Ethics Newsline®

For more information, see this week’s Research Report.

by Rushworth M. Kidder

When officers from Scotland Yard arrived in Pakistan last week to investigate Benazir Bhutto’s death, they flew into a cyclone of uncertainty. One fact, however, seems indisputable. If she had not stood up through her sunroof on that fatal Thursday in Rawalpindi, she would not have died when she did.

So is the former prime minister’s death a story of genuine moral courage or an instance of irresponsible bravura? Even Scotland Yard can’t answer that. Other questions, however, can be sorted out by good detective work and careful intelligence analysis:

• How did she die? Was it from the close-range pistol shots that rang out just before a shrapnel bomb exploded? Or was she killed by a head injury as she fell back into the car from the force of the blast?
• Who did it? Was it, as president Pervez Musharraf asserts, the work of terrorists seeking to destroy Pakistan’s nascent democracy? Or did Musharraf’s own henchmen take her out to eliminate their leader’s chief opponent, as some of her supporters contend?
• Was it inevitable? Was her death a foregone conclusion, the result of mixing a high-profile target with a hurly-burly election process in a volatile nation? Or did she herself bring it on by engaging in high-risk behavior that could easily have been avoided?
• Was she undefended? Did the Musharraf government refuse to provide adequate protection? Or did she push forward into a personal risk that no security measures could have countered?

Important points, but there’s a deeper question that history must ask: Was Bhutto genuinely brave or merely unwise? Was she, in other words, an example of moral courage we can emulate, or was she an object lesson we should avoid?

Moral courage exists at the intersection of three things: deeply held values and principles, significant and recognized dangers, and a willingness to endure those dangers. While Bhutto’s story has all three, true moral courage also requires a balance among them. If any are disproportionate — either in excess or in deficit — we call it something else. Enduring risks for selfish reasons may involve physical courage, but few would call it moral. Standing boldly for principles with no clue about the danger is foolhardy. Running away when your values are at stake is cowardice.

What if you risk everything and fail? Do we only call it moral courage if you succeed? No. The fact that Bhutto didn’t survive doesn’t strip her of the right to be called morally courageous. History is rich with tales of noble individuals slain by tyrants or thugs — not because they ignored the dangers, but because they weighed the risks and still took action.

Then what if you stand up through your sunroof … and survive? Does that inevitably earn you the courage badge? No, since circumstances matter. Without danger, there’s no courage. The day she was killed, U.S. presidential candidates were standing up before crowds all over Iowa and New Hampshire, and nobody saw that as especially courageous. But moral courage also requires moral purpose. If the motive is suspect — if you stand up because of preening conceit or self-indulgent saviorism — that doesn’t qualify either.

So suppose you stand up and die, but you’re later found guilty of corruption and other unethical actions. Is moral courage only attainable by people of great integrity? No. Even criminals can rise to conscientious stands from time to time. Though Bhutto was widely seen as a flawed leader, few discount her moral courage in returning to Pakistan when she could more safely have remained a wealthy and influential expatriate.

Finally, what if you don’t stand up, but instead assess the situation and stay seated in your specially armored car? Had Bhutto done so, would that have been cowardice? No again. Sometimes the highest moral courage is the courage of restraint. Resisting temptation can be just as courageous as seizing opportunity. Think of the senior George Bush’s refusal to send U.S. forces into Baghdad at the end of the Gulf War in 1991.

This last point may be where history focuses. Was Bhutto led to stand up because of her deep desire to connect personally with a public that expected her to be close enough to touch? Was intimacy so important to Pakistani electioneering — and to her — that she would rather die than keep her distance? Or was she flushed with heady adulation from the crowds at her just-concluded rally and wanting to prolong the moment? Did a sense of personal triumph overcome her judgment, blinding her momentarily to her long-term responsibilities to family, party, and nation, and leading her to act against her better instincts?

