Ethics Newsline®

The next issue of Ethics Newsline® will be published on Tuesday, May 27, in observance of the U.S. Memorial Day holiday.

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

by Rushworth M. Kidder

Want evidence that the global moral barometer is in steep decline? Look at Myanmar, where the ruling generals have only recently permitted outside aid to reach cyclone victims. In the end, when history does its tally, the deaths caused by a tyrannical government working in secret may far outnumber those caused by the forces of weather.

Want evidence that the barometer is rising? Look at China, where last week the government responded to an earthquake by sending in thousands of soldiers and taking unusual steps to share the story with the outside world. History may eventually note that this disaster, coming so close upon the opening of the 2008 Olympics, forced a new openness in this once-secretive nation.

So which is it? Is the barometer rising or falling?

Questions like these were on the table when I joined a group of Nova Scotia public-school educators to consider questions of ethics last week in Halifax. Dividing the group down the middle, I asked one half of the room to list as many arguments as possible — quickly, in bullet-point form — to indicate that ethics is in free-fall and that the world is plunging deeper and deeper into turpitude. The other side had the charge of arguing the opposite — that the barometric uptick is taking us incrementally but steadily toward a more ethical future.

As you might imagine, the conversation was rich and varied. Each time the negativists tossed out a point, the upsiders came right back with a rejoinder — and vice versa. Within moments the room was thick with problems, from AIDS and cheating and global warming to Enron and pornography and Eliot Spitzer. But the countercurrent was just as strong, with talk of diversity, recycling, charitable giving, energy conservation, gender equity, and Nelson Mandela.

“So which is it?” I finally asked. “Is the barometer rising or falling?”

“Yes!” someone replied. His quip was met with a general chuckle around the room as people recognized the impossibility of any such oversimplification as I had proposed. It was a nice answer.

But I think the best answer is, “That’s a really dumb question!” Over the years, I’ve had scores of similar conversations with groups in various parts of the world. People often come into these discussions with a bias toward cynicism or optimism. But when forced to confront the range of evidence — even briefly, under broad headings without detailed analysis — they quickly sense the complexity of the issues and the difficulty of making a categorical judgment. Optimists are sobered, cynics are undermined, and a quiet sense of moral nuance sets in.

These days that moral nuance is hugely valuable. At every turn, it seems, our public discourse demands that we commit ourselves to categorical judgments. Going out in public without an opinion somehow feels like arriving at the supermarket without your pants: You can function fine for a while, though sooner or later someone’s sure to notice and ask you to explain yourself.

That’s especially true when ethical issues are at stake. We may feel uncomfortable taking positions on topics requiring specialist knowledge — immigration, the economy, healthcare policy, future sources of energy, or the like. But on the broader topic of ethics we feel an impulse, even an obligation, to speak up. We feel prepared to chart the ebb and flow of responsibility, respect, fairness, compassion, and honesty. And well we should. Ethics is first and foremost a personal topic, open to every voice and inviting each individual’s response. While it sometimes can appear academic and arcane, it’s actually an immediate set of ideas, grasped through intuition and reasoned out in commonplace language. Everyone deserves a place in the ethics conversation — except, perhaps, those who insist that if you haven’t read the right texts and don’t know the proper scholastic language, you aren’t qualified to talk about this most commonplace of topics.

Yet that very commonality poses a threat to ethical discourse. It can turn too easily into unwarranted certainty, smug self-confidence, and prickly assertiveness. The startling superficialities that pass for opinions on cable television and in today’s blogosphere remind us what happens when a culture of glib obduracy replaces a culture of reasoned questioning.

As we head into the election season, we may encounter a surfeit of mulish, unbending self-will on questions of values and ethics. The reaction may be to write off all moral discourse as perverse and pointless, and retreat into a disdain for any sort of ethical conversation. Needed, instead, is a capacity for moral nuance. If we remember that every assertion of a declining moral barometer is apt to be followed by the demand, “Therefore, vote for me!” — while each claim of moral improvement invariably precedes the request to “Reelect me!” — we’ll be better equipped to resist demagoguery. The more we respect moral complexity, the less we’ll be in danger of falling for either the dogmatic or the dismissive. Of such quiet nuance is civil society made.

