Ethics Newsline®

The Bible story of Daniel and the lions’ den, recounted in the Old Testament, is widely known. But few remember what got him there in the first place: a good king caught up in bad policy.

Daniel, we’re told, served as prime minister to King Darius — to the envy of the other courtiers. They inveigled the king to sign an inalterable decree that punished anyone found worshiping anything other than Darius himself. When Daniel put his religion first and continued his daily worship, he was reported. The king worked every way he could to save his friend, only to be forced by his own policy to throw him to the lions.

The story exemplifies courage, divine action, and just deserts — Daniel stands his ground, the lions shut their mouths, he’s rescued, and his accusers are thrown in instead. In a contemporary way, it’s also a story about the need for sound policy — as is the story I heard recently from the assistant head of a well-regarded independent day school for boys.

John (not his real name) told me he’d been chaperoning the annual prom. Held on the school campus, it was a kind of joint event with a nearby school for girls. As John walked the hallways that night, he fell into conversation with one of the prom-goers, a student leader he liked very much who had an exemplary record. To his surprise, John smelled alcohol on the boy’s breath.

On several issues, including drinking, the school took a very strong stand: Under its “two-strikes-you’re-out” policy, out literally meant expulsion from school on the second offense. So John confronted the student, who confessed that his date had brought liquor to the prom and shared it with him. John sent them both home, but took no further action that night. This was the first time the boy had been caught drinking, so whatever needed to be sorted out with his parents could wait until the following week.

Back in his office on Monday, John spoke to the boy’s mother. To his great relief, she wasn’t angry or defensive, but friendly, apologetic, and grateful for the school’s stand. Then, as they continued their amicable chat, she began recounting a recent conversation with her son, who told her that some weeks before the prom a friend had hidden a bottle of liquor in his school locker and given him a drink.

The moment she began the story, John told me, his heart sank. “Why is she telling me this?!” he said to himself, “I don’t want to know!” Without that knowledge, the prom event was strike one. Now it was suddenly strike two — and the punishment was inalterably explicit. Under the school’s rules, a fine young man must be expelled despite an exemplary college-bound career.

John’s right-versus-right dilemma pitted truth against loyalty and justice against mercy. On one hand, he had every reason to come down hard on the boy: The glaring truth was that this was indeed a second offense for someone who, while he hadn’t been the instigator, had on both occasions been a willing co-conspirator. Was a trend developing here that John, as a matter of justice, needed to squelch firmly and dramatically?

On the other hand, John had learned of this earlier lapse only because of the mother’s admirable candor. What kind of signal would it send to the other parents when it became known (as it surely would) that the reward for such honesty was a devastating penalty that could significantly affect her son’s future? With this precedent, would any parent ever again speak up to the administration about things that most mattered? Would they fear retribution when they were seeking assistance? Didn’t John owe her some loyalty, some appreciation for her helpfulness? Wasn’t this a case requiring mercy, where a punishment was needed that better fit the circumstances?

Unlike Daniel’s story, this was not a matter of life and death, nor did it require divine intervention. But John, too, was caught in the vice-grip of a policy that left him little room for creativity. Why? Largely because of the way the school defined the word “out.” Did “out” have to mean expulsion? Or should the policy have been, “Two strikes and you will be subject to a punishment that is swift, sure, and more severe than you had hoped.” Granted, that’s a less catchy phrase than the original, which is borrowed from baseball’s three-strikes rule. The problem is that in the borrowing, the phrase ran afoul of its own metaphor. All “out” means in baseball is that you retire from the plate, to come back again later. The school had turned it into a terminal, life-changing condition — perhaps without ever giving the word the thought it deserved.

But that’s what any good policy should offer to good executives: room for thought. In the realm of ethics, each case will be different and the differences may or may not matter. Justice properly sets up expectations about behaviors and penalties for infractions. By contrast, mercy is all about exceptions, of which John’s story may have been one.

Bottom line? Well-crafted policy takes off the table any number of otherwise agonizing right-versus-right dilemmas. Poor policy, by contrast, can generate them by the thousands.

What do you think John should have done? Click here to share your thoughts.

©2007 Institute for Global Ethics

“Given the heavy reliance by White House officials on RNC e-mail accounts, the high rank of the White House officials involved, and the large quantity of missing e-mails, the potential violation of the Presidential Records Act may be extensive.”

