Ethics Newsline®

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

by Rushworth M. Kidder

Is it ever right to tell only half a truth?

Ordinarily, Lara would be the first to say no. As a manager of global information technologies for a Fortune 500 multinational, Lara (not her real name) has seen too many occasions where half-truths and spin have muddied the waters and damaged careers.

But then her son Troy turned 11.

When he was seven, Lara told me, he was diagnosed with a mild case of attention deficit disorder (ADD). After she and her husband consulted a doctor, they decided to put him on the drug Ritalin. It “took the edge off,” she recalls, “and helped him to concentrate.”

Over the next four years, his schooling progressed well. His energy and zest never seemed anything more than the typical rambunctious creativity of young boys. As a result, Lara and her husband saw no reason to change the original dosage, even as his body grew. So after four years, and with a doctor’s guidance, they took him off the drug entirely for one summer. He was fine.

As fall approached, Lara faced a tough choice. It wasn’t about whether to go back to the drug; she felt sure that was behind them. It was about what to say about Troy’s prior use of it. He was heading into a new school where nobody knew his past. Should she let the staff know about his medical history?

On the one hand, she felt she had an obligation to tell. She and her husband strongly believed that “when you are dealing with people who are educating your children, they need to understand your child” so that they can “create environments where kids learn really well.” For her, schooling is “a two-way street.” As parents, she says, “we have to work with our kids to make sure they’re getting their homework done so that the teachers can be successful.”

On the other hand, she had fought hard to help Troy avoid being labeled. She was keen to protect his identity as a healthy, vigorous individual rather than a child with ADD. “You read about people whose kids get labeled,” she says, “and you say, ‘I can’t believe that happened so fast!’ But children do get labeled pretty fast.” She felt Troy had made significant progress and that he needed to be able to prove himself without any preconceptions.

For Lara, it was a right-versus-right decision. She knew it was right to honor the community of educators, but it also was right to defend the individuality of her son. She saw the arguments for truth telling so clearly that, she admits, she felt deeply guilty about misleading the school. Yet her loyalty and responsibility to Troy made her want to protect him from the unwitting condemnation that had produced such harmful effects on other ADD children. With truth pitted against loyalty and with the rights of the individual conflicting with the needs of the community, there were powerful moral arguments stacked up on each side — and she couldn’t choose both at once.

Finally, after weighing both sides of this dilemma, she and her husband made a “conscious decision” to withhold the full story about their son. They said nothing about the ADD.

Shortly after the school year started, Lara went to her first parent-teacher conference — and was delighted by the “glowing results” she heard from the teacher. Troy was doing well in class, said the teacher, “his grades are good, and we love having him here.” Lara was so pleased, she said, that she admitted to the teacher that they had taken Troy off Ritalin that summer.

And with that, everything changed. The teacher “shook her head and said, ‘Oh, now I understand why I’m having so many problems with your son!’” From that point forward, Lara says, he was “immediately labeled. I kept receiving notices as to his performance issues, and everything went downhill.”

To this day, Lara says, “I’m convinced that she just decided to label him. It didn’t matter whether he was just being a typical kid. In her mind he wasn’t being typical, he was ‘that kid with ADD who needs to get on his medication again.’”

Troy is now 14, and he’s changed schools once again. Since that time, Lara admits, “I

have not told the school system a thing.” Troy is aware of his challenge and occasionally tells his mom that he’s had a tough time concentrating, and they talk about it. But she says he’s learning to handle it without drugs. “It was a tough fight going forward,” she concludes.

But was it an ethical fight? Was this a wise defense of his dignity — or a willful disobedience of regulations? That depends on how you see the moral arguments on both sides. Some would say that Lara did what every parent should do: take a firm stand against the all-too-human tendency, even among well-meaning educators, to see stereotypes instead of individuals. Others would say that every parent must share all such details with teachers — and that ethics depends less on how you see things turn out (fine, in this case) than on the principle (in this case, full disclosure) you’d like to see everyone follow.

Did Lara do the right thing? I’m eager to hear in your views. Email me your thoughts and your reasoning, which I’ll share in a future column.

©2008 Institute for Global Ethics

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

“The information I have received suggests an emerging pattern of political violence, inflicted mainly, but not exclusively, on rural supporters of the opposition M.D.C. party.”

– Louise Arbour, the United Nations’ top human rights official, in a statement last week, as reported in the New York Times. Press reports indicate widespread beatings, killings, burnings, and displacement of Zimbabweans believed to support candidates opposing incumbent president Robert Mugabe. Mugabe’s party has suppressed the results of last month’s presidential vote, prompting an international outcry that has been criticized by many as weak and ineffective.

Source: New York Times, Apr. 28.

For more information, see: New York Times, Apr. 27 — U.K. Sunday Times, Apr. 27 — New York Times, Apr. 26.

