Two questions: How would you rate the overall state of moral values today? Do you think it’s getting better or worse?

Americans have little difficulty answering either question, but they sit in a prosperous nation, atop a long history of unrestricted religious practice, political optimism, and entrepreneurial flair. They enjoy a judicial system that pretty much works, a civil service remarkably free of bribery, and an expectation of corporate and government integrity so deep-rooted that headlines break out whenever it gets violated. In overwhelming numbers, they trust their children to the public schools, their transportation to their carmakers’ engineering, and their bodies to the food sold in supermarkets and the water flowing from their taps.

So they must think America’s moral barometer is high and rising, right?

Wrong. By astonishing numbers — in the four-out-of-five range — Americans say that the state of the nation’s moral values is “poor” or “only fair.” In telephone interviews with 1,003 adults conducted May 10-13 for the Gallup Organization’s annual “Values and Beliefs” poll, only 17 percent said that the state of moral values is good or excellent — down from 22 percent as recently as 2003. Even worse are the numbers of those who think things are getting better: Only 11 percent see the moral barometer as rising — less than half of the 24 percent who said so in 2003.

Okay, now the usual objections. These two questions oversimplify a vastly complicated topic. People mean different things by “moral values.” There’s a fashionable cynicism that finds the bad in everything. Some people think values are for sissies and can’t bring themselves to say anything good about them. Gallup’s results are skewed since their researchers only talked to people willing to talk — and people who think things are fine have less interest in talking to pollsters.

Even so, don’t shrug off these numbers too quickly. All those caveats also were true in 2003, before the numbers began their slide.

It’s tempting to tick off the multiple causes for this decline — wars, doping, plagiarism, nepotism, relativism, moral cowardice, corrupt congressmen, unethical CEOs, and all the rest. We cover those causes week by week in this publication. So here’s a different question: What three things would have to change — in the United States or wherever you live — for you and those around you to say to Gallup in 2008, “It’s not quite so bad,” and “It seems to be getting better”?

This question is not rhetorical: I’ll be asking for your answers in a few minutes. While you’re getting out your pad and pencil, let me hazard my view on three things that would make me see the barometer as rising:

1. Greater public civility. There’s a harshness to public discourse these days, an antagonism that’s too quick to turn debate into confrontation and political disagreement into personal affront. Refined into edgy strategy by special interest groups screaming to be heard above the background chatter, that stridency is picked up by some in the media and parroted as the standard for modern discussion. If the tone shifted more toward respect — with dignity, listening, and that much-forgotten quality of humility more in evidence — wouldn’t the public begin to sense a rising moral barometer?

2. More personal honesty. There’s an undercurrent of deception at work in our culture. In more benign forms, it’s an assumption that the truth is too hurtful, offensive, or uncertain to be shared. The more virulent form assumes that you need to lie to get ahead. While that’s an old idea, it’s winning new forms of encouragement and support. Cheating of all stripes, from flat-out fraud to the subtlest spin, seems to be less naturally resisted by those who in years past would have had the conviction and the courage to condemn it. If we saw more acts of honesty, greater efforts at transparency, and a more ready candor around us, wouldn’t we conclude that moral consciousness was improving?

3. Increasing evidence of fairness. There’s an injustice of exclusion in our midst these days, visible in such things as the widening income gap between the rich and the poor. There’s also an injustice of neglect — showing up, for instance, in our unwillingness or inability to enforce laws concerning immigration. If democracy means anything, it means equality of access, voice, opportunity — as well as equity of enforcement, regulation, and control. If we could see more manifestations of fairness in our daily lives — and see ourselves finding ways to express more fairness to others — wouldn’t we feel a greater optimism?

But that’s just my take. Click here to let me know what three things you’d need to see in order to give Gallup a stronger thumbs-up next year. After all, if we can arrive at a consensus on what constitutes a more moral nation, perhaps we can begin to redesign our global consciousness to get there.

©2007 Institute for Global Ethics

Last week’s column about the ethics of Alex Rodriguez distracting an infielder prompted several letters not only about the propriety of his actions but also about the relationship between competitiveness in sports and life in general.

About three-quarters of those who wrote to us agreed that Rodriguez crossed the “unwritten line” when he shouted as he was running the bases, distracting the opposing third baseman into dropping the ball.

One reader, though, argued, “A-Rod was well within the unwritten guidelines. Most interplay of this nature is not so obvious but still there. Bush league or heads-up? Depends on whether you win or lose.”

Another agreed that A-Rod was wrong, then added, “but I can’t help admiring his quick-thinking opportunism.”