– Excerpt from an interim report released last week by the House Oversight Committee, which found that at least 88 White House officials have been using email accounts maintained by the Republican National Committee (RNC) during the presidency of George W. Bush. The White House previously said only about 50 officials had such accounts.

The House Oversight Committee found that the RNC has not preserved the emails sent and received by 51 of these officials, some of whom may have used the RNC accounts to bypass security measures and to “conduct overtly political, and perhaps improper, activities such as planning which U.S. prosecutors to fire and preparing partisan briefings for employees in federal agencies,” reports the Associated Press.

RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt told the AP that there is “no basis for an assumption that any e-mail not already found would be of an official nature.”

A commentary in Slate notes that “the oversight committee’s investigation into convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s contacts with the White House unearthed the following e-mail exchange between Rove’s then-executive assistant Susan Ralston and Abramoff’s associate Todd Boulanger: ‘I now have an RNC BlackBerry, which you can use to e-mail me at any time. No security issues like my WH e-mail.’ ” Ralston resigned in 2006 and Abramoff is now in prison.

WASHINGTON
Congress finds itself in the midst of an intense moral debate as it squares off against President Bush after he again vetoed a stem cell research bill last week.

The Associated Press reports that Bush urged lawmakers to look into what he called more “ethically responsible” means of research.

Following Bush’s veto, the Senate responded by advancing another spending bill that again proposes funding for stem cell research, a measure the Associated Press predicts will be the first of several waves of Democrat-driven attempts to reverse the effects of Bush’s rejection of the measure.

But leaders in both houses acknowledge that they are still shy of the votes needed to override future presidential vetoes, reports Scientific American.

Bush based his veto on the argument that the legislation would “compel American taxpayers for the first time in our history to support the deliberate destruction of human embryos,” reports Newsday. “I will not allow our nation to cross this moral line,” he said.

Stem cells, the so-called master cells of the body, could develop replacements for human tissue damaged by disease or accident, according to advocates, who maintain such therapy holds imminent promise for treating Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

Opponents complain that using human embryonic tissue, often left over from in-vitro fertilization procedures, is akin to abortion. Supporters counter that using the embryos in support of possible life-saving medicine instead of simply destroying them is a moral good.

Bush’s veto, his second restricting federal funding stem cell research, has resulted in states and private institutions assembling a patchwork of other sources of support, but many argue that lack of federal support will stand in the way of possible cures.

“I don’t think that philanthropy or the state of Maryland is really going to be enough to fund the kind of clinical trials to help patients,” Dr. Chi V. Dang, vice dean of research at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, told the Baltimore Sun. “It’s sufficient to do some of the groundwork, but once we start clinical trials we are going to need much more.”

LONDON
The clash of religious symbolism in Britain is stirring a moral debate in one of the most cosmopolitan of societies.

As the International Herald Tribune reports, the increasing presence of Muslim women covered head to toe with flowing black gowns is “testing the limits of tolerance in this stridently secular nation. Many veiled women say they are targets of abuse. At the same time, efforts are growing to place legal curbs on the full Muslim veil, known as the niqab.”

The Herald Tribune notes that in the past year, several prominent cases have brought the controversy to a boil, including a lawyer dressed in a niqab who was told she could not represent a client because the judge could not hear her speaking through the veil, and a teacher prohibited from wearing the garment in class.

At the same time, a case that surfaced last week has focused attention on the propriety of Christian symbols. ITV News reports that a Christian schoolgirl is bringing a court case over a prohibition against wearing what is called a “purity ring.”

Lydia Playfoot, 16, has accused her West Sussex school of discrimination because she cannot wear her ring, a symbol of commitment to chastity, even though Muslim and Sikh classmates were allowed to wear symbols of their religion, the London Daily Mirror reports.

School officials say the ring violates a code prohibiting most jewelry, including silver bands.

The case is now before the British High Court.

According to an analysis from the London-based Independent, Playfoot’s case is not the first such incident to gain notoriety. Earlier this year, a 13-year-old student was told by officials at a nondenominational school in Kent that she could not wear a crucifix.