Critics claim the administration manipulated retired military officers in propaganda effort

WASHINGTON
The U.S. military announced last week it was suspending what had become an ethically controversial practice: conducting briefings for retired officers who frequently appear as independent military analysts on TV and radio.

Since 2002, the Pentagon has worked with dozens of military analysts, many of whom have undisclosed ties to companies seeking contracts related to Iraq, in “a campaign to generate favorable coverage of the administration’s wartime performance,” reported David Barstow of the New York Times.

Records and interviews “show that the Bush administration worked to transform the analysts into an instrument intended to shape coverage from inside the major networks,” claims a follow-up Times report.

“Internal Pentagon documents showed that Defense Department officials referred to the retired officers as ’surrogates’ or ‘message force multipliers’ who could be counted on to deliver administration ‘themes and messages’ in the form of their own opinions,” Barstow reports.

Lawmakers in both the Senate and House have asked that the program be investigated.

Rep. Ike Skelton, a Missouri Democrat who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, said “there is nothing inherently wrong with providing information to the public and press, but there is a problem if the Pentagon is providing special access to retired officers and then basically using them as pawns to spout the administration’s talking points of the day,” the Army publication Stars and Stripes reports.

Robert Hastings, the Pentagon’s assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, said the program would be suspended until an independent group, yet to be formed, could review the practice, according to reports from CNN and PBS.

News networks are also being eyed for their role in failing to disclose possible conflicts of interest among the analysts who have appeared tens of thousands of times on air.

“When you put analysts on the air without fully disclosing their business interests, as well as relationships with high-level officials within the government, the public trust is betrayed,” warned Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) in a letter asking five networks to “provide more information on procedures for vetting and hiring military analysts,” notes the Times.

Sources: New York Times, Apr. 26 — Stars and Stripes, Apr. 26 — CNN, Apr. 25 — Editor & Publisher, Apr. 25 — PBS Online Newshour, Apr. 24 — Q&A with Times reporter David Barstow, Apr. 21.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Apr. 21 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 17 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 5, 2005 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 21, 2005 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 31, 2005 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 20, 2004.

IOC head tells critics of China to back off; U.S. Senate ethics committee admonishes senator in aftermath of federal prosecutor firings; president-elect of Taiwan cleared of graft charges; British PM Gordon Brown calls for U.N. probe into events in Zimbabwe

VARIOUS DATELINES
Ethics issues concerning government, human rights, and allegations of corruption were highlighted by the world press last week. Among the stories:

• International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogge said the international community should stop hectoring China with criticism over its human rights record, UPI reports. “You can’t obtain anything in China with a loud voice,” Rogge warned. “It took us 200 years to evolve from the French Revolution. China started in 1949.” Rogge added: “The games we believe, over time, will have a good influence on social evolution in China.”
• U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics last week admonished Republican senator Pete Domenici (N.M.) for creating “an appearance of impropriety” when he called a U.S. attorney about a federal corruption case. According to a Reuters report, the panel criticized Domenici’s call to David Iglesias, one of nine federal prosecutors fired by the Bush administration. Iglesias later told lawmakers he felt pressured by the call, which concerned a probe into alleged voting irregularities by Democrats. While issuing a formal “qualified admonition,” the panel said it found no substantial evidence that Domenici tried to improperly influence the investigation.
• The Supreme Court of Taiwan last week upheld a 2007 ruling that acquitted Taiwanese president-elect Ma Ying-jeou of graft charges, reports the Jurist. Ma is due to take office next month. Ma was acquitted in August 2007 on charges “that he diverted $333,000 of public money into his private back account,” notes the Jurist.
• British prime minister Gordon Brown has called on the international community to protest what he called the “climate of fear” in Zimbabwe following the recent disputed elections there, the BBC reports. Brown spoke out against attacks on opposition activists and demanded a U.N. investigation into human rights abuses. The ruling party in Zimbabwe denies that anyone has died in political violence. As this edition of Newsline went to press, opposition parties had retained seven seats in Parliament, according to a report from ITV.

Sources: UPI, Apr. 26 — Reuters, Apr. 26 — Jurist, Apr. 26 — BBC, Apr. 26 — ITV, Apr. 26 — AFP, Apr. 24.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Apr. 14 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 5 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 31, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 24, 2007 — Related Newsline story, July 16, 2007.

U.S. News & World Reports notes that despite ethical baggage, laboratory-produced food may be timely development

LOS ANGELES
The animal-rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is offering a million-dollar prize for the first scientist who develops commercially viable “test-tube meat.”

National Public Radio reports that PETA says its prize money will go to the contest participant who can make the first in-vitro chicken meat and sell it to the public by June 30, 2012.

