize with the people getting the pay day loans and suffering for it.
This gentleman writes that he is “aware that making a criteria for an ethical system is unconventional…” It’s definitely time for some unconventional thinking. We need some people writing some criteria. More power to him and all of you willing to get out there and tell us what you think the world should be like rather than accepting the current ethical mess.
I am impressed and pleased with his criteria. I hope you will be too. In any case the cartoon is great!
James Pilant
A few weeks back I posted about ethics. I expressed my disillusionment with a few approaches to ethics. At the end I charged myself with the task of reflecting on exactly what I expect from an ethical system. Here lies the result of that reflection: First, a word of disclaimer. I am aware that making a criteria for an ethical system is unconventional—who makes a list of prescriptions about a list of prescriptions?! One could reasonably say that r … Read More
The inequality in the United States between the highest earners and the lowest is at its highest peak since just before the Great Depression. Middle class wages have stagnated for three decades. Stagnated is a kind way of saying, “You made more money over time, but inflation and changing patterns of spending ate the increase.”
The existence of the middle class is directly threatened. In a few years, there will be no middle class, only exploitable lower class peons and a well heeled upper class living in gated communities if they have not found a more comfortable home away from the riff raff, perhaps, in Singapore.
Mark Thoma, writing in The Fiscal Times, has an article called Income Redistribution: The Key to Economic Growth?
I’ve never favored redistributive policies, except to correct distortions in the distribution of income resulting from market failure, political power, bequests and other impediments to fair competition and equal opportunity. I’ve always believed that the best approach is to level the playing field so that everyone has an equal chance. If we can do that – an ideal we are far from presently – then we should accept the outcome as fair. Furthermore, under this approach, people are rewarded according to their contributions, and economic growth is likely to be highest.
But increasingly I am of the view that even if we could level the domestic playing field, it still won’t solve our wage stagnation and inequality problems. Redistribution of income appears to be the only answer.
The rest of the world has a huge supply of excess labor, and it is developing rapidly. So long as developing countries can continue to draw upon excess labor to expand economic activity, there will be little pressure for wages to rise and workers in the U.S. will continue to struggle. Until the rest of the world is more developed, or stops growing in a way that substantially alters the global pattern of production, a time that looks to be far, far away, unskilled workers in the U.S. will not get their share of economic growth.
We’ve given the market economy 40 years to solve the problem of growing inequality, and the result has been even more inequality. Markets do not appear to be able to solve this problem on their own, at least not in any reasonable time frame. Some people say education is the answer, but we have been trying to reform education for decades, yet the problems remain. The idea that a fix for education is just around the corner is wishful thinking.
Professor Thoma is a friend on Facebook and maintains a blog that he updates with great regularity. I recommend both.
Joseph White has written a timely article. In the past few weeks we have been deluged with dire warnings about the deficit, sometimes they featured the Chinese, sometimes the destruction of social security; it was all very dramatic. Then when the continuation of tax cut became an issue, it all faded a way until the wealthy were assured their tax cuts. It was a budget buster of colossal size, totally unsupportable. It will cripple the government in financing every expenditure save those supported by their own fees.
Now that the wealthy have their money, the deficit has returned as an issue. We must cut back on entitlements. We must find cuts in education, etc.
The two-faced asinine clowns of the beltway would be funny if they weren’t taken so seriously.
Joseph White in the article quoted below has doubts as to the importance of deficit reduction.
I have similar doubts about the dangers of the deficit. However, the idea of deficit reduction now in the midst of the Second Great Depression strikes me as far more serious and dangerous. Such austerity reduces the size of any recovery and delays it. I have seen estimates of up to ten years of recovery to return to 2007 levels of employment.
We need a serious national discussion about expenditures. We will not get it from Obama’s stacked commissions or the “beltway boys.” The big act is that these are not matters of dispute. “Everyone recognized the danger of deficits.” “Like a well functioning family, a nation must not have any debts.” Etc.
Those are not settled matters. There are far more nuances to national debt management than any family budget.