According to the Independent, she was told that the school would make exceptions to its uniform rule only if the jewelry was an “essential part” of a particular religion, which they maintained was not the case in the incident in question.

NEW DELHI
A bizarre medical-ethics case is dominating headlines in India, where a 15-year-old boy reportedly performed a cesarean section in a bid to get into the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s youngest surgeon.

The Economic Times of Calcutta reports that Dileepan Raj, the son of two doctors, performed the surgery before video cameras while his parents watched.

According to a report from the BBC, many people in India perform sometimes-bizarre feats in order to win a place in record books. But in this case, says the BBC, commentators and the medical community are expressing outrage, with the head of the Indian Medical Association’s academic division calling the action “shocking and extremely unethical.”

The Times of India adds that the incident has focused attention on the fact that Indian medical colleges, “known,” the paper says, “to produce the world’s most qualified doctors, do not teach medical ethics.”

While there are proposals to integrate an ethics course into the curriculum and put ethics questions on the national qualifying test, the measures are still pending, reports the Times.

BEIJING
China is embroiled in a debate over the discovery that migrant laborers in a northern province worked under brutal conditions, with members of the ruling Communist party railing against the corruption they say made inspectors turn a blind eye.

According to a report from the Associated Press, farmers, children, and mentally disabled people were “snatched into a grim rural underworld” in Shanxi, where they were forced to work in exhausting, often unpaid positions and beaten — sometimes to death — if they did not comply.

The Washington Post reports that outrage welled up after newspapers across the nation printed pictures of dirt-smeared workers covered with bruises and burns. Their living conditions, often under guard by armed men with dogs, came to symbolize the treatment of as many as 90 million peasants who have migrated from various impoverished parts of the nation in search of construction work.

Six civil servants alleged to have sanctioned the arrangement are currently under investigation, reports the official Chinese government news agency Xinhua. About 35 others are under arrest.

The ITN Television network reports that the conditions originally were made public by parents who believed their children had been sold into slavery, and claim the government ignored their pleas for help until secret footage filmed in Shanxi province emerged and was circulated on the Internet.

ITN notes that to the surprise of most observers of this notoriously secretive nation, the story has been widely reported throughout the state-controlled media “as a sign of just how frustrated the Beijing government has become with endemic local corruption.”

PHILADELPHIA
In an incident that has drawn attention to the responsibilities of businesses to provide for the safety of customers, a Philadelphia judge last week sentenced the owner and the operator of a pier that collapsed, killing three women, to house arrest and probation.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the judge ignored the prosecution’s request to jail Michael Asbell, 65, who owned the pier, and Eli Karetny, 66.

The men were sentenced to nine to 18 months of house arrest, followed by five years’ probation, and ordered to form a business program and teach business ethics, according to a report from the Philadelphia Daily News.

Both men pleaded guilty or no contest to a variety of counts, including involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment, and conspiracy.

The case evolved from the May 2000 collapse of a pier that supported a popular nightclub. More than 40 people were injured and three young women died when the club plunged into the Delaware River.

After the sentencing, families of the victims expressed their dissatisfaction with what they viewed a light sentence, with some claiming that the businessmen’s connections with local society and politicians intimated the judge, the Daily News reports, noting that one of the letters asking for leniency had come from Philadelphia mayor John Street.

Prosecutors claimed that the owner and operator had, over a period of several years, received notice that the pier was deteriorating and would eventually collapse, but did not repair the facility because of the expense, according to the Associated Press.

The defendants claimed that they had never received explicit notice of imminent danger, saying they would not have opened the club if they knew the pier could collapse.

WASHINGTON
The U.S. Supreme Court last week dealt what is viewed as a setback to investors who want to sue companies and executives for suspected fraud.

According to the ruling, before a case can move forward, shareholders must show substantial evidence that a firm intended to commit a fraud, reports Forbes, which notes that the 8-to-1 decision is expected to shield companies from many so-called nuisance suits.

In last Thursday’s decision, the court backed Tellabs, a maker of fiber-optics equipment, and its former chief executive. Investors had sued, claiming that they were misled about the company’s declining finances, the Dow Jones News Service reports.

In its ruling, the High Court said it was concerned about the burden of what it called “frivolous, lawyer-driven litigation,” according to the Financial Times.