©2008 Institute for Global Ethics

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

Rushworth Kidder’s commentary last week drew many responses from readers, not all of whom agreed with his contention that talk-show host Rush Limbaugh made a faulty assumption that “if it’s legal it must be ethical” when urging Republicans to cross over and vote for Hillary Clinton in an effort to elongate the bruising Democratic primary season. (The commentary also expressed disappointment with the number of Republicans who followed Limbaugh’s urgings.)

One reader wrote that “Rush Limbaugh’s Operation Chaos asked voters to do what they always do — use their vote to influence an election’s outcome. Republicans simply used their vote to good effect. I saw no ethical lapse here.”

Another reader, while agreeing that Limbaugh’s strategy was unethical, took issue with the assumption that the motive behind a primary is to allow a party’s own voters to decide their nominees: “I don’t think that statement accounts for those states where crossover voting is allowed, where any person, enrolled in any party or independent, can vote in any party primary. That arrangement says to me that something other than allowing the party faithful to determine their candidates was in the mind of the legislature.”

And from a reader in Pennsylvania: “I myself, while being a right-leaning independent, have always registered as a Democrat on the sound advice of my mother, actually. She told me always to register with whichever party most often controlled local politics. That way you are not perceived as bucking City Hall, plus which you have some say in who will run against the preferred (presumably more conservative in my case) candidate in the November election…. Ethical or no, her advice has proven pretty practical over the years!”

– Compiled by Ethics Newsline® editor Carl Hausman

“After all these years, I cannot give you any excuse whatsoever. It is just one of those things that occurred. I have to some extent harmed you.”

– Dr. Tapas Das Gupta, a highly respected cancer surgeon of 40 years, recalling his apology to a patient from whom he mistakenly removed the wrong piece of tissue to examine. The New York Times reports that Gupta and other physicians are moving toward a practice of quick admissions of their mistakes. “By promptly disclosing medical errors and offering earnest apologies and fair compensation, they hope to restore integrity to dealings with patients, make it easier to learn from mistakes and dilute anger that often fuels lawsuits,” reports the Times. Despite some fears that such disclosure would prompt even more medical malpractice actions, “hospitals are reporting decreases in their caseloads and savings in legal costs,” the Times notes.

Source: New York Times, May 18.

Some of the structures that collapsed were dubbed “tofu buildings” due to poor condition

SICHUAN PROVINCE, China
The devastating earthquake in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan has highlighted an ongoing corruption problem, according to press reports: buildings that were not built according to construction codes and inspectors who may have looked the other way.

The Los Angles Times reports that while building codes are taken seriously in larger cities, smaller locales sometimes turn a blind eye to shoddy construction. According to the Times, the ever-widening gap between modern cities and the countryside seems to apply to safeguards as well as income.

In an analysis, Associated Press reporters Elaine Kurtenback and William Foreman write: “Three decades of high-paced growth have remade China, with stunning showcase metropolises like Beijing and Shanghai as well as formerly tiny county towns that are now small cities with office towers and multistory apartment buildings. But as the widespread devastation from Monday’s quake shows, the pell-mell pace has led some builders to cut corners, especially in outlying areas largely populated by the very young and the very old.”

According to a report from the Independent’s Beijingbureau, Chinese officials late last week said they are investigating whether shoddy construction was to blame for the collapse of many schools in the area of the quake, warning that developers found guilty would be severely punished.

About 7,000 schools were destroyed in the southwesternsection of Sichuan province. As of late Sunday night, the death toll from the quake was estimated to be over 32,000, according to a dispatch from the state news agency.

The Globe & Mail’s Geoffrey York, reporting from near the epicenter, notes that some members of victims’ families claim that local officials had pocketed money meant to be spent on school construction and that private firms had saved money by cutting corners.

York writes: “Many other survivors were convinced that corruption had played a role in determining which buildings collapsed and which were unscathed. One man pointed to a new building whose first floor had collapsed, even as older buildings around it were intact. ‘They used fewer bricks in the new building, so they could earn more money,’ he said.”

The shoddily constructed structures are commonly known as “tofu buildings,” according to York’s report.