How history answers will determine whether the annals of moral courage feature Bhutto along with Nelson Mandela (who survived his attackers) and Abraham Lincoln (who did not). But her story also touches us more immediately. Each of us, I suspect, has a moral sunroof somewhere in our lives. Each of us has opportunities, small or large, to raise our heads above the parapet and speak out for what we believe. It may be right to do so; the bluster of tyranny, trying to frighten us into silence, may need to be confronted. But it may be wrong if our own personal soft spots — pride, outrage, self-importance — cause us to let down our guard, or if the danger is simply too severe. Bhutto’s example teaches us something about negotiating between the courage of engagement and the courage of restraint. In that, at least, she has opened new dimensions for our own encounters with moral courage.

©2008 Institute for Global Ethics

 Questions or comments? Write to newsline@globalethics.org.

In last week’s commentary, Rushworth Kidder shared his observations about the year in ethics and how what we’ve learned from the recent past could propel resolutions for the coming year. The areas he suggested for special attention were civility, vigilance, and fairness.

Several readers offered additional thoughts about what we should be paying attention to in 2008. Among the suggestions was “a growing need for humanity to work to evolve its moral base, rather than focus on moral dangers based on existing/past ethical templates. For example, presuming that the world’s population continues to grow, it would seem logical to assume that the principle of ‘living better on less’ will need to become a key component of the ‘moral maze’ of the future — rather than our current ‘high consumption’-based moral templates.”

Another reader wanted to add courage, kindness, and honesty to the list. “Without courage one cannot practice any other virtue. (Someone wise said that, not me.) Without honesty, trust cannot grow or be sustained — plus dishonesty sullies every human encounter and endeavor. Without kindness (compassion, love) — not sure how much the rest matters.”

The month is only a quarter over — it’s not too late to offer resolutions. Do you have any other suggestions for moral values we should pursue? Please let us know.

– Compiled by Ethics Newsline® editor Carl Hausman

“After that day, people looked at us a little different. There was a palpable feeling…. We knew that something monumental had happened, that we were in deep water. And we felt like we weren’t getting anything done. We were going up and coming down, but they weren’t listening to a darn thing we were saying…. We sent many memos up the chain of command. I thought it was a huge issue. The coalition knew about it, but … nothing was ever done. I felt it was completely ignored. I mean, how many of these incidents does it take before you’re finally aware?”

– Matthew Degn, a U.S. army veteran, civilian contractor, and senior policy adviser to Iraq’s Interior Ministry, talking to the Washington Post about the effect of the Sep. 16 killing of Iraqi civilians by guards from the private U.S. security firm Blackwater. According to Degn and others who spoke to the Post, the U.S. government “disregarded numerous warnings over the past two years about the risks of using Blackwater Worldwide and other private security firms in Iraq, expanding their presence even after a series of shooting incidents showed that the firms were operating with little regulation or oversight, according to government officials, private security firms and documents.”

Source: Washington Post, Dec. 24, 2007.

In other news, new regulations clamp down on Web access, a noted sports entrepreneur swept up in corruption scandal is sentenced to prison, and a province in central China establishes a code of conduct for judges

BEIJING
China, a nation with an exploding economy as well as burgeoning problems with corruption, ethics, and free expression, last week was the focus of a variety of ethics stories:

• China has published a national code of ethics for public officials. The BBC reports that the list is called the “Ten Taboos,” and bans bribery, distributing anything of value in the quest to receive a government job, giving incentives for school admission, and using dirty tricks — such as text messages or Web postings — to harm rivals. According to the BBC, the move comes in advance of a reshuffling in provincial legislatures and reflects the nation’s growing concern with widespread corruption.
• China will add another layer of censorship onto the increasingly freewheeling and politically threatening Internet by restricting video-sharing websites. The London Daily Telegraph reports that new rules, coming into effect at the end of January, will require that all sites where video can be downloaded must not only be licensed, but those licenses will be granted only to state-controlled companies. The Telegraph reports that the new regulations apparently are targeted at the frequent video postings of riots and protests — subjects often covered up by the official media.
• The sports promoter who brought Formula One auto racing to China was sentenced last week to four years in prison for embezzling about $150,000 from a previous enterprise, the Reuters news agency reports. According to prosecutors, Yu Zhifei embezzled the money from a soccer team in order to fund the purchase of his home. He was one of a dozen officials and businessmen swept up in a highly publicized corruption sweep last year.
• Responding to protests over claims of rudeness and officiousness by judges, a Chinese provincial court has imposed a formal code of conduct. UPI reports that the High Court of Hunan Province lists 55 banned behaviors for judges, including drinking before court, swearing, and interrupting lawyers. In addition, the code also lists phrases specifically forbidden.

