On Tuesday, April 8, the Institute for Global Ethics will be presenting a Moral Courage™ Seminar in Washington, D.C. This event will be held at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and will run from 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. Facilitated by Institute founder Rushworth M. Kidder, this seminar is an interactive, small-group immersion course, based on Dr. Kidder’s latest book, Moral Courage. The course helps participants understand the importance of moral courage in 21st-century culture, identify it and define its elements, put it into practice, and help others recognize and embody it.

At the end of the course, participants should be able to:

• Recognize circumstances requiring moral courage
• Determine their own responsibilities for action
• Analyze properly the threats they face if they act
• Expand their own capacities for courageous endurance
• Enhance their capacities for practicing moral courage
• Help others grasp and express moral courage

The total cost for the course, including a continental breakfast and lunch, is $425. To register or pose further inquiry, please contact John Ragozzine at jragozzine@globalethics.org or call 1-800-729-2615.

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

by Rushworth M. Kidder

Last week, when the flap over Sen. Barack Obama’s linguistic borrowing broke into the open, I was reminded of one of the saddest instances of plagiarism I’ve ever encountered.

It happened in the pre-computer age, when I was teaching freshman writing. At the semester’s end, a fellow faculty member showed me a term paper she had received from a less-than-stellar student. On the day it was due, he had shoved it breathlessly into her hand as he raced to meet another deadline.

That evening she started reading it, taking out the pages one by one from the pocket of its folder. After the first page, she was impressed. By page two she was suspicious. By page three, convinced it was plagiarized, she began wondering how to locate the original. And then she pulled out the last page. There, tucked into the pocket behind the paper and fatally forgotten, was an article clipped from Reader’s Digest. It matched his paper word for word with one exception: He’d crossed out “self-flagellation” in the original and penned in “self-condemnation,” avoiding a word she would have realized he didn’t know. Predictably, he failed the course.

How far we’ve come since those days — and how little has changed. To be sure, computers have brought us into the click-and-cheat world, where phrases, paragraphs, and whole papers are just a download away. But the underlying moral question remains: Why plagiarize?

Sometimes it’s sheer incompetence, an inability to communicate. Sometimes it’s mere haste, with deadlines crushing inward and no time to write. Sometimes it’s a jealous greed, welling up when someone else’s words seem more artistic or compelling than your own. And sometimes it’s an artistic borrowing — more common in jazz or painting than in literature — done to pay homage to the great masters through the flattery of imitation.

None of these, however, seems to fit last week’s kerfuffle over Obama’s borrowing of several sentences from his friend and supporter Deval Patrick, governor of Massachusetts. Despite Gov. Patrick’s insistence that he offered those words freely to Obama, Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign accused him of plagiarism. “If your candidacy is going to be about words,” she said, referring to his hallmark capacity for inspirational oratory, “then they should be your own words.”

Was Obama plagiarizing? If he was, it’s hard to see a motive. He’s hardly an incompetent communicator. Yes, he’s pressed for time, but that’s been true for months in this exhausting campaign, and he’s never run out of things to say. Jealousy? His own political oratory far outstrips that of his peers. Paying homage? That would work only if Deval Patrick were a household name and his words were widely recognizable.

So can we charge it up, instead, to the peculiar way language is used, reused, and recycled in the cyclotron of modern politics? Since most politicians employ speechwriters, it’s well understood that candidates’ sentences are not all of their own designing. What’s more, candidates regularly issue talking points — in the expectation that those very words will be repeated so earnestly and with such conviction that they will appear to have sprung right from the mind of the supporters who repeat them. Finally, they understand that language, like weaponry, is to be strategically employed to make things happen — and that, when it proves particularly effective, it shouldn’t be discarded but refined, repurposed, and used over and over.

Yet a stark fact remains: Had Obama handed in this speech to my colleague, he would have flunked her course.

