Ethics Newsline®

As noted in Rushworth Kidder’s recent commentary, the Institute for Global Ethics has begun gathering results from a new survey assessing the most severe global challenges facing humanity.

This survey now has been unrolled for readers of Ethics Newsline®. If you’d like to participate, just click here and let your views be known. Thank you.

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

by Rushworth M. Kidder

Those who think ethics is merely an option — one of life’s electives, rather than an essential for survival — need to look closely at a photograph from last week’s news. It shows a pile of post-earthquake rubble in China’s Sichuan Province. Taken by a New York Times photographer, it captures all that is left of Xinjian Primary School, once a four-story building in the city of Dujiangyan. According to the accompanying story, several hundred children died in its May 12 collapse.

What makes the photograph remarkable, however, is not the rubble. It’s the two buildings flanking the pile. One is a kindergarten some 20 feet away. The other, a 10-story hotel, stands behind the site. Neither was seriously damaged. Nor was the Beijie Primary School, a five-minute walk away. Beijie, however, is for the children of the elite. Xinjian was for poorer children.

Last week, parents whose children died at Xinjian rose up in anger at government officials. They suspect something went terribly wrong not just in the delayed relief efforts but in the school’s original design and construction. They point to poor-quality steel and to concrete weakened by too much sand and too little cement. As one of them told the Times, “This is not a natural disaster.”

Are these parents right? Yes, in the sense that while violent events are natural, they only become disasters through human failure. These failures sometimes are charged to specific areas of study — engineering, architecture, hydrology, economics — or to related technological and logistical arenas, like transportation, emergency response, or building inspection services. But the real problem lies in the human application of ideas and practices within these areas. Hundreds more children could well be alive today if over time these applications had been managed rightly.

So what went wrong? In a word, ethics. It would appear that whenever nature breeds wholesale disaster, ethics already has failed to some extent among those in charge. It’s probably safe to say that before a single floor collapsed at Xinjian or a single pillar buckled, there already had been an ethical collapse, a buckling of integrity. These moral failures are most visible in three ways:

• Negligence. In its tamest and subtlest form, moral failure begins with well-meaning managers and officials who are so beleaguered and overwhelmed that they neglect their obligations. When the tyranny of the immediate pushes the potentially devastating into the background, the polite phrase is deferred maintenance. In reality, what’s happening is the slow, impersonal, hardly visible assembly of a time bomb. The Xinjian Primary School apparently had a history of problems: Some years earlier one wing had been declared unsafe, torn down, and rebuilt. In hindsight, those in charge should have allocated more funds to reconstruction — and demanded results. If ethics is about fairness, neglecting Xinjian while building higher-quality schools nearby is profoundly unethical.
• Incompetence. If the negligent knew they were inviting disaster, they still might be vigilant. Incompetence, by contrast, is more dangerous, simply because those in charge usually know they lack the requisite knowledge and skill yet push forward anyway. Globally, a lot is known about designing safe schools in earthquake-prone areas and establishing standards for their construction. If laborers are hired despite not knowing how to implement those standards, that’s an irresponsible tolerance of incompetence — especially if the laborers are only there because they’re someone’s relative, neighbor, or loyal lackey. Find wholesale incompetence and you’ll also find the lack of another core ethical value, responsibility.
• Corruption. Neither negligence nor incompetence is necessarily unlawful, and each can be corrected by knowledge. Corruption, by contrast, is the worst kind of unethical behavior. It wallows in illegality, recognizes its own evil, and has no desire for correction. It can destroy even the most dutiful and competent organizations. Bribery, shakedowns, graft, and other pocket-lining ploys of the powerful — these unethical behaviors, according to the World Bank, cost the global economy more than $1 trillion annually. The parents in Dujiangyan had every reason to be suspicious that someone, somewhere, was paid off to build a substandard school — a towering dishonesty that no one could call ethical.

Negligence, incompetence, and corruption, then, sit along a rising scale of unethical action. But they have one thing in common: Each can kill widely and indiscriminately. Consider the roots of death and destruction in the Chinese earthquake — and in the Indonesian tsunami in 2004, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and the Myanmar cyclone in early May. Then consider the still-fashionable canard that ethics is merely an option, having no important place among the toughest issues of global governance, economics, or security. That anyone in the twenty-first century could hold both of those considerations simultaneously and still be considered wise is simply bizarre.

©2008 Institute for Global Ethics

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

“There’s been a certain amount of market segmentation going on, but this is the first time we’ve seen a lender, especially as large as Citibank, saying, ‘We don’t want to do business with you.’… There’s a fundamental issue of fairness and equity that’s certainly not being addressed in this. But short of completely revamping the way that financial aid, especially loans, is being delivered to students in this country, I don’t know that we have any easy answers.”