Sources: Daily Telegraph, Jan. 4 — BBC, Jan. 4 — Reuters, Jan. 3 — UPI, Dec. 18, 2007.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Nov. 13, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 5, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 22, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 15 2007 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 10, 2007.

Reports say website makes customers’ purchases available to scrutiny of others; in related news, some say the company installs intrusive tracking software on the computers of Web visitors

SAN FRANCISCO
Sears was hit with a barrage of criticism last week after news organizations reported that the retailer had allowed data on customer purchases to be accessible on a website.

ComputerWorld reports that the Sears-related site, which provides downloads of product manuals, product tips, and home renovation tips, also has a “Find Your Products” feature that lets customers look up past purchases.

The problem, reports the Washington Post, is that anyone armed with a name, phone number, and address can download histories of past purchases — theirs and anyone else’s. The Post displayed an example in which a researcher displayed purchases that his parents’ neighbors made from Sears over nearly a decade (blanking out the names and address on the screenshot).

Critics say in addition to the intrusiveness issue, consumers should be concerned about burglars, who could theoretically use information available in the phone book to canvass a neighborhood to see who has made expensive purchases recently.

Sears did not immediately respond to the ComputerWorld report.

Privacy advocates also criticized the company for installing what they characterize as spyware on computers of surfers who visited another company website over the holidays, reports the technology network CNET. The software installed by the site when users join the particular community tracks users’ online behavior.

Spyware is typically defined as software that secretly monitors user behavior, transmits private data to a third party, and sometimes alters computer and Web browser functions. But there is some dispute over the boundary between what makes up acceptable tracking and what is characterized as spyware.

According to a report from the London Daily Register, Sears says it goes to great lengths to alert consumers to the tracking aspect of the software.

A university researcher who is a critic of the firm says the warning comes on page 10 of a 54-page privacy statement.

Sources: ComputerWorld, Jan. 4 — Washington Post, Jan. 4 — CNET, Jan. 4 — Register, Jan. 4.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Dec. 3, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 5, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 1, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 10, 2007 — Related Newsline story, June 4, 2007.

Political donor sentenced to prison; lobbyists locating loopholes in new legislation; Iraqi official says the oil-for-food scandal is responsible for his nation’s ‘culture of corruption’

WASHINGTON and BAGHDAD
Issues related to the flow of money in U.S. and international politics made news last week. Among the stories:

• A prominent donor to several U.S. political campaigns was sentenced to three years in prison last week on a 16-year-old fraud conviction. The Associated Press reports that Norman Hsu had lived a surprisingly public life despite the 1992 conviction, eventually turning himself in on Aug. 31, 2007, but then fleeing again. Hsu’s background created problems for Hillary Rodham Clinton and other prominent Democrats, who returned money he had donated and raised, Bloomberg reports.
• Lobbyists are exploiting creative interpretations of U.S. congressional ethics rules in order to make their presence known, according to a report from the New York Times. In one case, lobbyists for the liquor industry will still be allowed to stage lavish parties at this year’s political conventions as long as they don’t name a particular elected official as an “honoree.” The paper also reports that enforcement of a provision requiring disclosure of names of those who “bundle” campaign contributions is being held up by a Senate deadlock over nominees to the Federal Election Commission.
• Iraq’s deputy prime minister Barham Saleh, speaking to an anticorruption forum in Baghdad, said that his nation’s culture of corruption stems from the actions of the international community and the United Nations’ oil-for-food program, the Agence France-Presse reports. The oil-for-food program was in effect for seven years before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and allowed the nation to sell oil only in return for cash used to buy food and medicine. But the program was plagued by kickbacks and abuse, with Saddam Hussein’s regime eventually diverting about $1.8 billion.

Sources: Bloomberg, Jan. 5 — AP, Jan. 4 — New York Times, Jan. 4 — AFP, Jan. 3.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Dec. 3, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 17, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Aug. 20, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Aug. 13, 2007 — Related Newsline story, May 29, 2007.