That fact suggests a certain hypocrisy in our culture, which is that we say one thing to the young and do something else as adults. How will we persuade students to avoid plagiarism in the educational arena when we permit it in the political sphere? Our dilemma seems stark. On one hand, we could ban borrowing and send the speechwriters packing, which would create a level of public rhetoric even more drab and uninspired than we currently endure. On the other, we could shrug off plagiarism or even encourage it as we teach writing, which, by leaving only the most committed students to learn how to compose their own sentences, would create an oligarchy of the articulate overseeing frustrated hordes of those unable to say what they think.

But we don’t have to accept that dilemma. There’s a trilemma option here. Suppose the rule were that we always credit others, not only for direct quotes but for identifiable sequences of ideas. Suppose Obama’s sentence had begun, “My friend Deval Patrick made this point beautifully when he said….” The point still gets made, Obama is seen as a generous spirit, and his own excellence is enhanced by acknowledging brilliance in others.

Why does this matter? Because Obama’s phenomenal success so far rests in part on a public revulsion at a civic rhetoric that recently has grown so drab as to be almost inarticulate. There’s a hunger for inspiration — not only from ideas, but from language that uplifts and motivates. The saddest outcome would be for Obama inadvertently to telegraph to every student in the land that in order to reach true inspiration, a little plagiarism is okay.

Oh, and one more thing: That phrase I used earlier — “the flattery of imitation” — is an allusion to Charles Caleb Colton’s well-known dictum that “imitation is the sincerest flattery.” See how easy it is to attribute?

©2008 Institute for Global Ethics

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

For more information, see: Related Newsline Commentary, Apr. 2, 2007 — Related Newsline Commentary, May 1, 2006 — Related Newsline Commentary, Jan. 16, 2006 — Related Newsline Commentary, June 24, 2002 — Related Newsline Commentary, Feb. 4, 2002.

“Religion is the single most important factor that drives American belief attitudes and behaviors. It is a powerful indicator of where America will end up on politics, culture, family life. If you want to understand America, you have to understand religion in America.”

– Michael Lindsay, assistant director of the Center on Race, Religion and Urban Life at Rice University, speaking to the New York Times about a new poll from the Pew Research Center that tracks the U.S. population’s adoption, abandonment, and switching of religious affiliation. The poll found that “more than a quarter of adult Americans have left the faith of their childhood to join another religion or no religion,” with “more than 16 percent of American adults say[ing] they are not part of any organized faith, which makes the unaffiliated the country’s fourth largest ‘religious group,’” notes the Times.

Source: New York Times, Feb. 25.

For more information, see: Full press release from Pew, Feb. 25 — TIME magazine, Feb. 25.

In other news about ethics and politics, a former associate of Randy “Duke” Cunningham is sentenced to federal prison, and a Canadian ethics committee wants former prime minister to make another appearance

VARIOUS DATELINES
Politics and ethics were the subjects of several major stories last week. Among them:

• An article linking presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain to a female lobbyist ignited a firestorm of criticism against the New York Times last week, with many complaining that the story was salacious and unsubstantiated. But others argued that if it were indeed true, the paper should have published the story sooner so that voters in the early primaries would have had a chance to take it into consideration. Newspaper trade journal Editor & Publisher reports that in the wake of the story, a whopping 2,400 comments were posted on the Times’s website, the vast majority being negative and many protesting the paper’s use of anonymous sources. Though the Times was also drubbed by its own public editor, the paper defended itself, writing that many of those quoted in the story were afraid of retribution and saying the larger theme of the article — McCain’s cozy relationship with lobbyists — warranted its publication.
• Brent Wilkes, a California defense contractor, last week was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison for bribing former Republican congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham. The San Diego Union Tribune reports that Wilkes was convicted of 13 felony counts revolving around $90 million in Pentagon contracts funneled to him from Cunningham, who is serving an eight-year term for accepting bribes from Wilkes and others.
• The chairman of Canada’s Commons Ethics Committee says he may subpoena Brian Mulroney, the former prime minster, to detail his dealings with a German-Canadian arms dealer. The Ottawa Sun reports that the inquiry, which focuses on allegations that funds from the arms dealer were sent to Mulroney while he was still in office, has been condemned by Mulroney as a political vendetta. Mulroney’s lawyers have complained that the committee treated him harshly in his previous appearance.