PETA president Ingrid Newkirk acknowledged that “many people are stunned” to hear that PETA is interested in lab-grown meat, but she says it is clear that members must overcome their “revulsion at flesh-eating” to achieve “a kinder world,” according to a report from the Scotsman.

The Toronto Star reports that while Newkirk insists “humans don’t need to eat meat at all,” she says that because many people “refuse to kick their meat addictions, PETA is willing to help them gain access to flesh that doesn’t cause suffering and death.”

The move enters an interesting ethics intersection because genetically engineered food products have themselves been at the center of controversy, notes an analysis from U.S. News & World Report. Science editor Ben Harder observes that with a global food shortage looming, the topic of lab-produced food probably has never been more timely.

In addition to preventing the killing of animals for food, Harder notes, lab-raised meat could stave off the ongoing destruction of the Amazon because soybeans, the current leading meat substitute, is cultivated in part by soybean farmers burning vast tracts of rainforest to plant their cash crop.

Sources: NPR, Apr. 25 — Toronto Star, Apr. 24 — U.S. News and World Report, Apr. 24 — Scotsman, Apr. 24.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Mar. 17 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 3 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 18 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 11 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 4.

Wachovia said to be ready to settle government claims that poor oversight cost customers money; survey says MBA students value ethics but contend their coursework may not prepare them for moral challenges; convicted felons find big business in speeches to business schools; and “ethical hackers” get a new business association in Britain

VARIOUS DATELINES
From allegations of bad management to prior bad acts used to turn a profit, the week’s news in business ethics focused on a variety of stories. Among the coverage:

• Wachovia Corp. reportedly will pay up to $144 million to settle government claims that its poor management allowed telemarketers and payment processors to improperly withdraw millions of dollars from customers’ accounts. Bloomberg reports that the biggest chunk of the settlement — as much as $125 million — will be earmarked for reimbursing customers. Another $9 million is expected to be directed toward consumer-education programs. Wachovia, the nation’s fourth-largest bank, did not admit any wrongdoing when agreeing to the settlement.
• More than three-quarters of MBA students surveyed by the Aspen Institute Business and Society Program say strong ethics and values are integral to company performance. But the Rocky Mountain News reports that only 43 percent of respondents said their MBA courses were sufficiently preparing them for values conflicts later in their careers.
• Business schools are fostering a new cottage industry, according to BusinessWeek: Paying felons to talk to students and scare them straight. The publication profiled Walter Pavlo, Jr., who served two years in federal prison on money-laundering charges and now tells his story to business students. BusinessWeek’s Jane Porter writes: “Pavlo, who lined up his first (albeit unpaid) gig before he was released from jail in 2003, is one of the busiest convicted felons on the B-school speaking circuit. He’s given 25 lectures since January and expects to keep up that pace through the year. ‘Here’s a real person telling students what happened to his life. I don’t think there is any substitute for that,’ says Linda K. Trevino, a professor of organizational behavior and ethics at Penn State Smeal College of Business, where Pavlo has appeared several times. He speaks at companies and conferences, too, but says that most of the $100,000 or so he earned last year came from his B-school lectures. Part of the money goes to restitution for his crime.” But Porter notes that some critics say paying ex-cons further rewards them for their offenses, and some observers say that there is not a system for adequate verification of the stories that ex-cons tell during their appearances.
• An industry association for “ethical hackers” was created last week, reports the technology network ZDNet. The Council of Registered Ethical Security Testers aims to standardize the ethics of tests conducted to penetrate corporate security. Such tests are aimed not at damaging corporations, but at finding and fixing security holes before ill-intentioned hackers can exploit the weakness. The group also will set qualifications for certified members.

Sources: Bloomberg, Apr. 25 — Rocky Mountain News, Apr. 25 — BusinessWeek, Apr. 26 — ZDNet, Apr. 24.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Apr. 7 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 7 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 31 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 24 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 17.

Field hockey official resigns after sting operation captures him allegedly taking bribes on camera; meanwhile, broadcasters, recognizing that things are getting a little out of hand, impose voluntary restrictions on TV stings

NEW DELHI and MUMBAI

Sting operations allegedly exposing ethical misdeeds — as well as the allegedly unethical use of sting operations themselves — are the talk of India, according to various press reports.

At the top of the news is a story from the Agence France-Presse, which reports that a leading Indian field hockey official resigned last week after a TV sting operation caught him allegedly accepting bribes to put a player on a national team. The Hindi-language channel Aah Tak conducted the sting using three reporters posing as businessmen. The field hockey official reportedly caught accepting bags of cash said he thought it was an advance payment on organizing expenses for a tournament.

The field hockey incident came at the same time that news broadcasters, faced with the threat of government regulation limiting the use of sensational stings, announced that they will voluntarily discourage such operations. According to reports from MSN India and the Hindu newspaper, the Code of Ethics and Broadcasting Standards proposed by the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) for self-regulation states: “As a guiding principle, sting and under-cover operations should be a last resort of news channels in an attempt to give the viewer comprehensive coverage of any news story.”