Eugene Plotkin was convicted of using insider tips and advance copies of press reports to plot stock trades

NEW YORK
A former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. investment banking associate who helped mastermind a $6-million insider trading ring was sentenced to almost five years in prison last Thursday.
MarketWatch reports that Eugene Plotkin also will be ordered to forfeit millions in illicit profits.

The London-based Banking Times reports that the plot revolved around trading maneuvers using inside tips, including copies of articles in business publications viewed by Plotkin and his co-conspirators prior to publication.

Plotkin was able to plan trades and capitalize on changes in share prices that would result predictably from positive or negative press reports, reports the Los Angeles Times.

He also profited from tip-offs from stock analysts regarding future mega-mergers, according to a report from the Times of London.

Sources: Times of London, Jan. 4 — Los Angeles Times, Jan. 4 — MarketWatch, Jan. 3 — Banking Times, Jan. 3.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Apr. 23, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 12, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 5, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 27, 2006 — Related Newsline story, June 19, 2006.

At issue: cloning, conditions faced by mass-produced chickens, and safety of pet foods

VARIOUS DATELINES
Questions over animal-welfare ethics were prominent in last week’s news. Among the top stories:

• The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is leaning toward ruling that meat and milk from cloned animals are safe to eat, Forbes reports. Cloning of farm animals invokes a variety of ethical and scientific issues, including safety of the food supply, the impact of high-tech cloning of prize cattle on farms that choose to practice old-fashioned selective breeding methods, and claims that cloned animals will suffer because they tend to have more health problems at birth than conventionally bred animals, according to the report.
• Farming practices in Britain have sparked an ethics debate as a covertly taken video of factory-farmed chickens making its way around the Web. London’s Independent reports that the video shows thousands of chicks, some of which are limping or lifeless, crammed into a dimly lit shed. Critics have called on supermarkets and food distributors to stop selling meat from mass-produced chickens, saying the animals’ lives are often short and painful. In addition, critics claim that the birds typically have trouble walking because their legs cannot support their abnormally large bodies, which are genetically bred for high meat production.
• A South Carolina pet-food firm has agreed to a $3.1 million settlement in a class action lawsuit involving toxic dog food. The State of Columbia, South Carolina, reports that Diamond Pet Foods will establish a settlement fund to reimburse people who bought the contaminated food, which was linked to the deaths of 30 dogs. The company did not admit wrongdoing, but acknowledged that it failed to follow its own testing guidelines for ingredients delivered to one of its plants, according to the State.

Sources: State, Jan. 4 — Forbes, Jan. 4 — Independent, Jan. 4.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Nov. 19, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 22, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 15, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 1, 2007 — Related Newsline Commentary, Sep. 17, 2007.

The little-known service is free, and can help resolve questions about life support, treatment options

BOSTON
An “ethics consult,” a service available in 81 percent of U.S. hospitals, can help patients and their families resolve conflicts of values and disputes over preservation of life, the Boston Globe reports.

Globe health correspondent Judy Foreman notes that most people don’t know such a service exists, but ethics consults are available in all U.S. hospitals with over 400 beds, according to a survey published by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Ethics consults are free, according to the report, and typically deal with decisions about when to end life support, options for an incapacitated patient, or who the decision maker should be in various situations.

The ethics consults usually are made by specially trained hospital personnel, including doctors, nurses, and chaplains.

The story quotes Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, as advocating ethics consults if someone, either a medical provider or a family member, becomes domineering and does not listen to others’ views.

“Think of an ethics consult as dispute resolution,” Caplan told the Globe. “The time to go to an ethics consult is when things get heated. And if the word ‘lawsuit’ is crossing your mind, talk to the ethics committee.”

Source: Boston Globe, Jan. 4.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Nov. 5, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 29, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 17, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Aug. 13, 2007 — Related Newsline story, July 23, 2007.