As usual, I call with little hope for actual intelligent thought.
In the 1980s, deficit hawks recognized that, in the words of former CBO Director Rudy Penner, , “the crisis is there is no crisis.” In other words, the deficit wasn’t actually hurting people much. But it could, eventually, like “termites in the basement” as former OMB Director Charlie Schultze put it. How could this be dramatized?
One approach was to make arguments about the economic good that would be accomplished by reducing deficits. The idea was that lower deficits would produce greater national savings so more investment and a larger economy. Unfortunately, the standard economic estimates (such as by CBO) did not project enough extra growth to convincingly justify the pain of the deficit reduction. (Would you have abolished the Navy and Medicaid so that the economy would be 3% bigger thirty years later?). So deficit hawks promoted two other arguments, each of which should sound familiar.
One was to invent scenarios about what would happen if absolutely nothing were done for decades – a highly implausible case, but one that could, with sufficient assumptions, lead to economic disaster. The point was to promote so much fear that the goal of deficit reduction would take precedence over messy, uncomfortable subjects like the consequences of any particular means of reducing the deficit.
The other was to claim that “the markets” would eventually turn against the U.S. government and U.S. economy because of the spiraling debt, forcing some sort of payback that would make everyone miserable. …
I had never thought about it the way he presents it. I think this is similar attitude to Paul Krugman.
When foreclosing on mortgages the banks have been skipping the rule of law. They have not followed the rules for the transfer of property preferring to pretend that their electronic records are a viable substitute. I never believed the courts would go along with that and the Massachusetts court did not. Here’s the story from that excellent blog, Rortybomb.
The biggest news is the decision in Massachusetts’ “Ibanez case”, where the Massachusetts Supreme Court voided the seizures of two homes by Wells Fargo and US Bank based on their inability to show that they owned the mortgages at the time of foreclosure. Tracy Alloway walks you through the case, David Dayen has more including the PDF of the decision, and analysis from Yves Smith and Felix Salmon.
From the opinion: “Where, as here, mortgage loans are pooled together in a trust and converted into mortgage-backed securities, the underlying promissory notes serve as financial instruments generating a potential income stream for investors, but the mortgages securing these notes are still legal title to someone’s home or farm and must be treated as such.”
They ruled through Massachusetts law instead of New York law, so no answers on looming New York trust law. Bank stocks are down. This is likely to have major implications down the road. We’ll have more on this opinion later.
I do not believe the ruling will stand. Congress will ride to the rescue of the banks legalizing their reckless disregard for state law and afflicting the suffering homeowners with even more pain. Congress will enact it. Obama will sign it. He will then explain it as a major legislative victory. Everything he does merits a press release and a couple of morning show appearances demonstrating his successful legislative record.
I wish there was someone somewhere who was as concerned with the rights and privileges of the American middle class and less concerned with the welfare of the banks.
Everyone curses the tax man, but Romanian witches angry about having to pay up for the first time are planning to use cat excrement and dead dogs to cast spells on the president and government.
Also among Romania’s newest taxpayers are fortune tellers — but they probably should have seen it coming.
Superstitions are no laughing matter in Romania — the land of the medieval ruler who inspired the “Dracula” tale — and have been part of its culture for centuries. President Traian Basescu and his aides have been known to wear purple on certain days, supposedly to ward off evil.
Personally, I’m waiting for Dracula to react to the new taxes.
This is my list of the Business Ethics Blogs that I have been impressed with. Some of these blogs are controversial choices but I went and looked at some other lists and was pretty shocked by what they thought was relevant. It seems there is no fixed criteria, so I will try to choose as best I can.
My selection process ran like this. I’ve been blogging on this web site for more than a year. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting many other bloggers and many were involved in one way or another with business ethics. So, I already had the beginnings of a list from my web contacts and regularly cruising the net for similar web sites to mine. In addition for this project I went to Google and read the first 1200 entries under the search, business ethics blog, and then 2000 entries under the search, business ethics. Nevertheless I do not believe for a moment that this list is complete or will make everyone happy.