Sources: Editor & Publisher, Feb. 22 — San Diego Union Tribune, Feb. 22 — Ottawa Sun, Feb. 22 — New York Times‘ responses to readers’ questions about the McCain article, Feb. 21.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Feb. 18 — Related Newsline Commentary, Jan. 22 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 29, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 15, 2007 — Related Newsline story, May 22, 2006.

Advocates say the pilot program will limit duplication and errors, but privacy advocates worry about what will happen to data

CLEVELAND
A high-tech arrangement that will put patients’ medical records online has privacy advocates worried.

USA Today reports that a pilot program will put records of several thousand Cleveland Clinic patients online through a new service offered by search engine Google. The records can be accessed by anyone to whom the patient gives permission.

Patients who enroll in Google’s program can tie all records to a single account, use Google’s search engine to find other practices that take part in the program, and share their information with a mouse-click.

The interface, called GoogleHealth, also could be used to request prescription renewals, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

An analysis by InformationWeek notes that the current system of medical records, residing largely on paper and squirreled away in various offices, results in duplication, wasted effort, and errors. But the prospect of putting medical records online faces some thorny privacy issues, including uncertainty about the way data will be handled by various service providers.

While there are strict laws about patient privacy in traditional health-care settings, there is no federal regulation about what “middle-level players can do with your data,” David Lansky, senior director of the health program at the John and Mary R. Markle Foundation, a nonprofit studying information technology in health care, told BusinessWeek.

Sources: USA Today, Feb. 22 — InformationWeek, Feb. 22 — Cleveland Plain Dealer, Feb. 22 — BusinessWeek, Feb. 22.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Jan. 28 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 31, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 17, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 10, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 3, 2007.

The subprime crisis continues to reverberate; ethical investments grow in popularity, but a recent study suggests you should look under the hood before signing up for a fund

VARIOUS DATELINES
The junction of finance and ethics was the locale for a variety of reports last week. Among the stories:

• The New York Times reports that the Bush administration and Congress are trying to come to a compromise on legislation relating to one of the year’s biggest financial-ethics dilemmas: whether to bail out homeowners who find themselves underwater in the wake of rising loan rates and declining home values. About 10 percent of homeowners, owe more on their homes than the property is worth — a figure unmatched since the Depression — the Times reports. While the administration has declared it will not bail out homeowners or banks who behaved irresponsibly, reinforcing what is known in economics as the “moral hazard” of rewarding risky behavior, the fact that current efforts to slow the housing collapse are stalled means that Washington will be forced to explore new ideas, according to the Times. Among the ideas now back on the table is a federal mortgage guarantee for troubled buyers.
• Some credit card companies are raising rates — virtually doubling them in some instances — for customers with good repayment records. The McClatchy News Service reports that industry analysts speculate that credit card companies, squeezed by economic factors related to the subprime crisis, are taking advantage of the fact that card rates can be hiked based on what a company calls “external factors” related to credit ratings but not directly tied to payment records for the individual card. An industry spokesperson interviewed by McClatchy said rate hikes are business as usual and actually benefit other consumers with superior credit ratings.
• So-called ethical investments are becoming increasingly popular in the United Kingdom as investors perceive that the ethical vehicles offer lower risk, according to the London-based Banking Times. In an interview posted on the website of the London Stock Exchange, industry analyst Mark Robertson noted, “Increasingly, investors are realizing that the companies that manage environmental, social, and governance issues well tend to be less exposed to risk and thus are potentially more attractive investment propositions, especially in the longer term.”
• MarketWatch.com last week followed up on a story making waves in the ethical-investment world: a study from a London financial advisory firm claiming that some funds that label themselves as ethical and say they invest in companies that support the environment, fair trade, or similar causes actually have less than 1 percent of their total portfolio in such vehicles. MarketWatch “Ethics Monitor” columnist Thomas Kostigen writes: “Unless you examine the underlying holdings of an ethical fund, it seems there is no guarantee that what you are investing in will adhere to your own principles. That’s why it’s important to look under the hood of any ethical investment fund — any investment fund for that matter — and see exactly what you are getting for your money.”
• A separate study shows that demands for ethical funds has risen sharply in the past year, according to the Scotsman. A study by the Co-operative Insurance firm says that of those planning to invest in an Individual Savings Account, an investment arrangement popular in Britain, 85 percent said they would consider an ethical scheme, compared to 67 percent last year. The study also showed that the amount of money under management by ethical funds rose 18 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007.