Link between social responsibility and profit seems weak, says research team; U.K. accountants focus on ethics, perhaps out of self-preservation; and IndustryWeek report advises corporations to keep an ethical eye on the supply chain

NEW YORK and LONDON
Business ethics was the topic for several industry analyses last week:

• Doing good may be its own reward, say two business professors, who claim that social responsibility is only weakly correlated with profit. The Wall Street Journal reports that Harvard Business School professor Joshua Margolis and Berkeley professor Hillary Anger Elfenbein say that after reviewing 167 studies over the past 35 years, they conclude that the correlation between financial success and social responsibility is so weak that it may suggest that financial success leads to companies being charitable, rather than the commonly held assumption that doing good deeds leads to profit. But being socially conscious rarely hurts the shareholder, they contend, and it obviously is possible to do good and do well financially at the same time.
• A prominent educator who specializes in teaching ethics to accountants tells the Financial Times that the most important aspect of ethics education is to equip people to think through ethical dilemmas and have a moral framework to support their decisions. David Molyneaux, a former partner at Coopers and Lybrand and a practicing Church of Scotland minister, says the collapse of the Andersen accounting firm and the frauds at Enron and WorldCom have disabused the notion that the ethics of professionals can be taken for granted. In the piece, Financial Times correspondent Ian Fraser reports that ethics has been “moving up the agenda” for accounting firms worldwide, with many ethics codes being written or rewritten. “There is a degree of self-interest involved,” Fraser writes. “Professionals such as accountants are acutely aware that unless they can demonstrate a firm commitment to raising and policing ethical standards, some of their special privileges, including the monopoly they enjoy over auditing, could be stripped away.”
• Managing the supply chain offers a way to plug “ethics gaps” in corporations, according to a report from IndustryWeek, which notes that a recent survey found that 78 percent of companies do not include suppliers in their compliance and negligence programs, and 58 percent report they are not sure if their company monitors ethics risks in the supply chain. “Being an ethical company isn’t enough anymore,” Richard Cellini, vice president of Integrity Interactive, the company that conducted the survey, told IndustryWeek. “Enterprises are being judged by the company they keep, which means the whole supply chain must be ethical. If a dishonest supplier 6,000 miles away disregards manufacturing standards to make more profit, it reflects on the U.S. company that hired the supplier. The public holds the supplier accountable — not the outsourced vendor.”

Sources: Wall Street Journal, Jan. 4 — Financial Times, Jan. 4 — IndustryWeek, Jan. 4.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Oct. 15, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Aug. 20, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 20, 2006 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 5, 2007 — Related Newsline Commentary, Oct. 3, 2005.

Poll finds sinking expectations for the coming year

From the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press:

“The American public begins the new year with a highly negative view of national conditions and tempered expectations for 2008. Half of Americans say that as far as they are concerned, 2008 will be a better year than 2007, while 34% say it will be worse. In December 2006, and in several end-of-year surveys during the 1990s, there was greater optimism about the coming year.

“Public views of the state of the nation are even less positive than people’s personal expectations for the coming year. Just 27% say they are satisfied with national conditions, while 66% are dissatisfied. Positive views of the state of the nation have been mired at about 30% for most of the past two years….

“President Bush’s approval rating also remains at a low point at the start of his final year in office. Just 31% approve of the president’s job performance, while 60% disapprove. Bush’s approval rating has been below 40% since February 2006.

“The latest national survey … finds that the public is looking forward to the presidential election much more than several other major events on the 2008 calendar. Fully 70% say they are especially looking forward to the November election…. [T]his is slightly more than say they are looking forward to the Olympics (52%) or the Super Bowl (49%), and far more than are anticipating the World Series and the Academy Awards….

“A plurality of Americans (23%) cite Iraq as the single most important news event of 2007, but significantly fewer named Iraq as the year’s top event than did so in 2006 (34%). Pew surveys have shown that public attentiveness to the war, which was extensive early in 2007, declined later in the year.

“Aside from Iraq, no single event stood out in the public’s view as the most important in 2007. Overall, 4% volunteered natural disasters and the weather and 3% cited the home mortgage crisis, with smaller numbers naming other stories….”

For the full press release, Jan. 4, click here.

“Let us not dream that reason can ever be popular. Passions, emotions, may be made popular, but reason remains ever the property of the few.”

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