If you want to be on it and you’re not, let me know. If you want your blog removed or some particular thing said about it, you should let me know that as well. I have no objection to any reasonable claim. In fact, whether you wish to criticize or praise, comment! The only thing you might want to know when you comment is that I often post comments as blog entries. Now before you assume that I am going to butcher your comment, be aware that I print every word, every comma, exactly as it was written and in full. I may disagree with you but I will not rearrange your writing to diminish the power of your words.
These are in no particular order. Developing criteria to rank these web sites would be a major endeavor, and sure to displease a lot of people. I think I will just content myself with a list.
This list is going to evolve over time so that criticism and recommendations can be incorporated. It is also important that I keep learning about new blogs and new writers and perhaps some older blogs that I missed.
This is David F. Ruccio’s Blog. I freely admit being a little dazzled by this web site. The graphic are amazing. It’s all cutting edge and professional looking. I think I could get an inferiority complex if I visit too often. The writing is interesting enlivened by attractive and easily read graphs. Great web site.
Ms. Bloom has been in the ethics field for a considerable length of time. This is how she describes herself in her blog:
Beginning in 1992, Lauren spent more than fourteen years as General Counsel of the American Academy of Actuaries, where her practice focused on teaching professionals how to incorporate high ethical standards and principles of good governance into their professional activities. Lauren played a pivotal role in the development and enforcement of the U.S. actuarial profession’s code of conduct and standards of qualification and practice. She also consulted with the International Actuarial Association on its project to develop the first international standards of practice for actuaries. She is widely published in the actuarial profession’s publications, and continues to speak to actuarial firms and association meetings around the United States.
The web site is designed as a practical guide for ethics.
The blog is a compendium of what a Wall Street money manager is looking at, thinking about, and writing on. It is written by me (& the crew) for people ranging from investment professionals to media to anyone else interested in investing, markets, and the economy.
It is, by design, laden with facts, statistics, and informed, data-driven opinions. We avoid the squishy, touchy-feely “I think/hope/want” type of fact free analysis so prevalent in the media and on Wall Street.
4. Ethics Forum This web site is written by Alice C. Linsley.
The writing is intelligent. The author is not afraid to write in depth about their subject and writes often. This tends much more to philosophy than to business ethics but there are a good number of articles directly devoted to the subject. Great blog.
5. Chris MacDonald’s The Business Ethics Blog Professor MacDonald’s blog was one of the first ethics sites devoted to business ethics that I found when I started writing my own blog. When I looked around the web trying to find how to do a successful blog I ran continually into his postings. He had been everywhere first. I think this indicates an aggressive intelligence and a willingness to take pains. I cannot pretend neutrality on MacDonald’s work. I have 32 posts recommending one of his essays or his writing in general. I did say one thing about him that sums up a great deal about his blog. I once pointed out that if you wanted the equivalent of a college course in business ethics you only had to read his web postings for a few months.
This is one of Chris MacDonald’s blogs. If you want Canadian ethics site, probably the ultimate web site. However, considering the power of his principal web site, I want to recommend that you go there first.
Doug Cornelius writes this blog. It’s written in an informal way. It is often amusing as well as informative. For instance, for the Christmas season, he has a blog entry discussing the ethics of Santa Claus. It’s updated often and quite intelligent.
Here’s a quote from his post on the Facebook – Goldman Sachs deal –
To me it sounds like Facebook and Goldman have come up with an ingenious solution to the address the capital needs for Facebook and to avoid a public offering of stock. I assume the Goldman investment and its new fund will be used to provide some capital for expansion and growth. I also suspect that some of it will be used to cash out early investors, purchase employee stock, and repurchase stock that has been privately traded. Gobbling up the stock would be an opportunity to keep the number of investors well below the 499 trigger point. Early investors may take their money and run.
This web magazine is operated by Michael Connor. It is more focused on what corporations should do in ethical dilemmas and often veers into public relations tactics. Nevertheless, some good ethical writing, clever articles and much useful information. The blog dates from 2009 and is updated very regularly.