Sources: McClatchy News Service, Feb. 20 — New York Times, Feb. 22 — Banking Times, Feb. 22 — MarketWatch, Feb. 22 — London Stock Exchange, Feb. 21 — Scotsman, Feb. 11.

For more information, see: Related Newsline Commentary, Feb. 18 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 18 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 11 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 28 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 10, 2007.

Ethics implications of widening genetic database trouble many critics

LONDON and WASHINGTON
An ethics debate over police use of genetic tracking is escalating throughout the United Kingdom. The Wall Street Journal reports that the latest wrinkle involves tracking suspects through family members’ DNA to solve open cases of murder and sexual assault.

According to the Journal, law enforcement officials are searching genetic traits of family members who have DNA profiles on file. So far, about 20 cases have been solved using the technique, which can lead police to a close relative of a suspect, with standard investigative work then used to track down the alleged perpetrator.

Journal reporter Gautam Naik writes that DNA profiling is facing some opposition on ethical grounds: “Civil-liberties groups oppose the rapid expansion of DNA databases, arguing that they risk placing sensitive personal information in the hands of the government. Unlike old-fashioned fingerprints, they say, DNA contains health and hereditary data such as paternity markers that could be misused. Leaked data, for example, could be used to deny insurance coverage or employment to people identified as being at risk for a genetic disease.”

In addition, Naik reports, critics say that a type of DNA reference testing that identifies racial characteristics can mislead police or reinforce existing prejudices.

But advocates of widening DNA testing say the ends will justify the means. The British Press Association reports that a recent case solved by DNA profiling — the murder of an 18-year-old model — points to the need for a larger, more comprehensive database. Detective superintendent Stuart Cundy told the Press Association that the man convicted in the killing had 16 previous convictions in Britain, but all were from before the time police routinely took DNA. Reuters reports that Scotland Yard detectives are speculating that the same man may have killed before, possibly in Australia.

About four million DNA profiles are currently on file in Britain, according to the Times of London.

U.K. police are seeking broader powers to let them take DNA samples from people charged with minor infractions such as speeding or littering, and some political leaders are calling for a database that includes samples from all citizens, regardless of whether they have any record of offenses.

In a related story, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is currently trying to develop a system that will make recordings of a human voice as identifiable and searchable as fingerprints, according to a report from National Public Radio.

The system, which feeds audio through a computer, has been used to verify tapes purported to be from Osama bin Laden. While the technology is not yet capable of producing a voice-match admissible in court, officials say the science is advancing rapidly, according to NPR.

Sources: Times of London, Feb. 23 — Wall Street Journal, Feb. 22 — Reuters, Feb. 22 — U.K. Press Association, Feb. 22 — NPR, Jan. 28.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Jan. 14 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 29, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 15, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 9, 2006 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 14, 2003.