A Yankees fan pointed out that the still-unclear contents of the shout make the difference: “Whether A-Rod shouted “ha” or “mine” is more important than it would seem at first glance. Distracting or psyching out another player is common to many sports and literally part of the game. ‘Ha’ would be fine and fair in my book, but ‘mine’ would be an unfair lie.”

One reader recalled a similar incident during a football game where a fan on the sidelines blew a whistle, distracting the defense, who thought the play had been blown dead, and allowing the runner to continue. “This sort of thing is just not right,” concluded the writer. “You can’t let these ’infractions’ of common-sense agreement slide or sporting events will be reduced to slapstick comedy routines.” He also added that “no true golfer would ever go along with such nonsense!”

A tennis fan also weighed in, arguing that the excessively loud grunting that has become common in tennis is not only distracting, but possibly a calculated maneuver that “takes away the possibility of the opponent’s being able to hear the ball being struck, thus removing an important sound that may be a clue to how hard the ball was struck or any other perceived possibility. Most notably, Maria Sharapova’s screaming is so hard on my own ears that I mute the TV when watching her play.”

Finally, one reader contends that while competitiveness is valuable in sports and society in general, the damage comes from an anything-goes approach. But, he argued, organized sports can be “a place where we learn what is proper behavior…. Sports is where one generation can help teach another generation what is right and ethical, not just entertain us.”

“Because of what many see as a policy failure on this issue in Washington, you see state and city governments stepping up and taking the lead on global warming. You’ve got people in Europe saying that America is doing nothing on global warming, but that’s not true. You are seeing real action. But it’s happening in a local way.”

– Daniel Esty, director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, speaking to the Washington Post about the efforts of mayors in 522 U.S. cities to fight global warming by signing on to the goals of the Kyoto Protocol, which has been rejected by the White House. The cities’ initiatives range from New York’s decision to switch its 13,000 yellow cabs to green and hybrid vehicles, and a new policy in Keene, New Hampshire, where parents are barred from waiting in idling cars when dropping off and picking up their children from school, notes the Post.

WASHINGTON
The harsh sentence given to former vice-presidential aide Lewis “Scooter” Libby last week kicked off vigorous debate over the ethics implications of the sentence itself, the apparent conflict of interest in members of the executive branch of government publicly decrying the sentence, and of a possible pardon by President Bush.

Libby was sentenced to two-and-a-half years for obstructing a federal investigation into the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity. As the Baltimore Sun reports, the unexpectedly harsh sentence drew criticism from some who claimed it was out of line with the circumstances of the case, in which no arrests or convictions materialized for the original alleged crime.

Shortly after the sentence was announced, Vice President Cheney raised eyebrows when he said that he hoped Libby would eventually get off — an odd statement for a sitting vice president, say legal experts quoted by the New York Times, who point out that Cheney is sworn to uphold the law and runs the branch of government that prosecuted Libby.

At the same time, President Bush faces the dilemma of whether to pardon Libby, a loyal adviser and one of the architects of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The Boston Globe reports that while a Bush spokesperson has said the president will “not intervene,” she did not specifically rule out a pardon.

The Globe also quotes Stephen Hess, a political analyst from George Washington University, as saying the question of the pardon “is not if but when. The pressures from [Republican] loyalists and in the administration will be enormous. From the loyalists’ point of view, Libby was falling on his sword for the vice president.”

While many newspaper editorials argued for a pardon, the trade journal Editor & Publisher notes that a surprising number of papers that usually back the administration did not support a pardon. The Chicago Tribune, for example, offered this: “Thirty months (and a $250,000 fine) is a stiff sentence for Libby. He has a legal process to appeal. But Bush should steer clear of this matter. First, because he has a conflict of interest — Libby was serving the political interests of the administration when he committed his crimes. Second, because a pardon would be as indefensible as some of the pardons Clinton issued as he exited the White House.”

A judge is expected to rule next week on whether Libby can stay out of prison while his appeal is argued.

WASHINGTON
Embattled congressman William Jefferson (D-La.) pleaded not guilty last week to corruption charges in a case that has become a lighting rod for the latest Washington controversies over ethics and politics.

Jefferson, who was arraigned and freed on personal recognizance last Friday, is accused of taking bribes to steer business to a Nigerian communications firm and of accepting bribes that benefited various companies owned by his family, reports ABC News.

The case moved into the national spotlight after the FBI raided Jefferson’s Washington, DC, home last August and said it had found $90,000 in cash hidden in his freezer, notes ABC News.