It was the second Supreme Court pro-business decision of the week, reports the New York Times, coming on the heels of a decision on Monday that held that Wall Street securities underwriters generally are immune from civil antitrust lawsuits.

The rulings came in concert with a push by senior administration officials for limits on shareholder lawsuits, according to the Times, because they claim that the suits, based on laws and regulations written in the aftermath of corporate scandals such as Enron and WorldCom, tend to discourage investment and are prompting firms to look overseas for investment capital.

FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla.
A new survey shows that about one in five people admits pilfering items from work — and only 21 percent say they regret it.

“It’s amazing how many people admit to this,” said Brent Short, managing director of Spherion, the Florida-based based staffing company that conducted the survey of more than 2,000 people, according to a report from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “A lot of them really don’t think of it as theft.”

The Scripps News Service cites Duquesne University ethicist James Weber as saying that attitudes about theft of minor items such as pencils or Post-It notes are a “textbook case” of how people view ethics from the standpoint of consequences or principles.

“From the perspective of consequences, taking a pencil home, perhaps to give to your child for school the next day, will probably cost your company mere pennies — making it easy to justify. But from the standpoint of ethical principles, it’s still theft — and it’s wrong.”

The Kansas City Star notes that of the surveyed workers, the highest-paid typically stole more than the ones who earned less.

LONDON
One of the hottest accessories this summer is a banner of environmental consciousness — a trendy cloth bag emblazoned with the slogan, “I am not a plastic bag.”

Customers lined up outside some chic L.A. boutiques — some arriving at 4:00 A.M. and others skipping work — to be the first to own one of the cult canvas creations, according to reports from the Los Angeles Times and Time magazine.

Christian Science Monitor correspondent Mark Rice-Oxley reports that the movement apparently started in Britain where a filmmaker documented how plastic bags foul shorelines and kill sea life. Stores across Britain began using bags made of substances other than plastic, and the retailer Sainsbury introduced the reusable “I am not a plastic bag” tote, selling 20,000 of them in one hour.

According to the Chicago Tribune, the popularity of the bag mirrors eco-consciousness nationwide. Sears, for example, noticed a surge in sales of its “French Market Basket,” which is marketed with the slogan, “Fight plastic bag pollution and look Oh-So-French at the same time.”

From the University of Oregon:

“Want to light up the pleasure center in your brain? Just pay your taxes, and then give a little extra voluntarily to your local food bank. University of Oregon scientists have found that doing those deeds can give you the same sort of satisfaction you derive from feeding your own hunger pangs.

“A three-member team — a cognitive psychologist and two economists — published its results in the June 15 issue of the journal Science. The scientists gave 19 women participants $100 and then scanned their brains with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as they watched their money go to the food bank through mandatory taxation, and as they made choices about whether to give more money voluntarily or keep it for themselves….

“Researchers found that two evolutionarily ancient regions deep in the brain … fired when subjects saw the charity get the money. The activation was even larger when people gave the money voluntarily, instead of just paying it as taxes. These brain regions are the same ones that fire when basic needs such as food and pleasures (sweets or social contact) are satisfied.

” ‘The surprising element for us was that in a situation in which your money is simply given to others — where you do not have a free choice — you still get reward-center activity,’ said Ulrich Mayr, a professor of psychology. ‘I don’t think that most economists would have suspected that. It reinforces the idea that there is true altruism — where it’s all about how well the common good is doing. I’ve heard people claim that they don’t mind paying taxes, if it’s for a good cause — and here we showed that you can actually see this going on inside the brain, and even measure it.’

“The study gives economists a novel look inside the brain during taxation, said co-author William T. Harbaugh, a UO professor of economics and member of the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Mass…. ‘On top of that,’ Harbaugh added, ‘people experience more brain activation when they give voluntarily — even though everything here is anonymous. That’s a very surprising result — and, to me, an optimistic one.’…

“There remain a lot of unanswered questions, Harbaugh said. ‘We show that people liked paying a tax that went to a food bank. But suppose the tax had been unfair. What then?’ Or suppose that people voted to make other people pay the tax, too.’ That would help other people even more, so would the voter get a bigger neural reward?’…”

“The art of living rightly is like all arts; it must be learned and practiced with incessant care.”

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German poet and dramatist, 1749-1832)