Sting operations, wildly popular on Indian TV, have nabbed various politicians but also on occasion have resulted in criminal charges against reporters who, the government claims, went too far in confecting the operations. Some sting programs also have drawn criticism for what critics charge is salacious content.

Suggestive content of a different nature has triggered outrage among some sports fans and politicians in Mumbai: The Times of India reports that the spectacle of scantily clad cheerleaders performing at cricket tournaments has prompted threats that an upcoming major tournament will not be televised. The cheerleaders were flown in from the United States. A national cricket executive told the Times that he sees no harm in the display and that the cheerleaders are breaking no rules of cricket. Interviewed by the Times, the cheerleaders said they were only doing their jobs.

Sources: Hindu, Apr. 23 — MSN India, Apr. 22 — Times of India, Apr. 22 — AFP, Apr. 22.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Apr. 14 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 7 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 13, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 15, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 24, 2007.

Washington Post reports that case is an example of how technological development is outpacing ethics

WASHINGTON
The Washington Post reports that the use of implanted heart pumps is creating a new and utterly wrenching ethical dilemma: when to deactivate installed medical devices designed to prolong life.

The Post report stems from the case of a man with an implanted heart pump who wants to turn it off. The man, who was not identified in the piece, is in significant pain and no longer wishes to live in his current state.

Turning off the pump “would be tantamount to removing the patient’s heart,” says Columbia University bioethicist Jeremy Simon, who also serves on the ethics board at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. “Medicine has no role in such cases,” he asserts.

According to the Post’s Rob Stein: “Such cases, while unusual, are occurring more frequently as the rapidly rising number of elderly Americans is making heart failure more common and fueling demand for partial artificial hearts. Although most requests to discontinue the devices are honored, some patients have been found dead alone at home with their pumps powered off, raising fears that they may have taken matters into their own hands.”

“The debate illustrates how new medical technologies often proliferate before society has resolved the issues they raise, such as what to do when a patient has had enough,” Stein reports. “Similar clashes have arisen over pacemakers and implanted defibrillators, and experts say such predicaments will multiply as researchers rush to develop a host of other replacement organs.”

Source: Washington Post, Apr. 24.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Apr. 21 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 21 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 14 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 7 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 31.

But Wall Street Journal reports that it’s also profitable, so sometimes those objections melt away

NEW YORK
Companies are finding that a new software that mines data from employees’ contacts lists and emails is raising privacy concerns, reports the Wall Street Journal.

The software is intended to help workers learn which of their fellow employees have contacts with various clients, providing knowledge that can facilitate introductions.

For example, a salesman who wants to make a sales call on a corporate CEO could use the software to find a co-worker who knows the CEO and who presumably could smooth the cold-call.

But employees sometimes rebel. Journal reporter William Bulkeley reports that one lawyer noted a “very harsh reaction” when an internal contact-mining program called ContactNet was installed at his firm.

On the other hand, once the members of the firm realized the program’s profit potential, most of the resistance evaporated, especially when they learned that attorneys with the original contact would profit from any work eventually landed via the program, notes the Journal report.

Source: Wall Street Journal, Apr. 29.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Apr. 21 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 14 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 31 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 31 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 24.

“Most say upper-income households pay too little in taxes”

From Gallup:

“Slightly over half of Americans believe the government should redistribute wealth by heavy taxes on the rich.

“The percentage holding this view, similar to that found in Gallup polling last year, is up from 1998….

“Other recent Gallup Poll questions underscore the finding that Americans are generally open to the idea of some type of effort to distribute wealth more evenly.

“Asked if the distribution of money and wealth in this country is fair or if they need to be distributed more evenly, about two-thirds of Americans agree with the latter response. This is up slightly from last year and, by two points, is the highest ‘more evenly distributed’ response to this question that Gallup has found over the eight times it has been asked since 1984….

“One reason it may be easy for Americans to readily agree with wealth redistribution and increased taxes on the rich is that most Americans do not perceive themselves to be rich and therefore presumably assume they have nothing to fear — financially — from such new policies.

“Analysis of the responses to these two questions by income shows that there are some differences by respondents’ income, but these differences are not large….

“The possibility of some type of political policy that would institute higher tax rates on high-income households was discussed in the recent Philadelphia debate between the two Democratic contenders, and both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama appeared to agree with some variant of this type of policy (although both are multimillionaires, according to their recently released tax statements). The public opinion data reviewed here suggest a majority of Americans would be receptive to such a possibility….”

For the full press release from Gallup, Apr. 25, click here.

“All things come to him who waits — provided he knows what he is waiting for.”

– Woodrow Wilson (28th U.S. president, 1856-1924)