According to an analysis from the Economist, the case has turned into an embarrassment for the Democratic party, which recaptured Congress last November after vowing to end the Republican “culture of corruption.”

A Republican-sponsored bill passed by the House last week instructs the ethics committee to examine the case and determine if Jefferson’s expulsion is merited, UPI reports, while a second measure passed last week, introduced by a Democrat, orders the ethics committee to probe any member who is arrested or indicted on criminal charges.

Meanwhile, overhaul of the ethics committee system in the House inched forward last week after speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) signed off on a provision that would allow anyone, not just congressional representatives, to bring an ethics complaint against a member of the House, according to Congressional Quarterly.

But Pelosi and a task force she established had already ruled out the idea of having an independent office, separate from the ethics committee, take over ethics investigations and enforcement.

WASHINGTON
Scientists last week unveiled a new procedure that shows it may be possible to turn an ordinary skin cell into a stem cell, a discovery that could circumvent some of the legal and ethical objections currently mounted against stem cell research.

Newsweek reports that the findings surfaced in several independent papers published last week in medical journals, noting that current findings only apply to animal models. Application of the technique to humans, if indeed it is possible, is expected to involve years of development.

If the new processes work with humans, the procedure could allow development of stem cell tissue, which some scientists believe is key to unlocking cures for a host of illnesses, eliminating the destruction of viable human embryos as well as egg donations by female volunteers, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Forbes reports that the latest round of developments are making investment in stem cell research more appealing to states and private investors. Some state governments entered the field after the federal government banned all federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research, saying such work was akin to abortion because it involved the destruction of embryonic tissue.

Last week, the House again passed legislation to lift that ban and prepared to send the measure to President Bush, who is expected to issue his second veto, according to a report from the Hill, a publication covering Congress.

NEW YORK
A new United Nations report claims that bribery and corruption are damaging education around the world.

The study, authored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), claims that education worldwide is plagued by fraud, bribes, embezzlement, and cheating, reports the BBC.

In developing countries, the siphoning of nonsalary government funds destined for schools — called “leakage” — can be as high as 80 percent.

Theft from supply budgets is particularly high in Africa, according to a summary of the findings from the CanWest News Service, with an estimated 87 percent of government school funding disappearing in Uganda.

Salary embezzlement, often in the form of putting ghost teachers on payrolls, is claimed to be as high as 14 percent of the total payroll in Papua, New Guinea, according to the report.

Cheating was characterized as an endemic problem in India, reports the Times of India, with UNESCO alleging that “in some places in India, cheating is now so well established that when universities try to resist, students protest and demand their traditional right to cheat.”

Selling of phony degrees was cited as a problem in much of the developed world, including the United States.

BEIJING
The largest exam in the world took place last week, with millions of students in China confronting a competitive university entrance exam that raises questions about the ethics of such a high-stakes affair and spotlights efforts to stanch high-tech cheating.

According to the Reuters news agency, about 10 million high school students were expected to sit for the national exam, competing for about half that number of university seats.

While the system is credited as being part of China’s explosive growth in the modern reform era, critics say the system puts too much stress on students, causes logistical chaos in the nation’s cities, and rewards rote learning, according to the Reuters report.

The exam often is regarded as the single most important event in a child’s life, and parents are often as frantic as the children, according to the Associated Press. In one eastern city, for example, parents pressured an airline to change its route because they feared the noise from overhead jets could distract students during the listening comprehension portion of the English test.

To fight cheating, police conducted checks around electronic markets, confiscating devices that could help students cheat, reports the Economic Times of India.

In addition, notes the official Chinese government publication People’s Daily and the news agency Xinhua, authorities set up a national video-monitoring network to supervise hundreds of exam venues.

They also established a national database to record incidents of cheating, with the promise that the records will be available to universities and employers.

WASHINGTON
The U.S. Senate last week dealt a potentially fatal blow to a compromise immigration bill amid strident debate over the ethics implications of a measure that critics characterized as an amnesty for those who had entered the nation illegally.

According to the Washington Post, the measure foundered after Senators from both parties refused to move the bill to a final vote, scuttling what had become an unlikely alliance between President Bush and Democratic leaders.

Backers of the bill say they will attempt to resurrect it over the next few weeks, reports the Los Angeles Times.

The compromise bill evolved into a political oddity, with some members of President Bush’s party defecting because they claimed the measure rewarded illegals for breaking the law, and some immigration-reform activists arguing that it did not go far enough to protect immigrants and was biased in favor of educated elites.