Here’s the self description from the blog –
A lot has changed in the more than two decades since Business Ethics was founded. Ethics and governance have emerged as front-page news and lead agenda items in corporate board rooms and the halls of Congress. Good corporate citizenship is now studied, advocated and sometimes practiced. Sustainability has become a goal for well-meaning small businesses as well as many of the Fortune 500. Whether that represents real progress is open to debate. The continuing fallout from the recent economic and financial crises is a constant reminder that many systems are not working. There’s plenty to discuss. Business Ethics aims to serve as a guide.
This is the intro to Sam Antar’s White Collar Fraud web site –
There is a saying, “It takes one to know one.” I am a convicted felon, former CPA, and former criminal CFO of Crazy Eddie. Today, I advise law enforcement agencies, professionals, and businesses how to identify fraud and train them to catch the crooks. This blog discusses white-collar crime, securities fraud, financial reporting irregularities, Sarbanes-Oxley, corruption, and other related topics. Irregularities reported here are referred to appropriate government agencies as a whistleblower.
This is a better summation than anything I am likely to write about the blog.
Foreclosureblues is the best foreclosure site on the web. It is edited by Jake Naumer. It’s updated regularly and it’s content is updated regularly. Their choice of material is excellent. The site posts consist of often vital and useful information salted with outrage over the injustice involved. I strongly advocate this blog.
There is a lot of dynamic writing on this sight. It often has the feel of the breaking news in this highly controversial area. Look at this writing sample –
“It may mean investors who think they bought mortgage- backed securities bought securities that aren’t backed by anything,” said Kurt Eggert, a professor at Chapman University School of Law in Orange, California. Well, that’s already happened. Check out this lawsuit by MBIA Insurance against Credit Suisse 0ver a bad securitization loan deal.
This is one of my favorite blogs. It has lively writing and a sense of mission. David Yamada often focuses on workplace bullying as an issue. He pushes for legislation and other actions in dealing with this problem.
From the blogs “about” page –
This blog is dedicated to news and commentary about work and employment relations. Dignity at work, workplace bullying, employment & labor law, and psychologically healthy work environments are recurring themes.
Important disclosure – I consider Franklin Olson to be a friend, so I am biased. I have exchanged e-mails and asked him if he would like to blog on my site.
You may assume safely that I like his writing and value his opinions. His latest writing is on Aristotle and considering my recent explorations into the subject, I feel very pleased about his choice of topic. His articles are guite intelligent, considerably in depth, and written from a Christian perspective. My only complaint is he doesn’t write on a regular schedule. I recommend his site.
I like Steven Mintz. I like his writing. The evidence of his personal conduct and thought indicate a man whose writing reflects high values. I consider him a benefit to the field of ethics. Another disclosure – we have exchanged thoughts through the medium of the web and he has gone to the trouble of writing me a blog response explaining in some detail the thought of Aristotle. I consider this a favor of a very high order. From my reading of it, he explained it clearly and accurately off the top of his head, his thoughts laid clearly as they had been shaped by teaching the subject over some years. I teach myself and I recognize the accomplishment.
His site is one of the strongest that I have seen on the web when it comes to ethical discussions of current events. For any student this is a treasure of usable research topics and for any casual reader, intelligent comment. You should read this blog.
Relationships on university campuses across Canada are becoming increasingly strained. The long term pressure is a lack of funding to match increasing enrollments. However, faced with that pressure many universities have engaged in behaviours that are neither fair nor transparent. For example, the underfunding of students has reached such a critical level that over 90% of Canadian universities now have food banks on campus. The University of Alberta has had one since 1991, now even the University of Lethbridge has one.
Hundreds of thousands of students rely on student loans to pay their tuition. The governments transmit these funds to the students through the universities who charge the students an administrative fee in turn. I know of one regional Canadian university who budgets almost a quarter of a million dollars annually to be received from these fees. Why should the poorest students be subsidizing the universities with borrowed money? These are the ones relying on food banks to eat. This practice is neither transparent nor fair.