Sources: China Daily, May 18 — Independent, May 16 — Globe & Mail, May 15 — AP, May 15 — Los Angeles Times, May 15.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Apr. 28 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 21 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 14 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 14.

One congressman says the ads cross ethical lines

WASHINGTON
Television ads for prescription drugs have crossed ethical lines and enforcement by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been lax, a U.S. congressman charged last week.

According to a report from UPI, Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak, head of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which plans a review of the ads, claimed that regulators had allowed Johnson & Johnson to promote a drug called Procrit for fighting fatigue, even though the drug is not formally approved for such use, reports UPI.

During a hearing about drug advertising, the lawmakers pushed for rougher regulations, claiming that some of the ads are deceptive and leave consumers confused about effects and side effects, according to a report from TIME magazine.

In a separate hearing last week, the FDA proposed that direct-to-consumer drug ads on TV should include a toll-free number that would allow consumers to report adverse side effects, reports the Washington Post.

The FDA made the proposal after some prodding by Congress, saying it will take about two years for the agency to study the effects of adding a toll-free number. Among the concerns: FDA officials say a toll-free number might encourage people to call the FDA instead of a doctor when they experience a problem.

The Dow Jones News Service provides some background on the issue: “Direct-to-consumer drug marketing brings in billions of dollars in sales for drug makers and for the television industry. In 1997, the government relaxed rules on TV and radio ads, allowing drug makers to shorten the warnings on side effects in their commercials; since then, pharmaceutical makers have spent about $14 billion on broadcast and cable TV ads for prescription drugs.”

“Merck and Schering-Plough have been criticized for heavily promoting the cholesterol drug Vytorin while failing to disclose a study that raised questions about the drug’s effectiveness,” the report notes. “Pfizer has been criticized for including Dr. Robert Jarvik in its ads for Lipitor, an anti-cholesterol drug. Jarvik is not a practicing medical doctor.”

Sources: TIME, May 16 — Washington Post, May 16 — UPI, May 16 — Dow Jones, May 16.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Apr. 21 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 21 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 7 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 31 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 17.

Dilemmas concern obligations of those caring for dementia patients; furor over genetically engineered human embryo; and in opinion piece, writer claims science and medicine have spawned “a new generation of tomb raiders”

LONDON and NEW YORK
A variety of ethics issues were featured this week in world-press reports dealing with health and medicine:

• British medical and ethics experts have called for a debate on the moral dilemmas facing dementia patients and their caregivers, reports the U.K. Press Association. The probe will be coordinated by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, an independent body established in 1991 to examine ethics issues raised by biological and medical advances. The dementia debate will focus on a wide range of issues, according to the Press Association report, including whether it is right to restrain people to keep them from wandering or to slip them medication covertly.
• Yet another development in genetics research is raising moral questions: The New York Times reports that scientists at Cornell University have developed what is believed to be the first genetically engineered human embryo. While the research team defended its work as an advance in stem cell science, critics were quick to charge that the techniques being developed could be used to create babies with genetic profiles to make them smarter or more attractive. One critic also claimed that there should have been more discussion. “It’s an important ethical boundary that scientists have been observing,” Marcy Darnovsky, associate director of the Center for Genetics and Society, told the Times. “These scientists, on their own, decided to step over that boundary with no public discussion.”
• Author David Younts, in an opinion piece syndicated by the Scripps Howard News Service, argued last week that scientific research is creating “a new generation of tomb raiders.” Pointing out that “much of what we know about human anatomy and ancient civilizations can be credited to tomb raiders, who disinterred cultural artifacts as well as cadavers,” Younts contends that the process has taken on a more modern edge. He claims that bone dust is in demand for periodontal surgery, as is skin for grafts in burn cases and cosmetic surgery. Human fat, he writes, is in demand for lip and breast enhancement. China, — a country with 60 capital offenses, sells body parts of executed prisoners, he claims, with the organs of a health specimen yielding up to a half-million dollars on the world market. “More gruesome than trading in organs of the dead is the sale of living flesh,” Younts argues. “Many young women pay their way through college by selling their eggs for in-vitro fertilization. Germany and Italy have laws against the practice, but girls with a passport can travel to Spain or Britain, where the practice is legal. Poor villagers from India are persuaded to undergo painful surgery to sell their kidneys, earning as much as $800.”