In effect, immigration scholar James Gimpel told the New York Times, people on opposite sides of the political spectrum “banded together to defeat the middle. Restrictionists on the right were always against the bill because they opposed any legalization for illegal immigrants. Business groups and their allies, including advocates for immigrant rights, lost much of their ardor for the bill because of changes made in the legislative process.”

An analysis in the International Herald Tribune notes that opposition to the measure became fierce, relentless, and technologically enhanced after critics were linked by the Internet and encouraged by radio talk-show hosts. Supporters of the measure characterized the assault as propagandistic, saying provisions of the bill were misrepresented as a one-word hot button: amnesty.

LONDON
A controversial documentary showing photos of the dying Diana, Princess of Wales, shortly after the crash that claimed her life has prompted a media-ethics controversy in Britain.

The ITV network reports that Diana’s sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, had asked Channel 4, the producer of the documentary, not to air the photos and said that ignoring their pleas had left them “deeply distressed.”

“Diana: The Witness in the Tunnel,” showed photos of the interior of the car in which the princess was riding when it crashed on August 31, 1997, killing Diana, her boyfriend, and her driver. The Associated Press and the U.K. Guardian say that one close-up image showed a doctor attending Diana, but that her face was obscured by a gray square.

In a letter made public last week, the princes’ private secretary, Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, implored Channel 4 not to show the photos. “If it were your or my mother dying in that tunnel, would we want the scene broadcast to the nation?” she wrote, according to the Manchester Evening News.

Channel 4 defended the documentary as responsible journalism, saying that the piece did not show Diana’s final moments.

The documentary focused on the role of paparazzi in the incident, and asserted that the photographers who followed her car were not to blame for the crash.

In a related story, a TV drama suggesting that Diana was murdered is scheduled to air in August on a cable channel. London’s Daily Sun reports that the TV movie, airing on the tenth anniversary of her death, is the first time that the accident has been dramatized in a major production.

LOS ANGELES
The bizarre circumstances surrounding the jailing, release, and re-jailing of heiress and television personality Paris Hilton have rekindled a debate over judicial fairness and the treatment of celebrities.

Hilton was jailed last week for repeatedly violating the terms of her probation after her 2006 alcohol-related reckless driving conviction, but was released from jail after only three days by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department because of medical problems that remain unclear.

Hiton was brought back to jail, weeping and hysterical, the following day after a judge reversed the sheriff’s decision, reports Bloomberg.

Some legal analysts argued that her punishment was unusually harsh, while others maintained that her quick release to home confinement, monitored by an ankle bracelet, was also unusual, according to CNN.

Los Angeles County sheriff Lee Baca told reporters that he had released Hilton because of a medical condition that he would only characterize as stemming from her “not taking a particular medication when she was in our custody,” CNN reports.

Observers noted that early release of prisoners is not unusual in the chronically overcrowded L.A. correctional system. But release on unspecified medical grounds is not typical, according to press reports.

The judge who overruled Baca said he had received no information about a medical problem and had not changed his sentence, which specified that Hilton not be allowed to serve her time in home confinement.

Oddly, reports Time magazine, Hilton seems to be garnering little sympathy in Hollywood, which has in the past rallied around troubled stars such as Mel Gibson, Alec Baldwin, and Robert Downey, Jr. Time quotes longtime publicist Howard Bragman as speculating that Hilton lacks the self-awareness that might inspire empathy.

“You’ve got to understand and accept responsibility for yourself in order for people to rally around you,” he said.

From the Death Penalty Information Center:

“Because of mistakes and a lack of efficacy, the death penalty is losing the confidence of the American public, according to a new poll…. Almost 40% of the U.S. population believe they would be excluded as jurors in capital cases and a strong majority (58%) believe it is time for a moratorium on the death penalty while the process undergoes a careful review. The poll was commissioned by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC).

“Almost all Americans (87%) believe that an innocent person has already been executed in recent years, and over half (55%) say that fact has affected their views on the death penalty. An overwhelming 69% of the public believes that reforms will not eliminate all wrongful convictions and executions. DPIC analyzes the poll results in a new report, ‘A Crisis of Confidence: Americans’ Doubts About the Death Penalty.’…

“Growing concerns about the death penalty have led to actual and de facto moratoriums in states across the country. Death sentences have dropped by about 60% in the past six years, with the number of sentences in 2006 reaching the lowest level in 33 years. Executions are down 45% in the same period, and the size of death row has declined every year since 1999.

“The poll sample included 1,000 adults nationwide and the margin of error was +3.1%….”

“The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.”

– Samuel Johnson (English lexicographer and author, 1709-1784)