15. Business Ethics Memo Julian Friedland’s blog is well written and fun. I like his attitude. He often aims at current events with great accuracy.
Personally, I’ve always been suspicious of the ethics of for-profit microlending. Its defenders claim that if it were limited to non-profit philanthropy, there would be much less money available to aid the myriad poor villagers in the developing world where it is desperately needed. Capitalism begets capital.
That sounds like a decent utilitarian argument. Trouble is, from a more principle-based position, there is something unseemly about saddling the working poor with interest rates so high they would be considered usurious in the U.S. Indeed, several U.S. states have regulated payday lending rates to below half (24%-36%) of what is common in international microcredit (80%-100% or more). The Federal government makes it illegal to sell payday loans to military personnel at higher than 36% interest.
One of the core principles of ethical conduct is that an individual who finds himself in a position to stop wrongdoing has an obligation to do so, regardless of whether he caused the problem or has an official or professional duty to discharge. Fix the problem. Ask questions, blow the whistle, confront the wrongdoer, pressure officials, call in authorities…whatever it takes. So many of the scandals and disasters we have witnessed in the past— the home mortgage meltdown, the Enron implosion, Abu Ghraib, Bernie Madoff’s scheme, baseball’s steroid scandal, the Catholic Church’s child molestation cover-up, and too many more to list—would have been ended far sooner if someone on the scene had followed through on this ethical imperative. We don’t know who those people who ducked their responsibilities are; all we know is that lives were ruined because they chose to be passive, and not to act.
17. Christian Business Ethics Bobby Miller’s web site is a rare example of a Christian Ethics web site. When you run a search for Christian business ethics, you get a multitude of hits. The great majority are useless. This one is a good one.
Take for example, a saying that a lot of business executives and entrepreneurs use to cover-up or fluff-over the evil of their decisions, when made, affects individuals on every personal level. They utter these dreaded words, “It’s not personal, it’s only business”. I personally hate that. Of course it’s personal. When a father or mother goes home and say to their spouse and look into the eyes of their children that they’ve been terminated from work, you bet your bottom dollar that it’s personal. They are hurt and disappointed. Hope is removed from before them. They know that there are going to be rough time ahead. They know that some of the privileges that they had grown accustomed to will fade away in a snap. I thinks it’s a cowardice way of the one severing the relationship truly saying, “I don’t care how my decisions affects you. My business needs, my profit margin, my image or goals are more important that your welfare, or your family’s welfare”. Let me be clear, I am not saying that some executive decisions are not justified. Many [if not most] are justified. What I am talking about is how some employers of late, took advantage of the recent downturn in the economy as a justification to unnecessarily lay-off or fire some of their employees that were faithful servants of their firms, performing their jobs at optimum levels, just to increase the bottom line. At the root cause of their motivation to terminate the employment of these individuals was unashamed greed, on display for all to see.
18. Engineering Ethics Blog Karl Stephan’s blog is excellent writing. But what makes it even better is that he brings an engineering perspective coupled with an ability to explain the subject to those outside the field. I remember his discussion of the technical aspects of the Gulf disaster. He explained what happened in a way that gave me a deeper understanding of the problems inherent in that kind of drilling.
19. Blog: Business Ethics – David Gebler I have enjoyed Gebler’s blog for some time now. I think all interested in the field of ethics should add it to their favorites.
Last week GlaxoSmithKline settled a claim with the US Justice Department for $750 million. However, what really made the news was that whistleblower Cheryl Eckard stood to receive $96 million for her efforts.
The concern, as raised in today’s Wall Street Journal, is that with such a potential goldmine on the back end, potential whistleblowers will be going straight to the feds before working through internal channels. For over 20 years major organizations have built extensive ethics and compliance infrastructures, including helplines and ethics training that details the suggested ways to report misconduct.