Sources: Scripps Howard, May 16 — New York Times, May 13 — Times of London, May 15 — U.K. Press Association, May 15.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Feb. 24 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 28 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 22 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 31, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 26, 2007.

SEC claims they misrepresented data in order to hike value of their portfolios

SAN FRANCISCO
The legal and ethical issue of stock option backdating, a practice that recently made headlines in a variety of high-tech industries, was back in the news last week after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a civil complaint against California-based microchip producer Broadcom.

The SEC complaint alleges that from 1998 to 2003, Broadcom’s former president and CEO Henry Nicholas, chief technical officer Henry Samueli, former CEO William Ruehle, and general counsel David Dull falsified employee compensation documentation, the Jurist reports.

According to a MarketWatch report, the SEC alleges that the options were falsified to make it appear that they were granted when Broadcom’s stock was at a low point.

Broadcom spokespeople did not immediately comment on the charges, according to a report from PC World.

The charges follow a $12 million settlement in April between Broadcom and the SEC, also relating to backdating allegations, business publication TheStreet.com reports.

A stock option is an offer made by a company to allow someone to buy shares of stock in the future at a predetermined price. That predetermined price often is set at the market price of the stock on the day the option was granted — making the stock option an especially attractive commodity because stock prices in expanding firms, such as high-tech companies, usually are expected to rise quickly. Because they promise great future value but involve little immediate outlay of money, stock options are a popular recruiting tool for cash-strapped startups.

In the past few years, however, investigators have been alleging that some companies have backdated the granting of options to times when prices were even lower. That action, in and of itself, is not illegal, but hiding the details of the arrangements and the income is.

Sources: Jurist, May 15 — PC World, May 14 — MarketWatch, May 14 — TheStreet.com, May 14.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Jan 16, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 2, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 18, 2006 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 6, 2006 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 16, 2006.

Cyberbullying incident leads to indictment; Google’s Street View may face privacy problems in Europe; graduating Nevada journalism students to sign ethics pledge

VARIOUS DATELINES
Ethics and media figured in several stories from the national and world press last week. Among them:

• A Los Angeles grand jury last week indicted Lori Drew, the woman accused of perpetrating a hoax that allegedly resulted in the death of a 13-year-old girl. MSNBC reports that prosecutors alleged that Drew, 49, created a fictitious MySpace account, pretending to be a boy who made friends with the 13-year old. But the boy, “Josh,” later turned on the girl, and she took her own life. The death occurred in Missouri, but prosecutors there said they had no applicable laws under which to charge Drew. Los Angeles authorities mounted the case because MySpace servers are physically located there. She was indicted on one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization — a law generally applied to hackers. The case has drawn ethical attention on several fronts, including questions about whether it is unethical or illegal to pretend to be someone else.
• Search engine titan Google has been warned that its controversial Street View feature on Google Maps could violate European Union privacy laws if the service is launched in EU nations, according to BusinessWeek. Street View allows users to see a full-color, 360-degree tour of city streets, constructed from a composite of photos taken by Google crews. The service has caused some to cry foul, including proprietors of battered women’s shelters and alcohol treatment facilities, who claim Street View is an invasion of privacy. While Google eventually agreed to some redaction of scenes of a sensitive nature, including military sites, the company would face a stiffer challenged in Europe, where privacy laws are generally tougher than in the United States, notes BusinessWeek.
• Journalism students at the University of Nevada in Reno were urged to sign an ethics pledge at their graduation. Editor & Publisher reports that the pledge reads in part: “I will uphold and apply the highest standards of integrity and ethics. This includes helping others by minimizing harm and showing compassion…. I will act independently and be accountable for my actions.”

Sources: MSNBC, May 15 — BusinessWeek, May 15 — Editor & Publisher, May 15.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Mar. 31 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 10 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 3, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 15, 2007 — Related Newsline story, June 4, 2007.