There’s a new allegation of spying by the New England Patriots; NFL weighs an electronic system that proponents say could cut signal stealing; ethics questions complicate plans for the Olympics

VARIOUS DATELINES
Sports, often regarded as a microcosm of conflict in life, lived up to that description last week as issues related to cheating and human rights dominated coverage. Among the stories:

• The New England Patriots, the U.S. football team caught up in a spying scandal after it was revealed that a team photographer surreptitiously taped opposing teams’ signals, began stealing signals much earlier than initially suspected, according to an allegation by a former Patriots player, UPI reports. The player, who was not identified, raised the claim as NFL coaches and executives gathered for a scouting meeting in Indianapolis, according to a report from the Baltimore Sun. The Patriots and coach Bill Belichick were sanctioned for the illicit signal stealing, which is prohibited by the NFL.
• In a related story, members of the NFL’s competition committee have floated a proposal to allow one defensive player to be fitted with a helmet radio receiver connected to the coaching staff. The Washington Post reports that backers say the radio channel would eliminate the need for hand signals — and reduce the likelihood of signal theft. Currently, the team’s quarterback, the lead offensive player, is connected to the coach with a closely monitored radio helmet receiver. Proposals to have the defensive team connected have been turned down by team owners in past years.
• Sports and ethics issues are an uneasy mix this year, as a variety of activists have waged various protests about China, the nation hosting the Olympic Games in August. Among the protests, according to a report from the Western Mail of Cardiff, Wales, are complaints that China trades with Sudan, whose regime is blamed for human rights violations in Darfur. A letter of protest, signed by a group of Nobel Peace laureates, demands that China stop trading with Sudan. Film director Stephen Spielberg recently resigned as artistic director for the event. In a Sunday editorial, the Dallas Morning News noted that protests by Spielberg and others have raised questions about how actively participants and sponsors should make their human rights views known. While coming out against a government boycott, the Morning News did call on private citizens to deliver “plenty of strong messages” about China’s behavior.
• A doping scandal led to some awkward reverberations last week as former sprinter Linford Christie was invited — and then uninvited — to carry the Olympic torch through London. The Independent reports that Christie, who has a lifetime Olympics ban after testing positive for steroids in 1999, received an invitation from the office of London mayor Ken Livingston. A spokesman for the mayor later said the letter had been sent by mistake. Christie repeatedly has denied taking steroids, according to the Guardian.

Sources: Dallas Morning News, Feb. 24 — UPI, Feb. 22 — Washington Post, Feb. 22 — Baltimore Sun, Feb. 22 — Guardian, Feb. 22 — Western Mail, Feb. 22.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Feb. 18 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 22 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 19, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 17, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 5, 2007.

Some stories from the world press highlight the difficulty of confronting copyright infringement — including the definition of “theft”

VARIOUS DATELINES
New studies show that illegal downloading continues to be popular among the young, and according to various reports from the international media, the issue remains the focus of an intense legal, ethical, and semantic debate. Among the stories:

• A survey in the high-tech hotspot of Taiwan shows that young Internet users there are poorly informed about the ethics, legality, and safety of the things they download. Radio Taiwan International reports that a survey from a Taiwan business association found that 80 percent of respondents said they downloaded music for free, with about half of those respondents saying they did not know whether the downloads were legal. More than half admitted that their computers were infected by viruses after a download.
• Los Angeles Times editorial writer Jon Healy looked at some of the semantic ammunition being used in the legal and ethics battles over illegal downloading in a column last week. The recording and movie industries, he notes, “contend that copyrights are indeed property, entitled to the same protection as a home or a car. To counter the notion of ’sharing,’ they’ve advanced an equally powerful metaphor: downloading as theft. ‘When you go online and download songs without permission, you are stealing,’ the Recording Industry Assn. of American says on its website…. The imagery has been echoed by the news media, lawmakers, and college administrators.” But Healy argues that the metaphor can be overdone, citing legal experts who contend that simplistic comparisons to physical larceny make it easy for downloaders to ignore “histrionics” of this sort. Healy concludes that the issue involves balancing the interests of content creators against the public’s, which, he contends, is a much more complicated task than erecting a legal barrier against physical theft.
• Kansas City Star columnist Steve Rosen last week argued that illegal music downloading is a good chance for parents to teach their children a lesson on ethics. Citing figures from the NPD Market Research Firm showing that nearly a third of youths age 9 to 14 are downloading music illegally, Rosen called for parents to intervene: “I found the survey troubling for a range of reasons,” Rosen writes, “starting with basic right and wrong ethical issues of children engaging in illegal activity. What the study also showed is that many young children growing up in this digital age are unsupervised online. In fact, two-thirds of the tweens surveyed by NPD said they use the Internet without parental supervision. An additional 59 percent said they downloaded music without parental assistance.”