Here’s an example from the blog written by Bennett Foddy
A new report released by the US Surgeon General last month reminds us that cigarettes are designed with addiction in mind. Tobacco companies infuse tobacco with ammonia so that the nicotine crosses the membranes in the lungs faster, reducing the delay between inhalation and pharmacological effect. They add flavourings like chocolate and vanilla to the blend, knowing that smokers will be more likely to smell something in their food that they associate with smoking, and to feel like lighting up. These tricks are a source of moral outrage for many of us; it seems as though the tobacco companies are exploiting weaknesses in our biology to make us buy things we would not otherwise have bought, and to do things we would not otherwise have done (or would not have done so much). And tobacco executives have often denied engaging in these kinds of tactics.
21. Gael O’Brien The Week in Ethics: Columns in Ethics, Leadership and Life. Gael O’Brien has been writing this blog since 2009. Her “about” blog section describes her this way – Gael O’Brien is a consultant, presenter, author and thought leader on topics related to leadership, ethics, trust, reputation, values, and strategic direction.
McDonald’s may be doing a great deal to address criticism about the link of its food to obesity. And they are only one of a legion of fast food restaurants that offer high sodium, high fat, high sugar, and high calorie foods.
However, there is a tremendous need for leadership here to create healthier ways to prepare food and to offer healthier menus. Kids’ nutrition is a first step. McDonald’s is well positioned to provide that leadership. The lawsuit isn’t the challenge. The challenge is to find answers to creating healthier food and still be a financially successful company.
Given the enormous power McDonald’s has to shape what is fun and cool to eat, what if they redirected their energy to developing innovative solutions to inexpensive, good-to-eat food that is actually good for children?
22. Rogue Columnist: A Pen Warmed in Hell This is a big favorite of mine. Jon Talton is outraged by a lot that goes on. So do I. I put him in the business ethics blogs because of his persistent criticism of business practices in Arizona. He doesn’t blog on the subject that often but when he does, it is memorable.
I overheard this conversation: “Is there some way I can short Arizona? I asked my broker and she said she will be on a conference call next week with a manager of two funds that invest in Arizona munis who are considering selling the entire portfolio…” And yet, Arizona hasn’t yet paid the full price for the Kookocracy being in power, for its cruel policies, for its inflaming hatred and violence. The national college football championship will be played at the stadium in Glendale, built with taxpayer money to enrich private sprawl developers. Tourism has apparently rebounded from the anti-immigrant law. Arizona just gets away with it and too much of what passes for the leadership in the state just goes with the flow. The vulnerable and sick, the working poor, the competitive future — these all pay the price. Gabby Giffords, a smart centrist who supported gun rights, paid. So did federal Judge John Roll, who had received threats from the white-right over immigration rulings. But when will Arizona pay for what it has become?
23. Thinking Ethics Beth Krasna edits this exploration of ethics issues. Now beware, a quick look indicates only a handful of posts. You have to go to the categories column on the right side of the page and click on the appropriate topic to pull up those kinds of posts. Once you know to do that, you find a great deal of material.
This is a Facebook site which is an unusual choice for me but the students and other contributors range the Internet and find some fascinating stuff. Because of this, I include it. It’s good site in terms of its exploration of other articles and other thoughts.
Each and every week, Too Much explores excess and inequality, in the United States and throughout the world. We cover a wide swatch of territory, everything from the latest executive pay outrage to the most current research insights on how staggering income and wealth divides are impacting our health and our happiness.
This blog calls for income equality and regularly publishes blog entries rich on supporting data and history as some informative and clearly presented graphs. I believe the wide class differences in wealth in the United States are destroying democracy and damaging the fabric of society. Thus, I see it as pursuing ethical business policies. So, it gets included.
Dylan Ratigan has a interesting essay in the Huffington Post. As is usual with his writing, the indignation boils over. I find this very pleasing. My indignation boils over from time to time. I have long been struck by the beltway commentator constant refrain, “free market.” It is used over and over as a cure for every economic malady. I can’t help but believe they don’t know the subject. Little industrial or financial business in the United States can be considered free market in any traditional sense: Our agricultural products are heavily subsidized; our financial industry is favored by a host of friendly laws as well as being able to borrow money from the Federal Reserve at zero percent interest.
Pilant's Business Ethics Blog 
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