Runner with high-tech artificial legs cleared to run in Olympics; video assistant says Patriots’ signal stealing was more pervasive than first acknowledged; there’s a new twist to “skyboxes” maintained by lobbyists

VARIOUS DATELINES
Sports-ethics stories covered a wide range of controversies last week. Among the issues:

• A double amputee has been given the green light to compete in races against able-bodied competitors in the upcoming summer Olympics in Beijing. Reuters reports that the case of Oscar Pistorius has raised some nettling ethics questions because some critics claim his high-tech prostheses offer him an unfair advantage over other competitors. The carbon-fiber legs allow him to take exceptionally long strides, according to the Reuters report.
• The New England Patriots’ ‘Spygate’ controversy continued to simmer last week, as coach Bill Belichick denied that his overall strategy was based on deception, according to USA Today. The statement came after a video assistant named Matt Walsh claimed that videotaping opponents’ signals was an important component of Belichick’s coaching tactics, saying that Belichick orchestrated a cover-up of the practice of taping opposition coaches. Pennsylvania Republican senator Arlen Specter has called for an independent investigation of the taping incidents, sports network ESPN reported.
• Lobbyists used to entertain lawmakers and their aides in skyboxes in DC-area arenas, but recent legislation put an end to the practice. The Washington Post, through, reports a new wrinkle to the practice: The Washington Redskins football team has given a one-page handout to a potential customer that says congressional officials can accept a “Suite Guest Pass” to a skybox as long as they have a ticket for another seat anywhere else in the stadium. The guest pass will allow only a “short visit,” reports the Post, although the meaning of “short” is not defined.

Sources: Reuters, May 16 — ESPN, May 16 — USA Today, May 15 — Washington Post, May 15.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Mar. 17 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 25 — Related Newsline story, May 21, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 17, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 5, 2007.

Study conducted by Wall Street Journal says that consumers tend to reward ethical behavior in some cases

NEW YORK
Companies spend enormous amounts of money to be “socially responsible,” reports the Wall Street Journal, but they do so in the face of limited knowledge about whether that stance will actually produce a profit.

Journal reporters Remi Trudel and June Cotte conducted a series of experiments to find out. In one test, they showed consumers the same products — coffee and T-shirts — but told one group that the items had been manufactured using strict ethics standards, told another group that the manufacturing was done under low standards, and told a third group nothing.

The results, according to Trudel and Cotte: “In all of our tests, consumers were willing to pay a slight premium for the ethically made goods. But they went much further in the other direction: They would buy unethically made products only at a steep discount.”

“What’s more,” they write, “consumer attitudes played a big part in shaping those results. People with high standards for corporate behavior rewarded the ethical companies with bigger premiums and punished the unethical ones with bigger discounts.”

Source: Wall Street Journal, May 15.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Apr. 21 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 7 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 11 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 15, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 17, 2007.

But nearly half of hiring managers say they don’t care about lateness as long as the work gets done, survey finds

From CareerBuilder.com:

“If the minutes on the clock seem to fly by in the morning as you frantically run around collecting your keys, getting your kids out the door and grabbing your bills to make it to work on time, you’re not alone. According to a recent CareerBuilder.com survey, 15 percent of workers say they arrive late to work at least once a week, while nearly one-in-four of all workers (24 percent) admit to making up fake excuses to explain their tardiness….

“‘Although flexible schedules are more common in the workplace these days, it is still important for employees to be mindful of their arrival times,’ said Rosemary Haefner, vice president of Human Resources for CareerBuilder.com. ‘Consistently showing up late can affect how others in the company view your work ethic and discipline….’

“While 43 percent of hiring managers say they don’t mind if their employees are late as long as their work is completed on time with good quality, others are much stricter, and would consider terminating an employee if he or she arrives late several times a year.

“When asked to identify the primary cause for coming in late, more than 32 percent of workers claimed traffic was the culprit. Falling back asleep was the reason cited by 17 percent, while 7 percent pointed to a long commute as the main cause. Other popular reasons included getting kids ready for school and daycare, forgetting something at home and feeling sick.

“While the majority of hiring managers believe their employees’ reasons for being late to work, more than 27 percent say they are skeptical of the excuses….”

For the full press release, Apr. 9, click here.

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German writer, 1749-1832)