Sources: Radio Taiwan International, Feb. 21 — Kansas City Star, Feb. 19 — Los Angeles Times, Feb. 18.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Nov. 26, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 22, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 8, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 11, 2006 — Related Newsline story, June 5, 2006.

Report finds that most firms prefer a relatively hands-off approach when third parties’ ethics codes differ from their own

From the Conference Board:

“The most common method for handling third party ethics and compliance issues is to adopt and stick to a code of practice or policies that governs the manner in which a company’s own employees deal with third parties, according to a report released today by The Conference Board.

“Ninety-five percent of the 169 companies surveyed by The Conference Board and the Ethics and Compliance Officer Association (ECOA) for the report on the essentials of corporate third party ethics programs said that while it is vitally important to address third party ethics and compliance issues through codes of conduct for their own employees, they are less inclined to involve third parties directly in these programs.

“‘With the exception of helplines or whistle-blowing systems, the direct inclusion of third parties in companies’ ethics and compliance programs is the exception, not the rule,’ says Ronald E. Berenbeim, principal researcher at The Conference Board and author of the report with Rebecca Walker, an attorney specializing in corporate compliance and business ethics. ‘Nevertheless, companies are growing more dependent on third party relationships for the achievement of business objectives — either via joint venture, which may be mandated for entering into a new country, or working with suppliers or contractors.’…

“‘Companies struggle with the competing tensions that arise from developing business relationships with local partners that aren’t always mindful or responsive to a broad range of stakeholder concerns such as environmental compliance, health and safety, and human rights,’ according to Walker….

“Background or due diligence checks are also preferred to insisting that the third party adopt the company’s ethics and compliance programs or maintain its own system. Seventy-seven percent of respondents perform checks on certain third parties prior to entering into a business relationship; 74 percent scrutinize agents; and about half subject all categories of third parties to due diligence. Disabling financial or legal conditions are more likely than reputational impairments to be the subject matter of due diligence searches….

“Ethics and compliance training programs are the third most frequent step that survey participants take in extending their own program to third parties. Slightly more than one-third (38 percent) of survey participants offer but don’t insist on some kind of training program for third parties….

“Company audits of third party compliance with ethics policies and practices are infrequent, and a majority of the companies that audit don’t do so routinely. Slightly more than 35 percent of the survey participants perform audits or otherwise verify that third parties conduct themselves as required by the company’s own compliance and ethics policies. Of this group, slightly less than half conduct audits on a routine basis, while the remainder focuses their audits on specific concerns.

“The surveyed companies showed little interest in the third party’s own ethics programs. Slightly more than one quarter of the survey respondents ask third parties whether or not they have them, but only 14 percent of respondents ask for documentation. Companies are especially likely to seek information on the third party’s compliance program when considering an acquisition or a joint venture….

“The implementation of a means for third parties to report concerns or misconduct was ranked as the easiest means of ensuring appropriate third party compliance; monitoring third party behavior for compliance (arguably one of the key objectives for establishing such as system) was rated by far the most difficult….”

For the full press release from the Conference Board, Feb. 12, click here.

“Safe popular freedom consists of four things — the diffusion of liberty, of intelligence, of property, and of conscientiousness — and cannot be compounded of any three out of the four.”

– Joseph Cook (Sixth prime minister of Australia, 1860-1947)