– Samuel Collie, director of financial aid at Eastern Oregon University, talking to the New York Times about cutbacks in loans being offered to his school’s students. The Times reports that powerful lenders such as Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, PNC, and SunTrust are closing their doors to students at community colleges, for-profit universities, and other less competitive institutions. “These institutions, which are a stepping stone to other educational programs or to better jobs, often draw students from the lower rungs of the economic ladder,” notes the paper. According to the Times: “The practice suggests that if the credit crisis and the ensuing turmoil in the student loan business persist, some of the nation’s neediest students will be hurt the most. The difficulty borrowing may deter them from attending school or prompt them to take a semester off. When they get student loans, they will wind up with less attractive terms and may run a greater risk of default if they have to switch lenders in the middle of their college years.”

Source: New York Times, June 2.

Obama quits church after another dust-up about a sermon; Clinton lashed for Kennedy remark; McCain struggles with lobbyist issue; and former vice-presidential candidate calls for independent study of media ethics in election coverage

WASHINGTON
Ethics issues rose to the top of the news mix last week in coverage of the U.S. presidential campaign. Among the stories:

• Likely Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, at the center of an ethics controversy over inflammatory remarks by two pastors, resigned from his Chicago-based church over the weekend. ABC News reports that the final break came after the latest remarks, by the Rev. Michael Pfleger, a Catholic priest, in which he mocked Obama’s rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, implying that she feels entitled to the nomination because she is white. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Obama said he is not denouncing the church, but decided to leave because he did not want to subject his pastors and parishioners to continued tension and scrutiny.
• Hillary Clinton also found herself in the midst of an ethics controversy last week over her remarks about the assassination of Robert Kennedy. Clinton had stated that it would be unwise for her to halt her campaign prematurely, citing the fact that Kennedy was shot late in the primary season. Clinton was criticized widely for the remark, which brought to the fore fears concerning possible threats to Barack Obama. Clinton later apologized for the comment. Obama himself said too much was being made of the matter, noting that stressful campaigning often causes candidates to misedit their comments. Many Clinton supporters thought too much was made of the matter, accusing the press of being “more concerned with being interesting and provocative than relevant or serious,” according to CBS News reporter John F. Harris.
• Lobbying, a topic that consistently has produced ethics-related news over the past several years, is now a topic of controversy in the campaign of presumptive GOP nominee John McCain. Bloomberg reports that McCain recently lost five aides “amid suggestions that his campaign is dominated by lobbyists.” In the most recent instance, McCain fired two top campaign officials when he learned that they had worked as lobbyists for the military dictatorship in Myanmar.
• Former Democratic vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro last week called for an independent study of racism and sexism in the media. Ferraro, a Hillary Clinton supporter who has been criticized for her recent remarks claiming sexism against Clinton, used an op-ed piece in the Boston Globe to call for a Harvard University probe of “first, whether either the Clinton or Obama campaign engaged in sexism and racism; second, whether the media treated Clinton fairly or unfairly; and third whether certain members of the media crossed an ethical line when they changed the definition of journalist from reporter and commentator to strategist and promoter of a candidate. And if they did to suggest ethical guidelines which the industry might adopt.”

Sources: ABC News, June 1 — Chicago Sun-Times, June 1 — Bloomberg, May 31 — Boston Globe, May 30 — CBS News, May 27.

For more information, see: Related Newsline Commentary, May 12 — Related Newsline Commentary, Apr. 14 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 10 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 25 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 25.

Controversy continues over former Canadian PM’s relationship with a German arms dealer; also, debate over whether the government is dragging its heels

OTTOWA
Former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney is expected to be recalled before the Commons Ethics Committee in a continuing probe of allegations that he had improper financial dealings with a German-Canadian munitions dealer.

Mulroney testified previously before the committee, but turned down an invitation to return in the spring, charging that the probe was politically motivated, according to reports from the Globe & Mail and MacLean’s.

The incident also has buffeted the reputation of sitting prime minister Stephen Harper, who last week was criticized for the slow pace of the probe. That charge, reports CTV, came from retired judge John Gomery, who headed the investigation into the so-called Sponsorship Scandal that dominated Canadian news several years ago.

In related news, the Commons Ethics Committee is asking for changes to government regulations to ensure that members of Parliament cannot be silenced by a libel suit. According to the Toronto Star, the impetus for the call was a ruling from federal ethics commissioner Mary Dawson, who called on a Liberal MP to refrain from parliamentary debate on issues related to Mulroney. Mulroney had sued that MP for libel over remarks about the munitions scandal.

Dawson said the current ethics code makes it a conflict of interest if one member speaks out against another after a libel suit has been filed, but she also noted that this creates the danger of a libel chill limiting debate, inviting MPs to revise the code.

Sources: Toronto Star, May 31 — Globe & Mail, May 30 — CTV, May 28 — MacLean’s, May 28 — CanWest News Service, May 29.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Mar. 3 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 18 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 4 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 24, 2006.

British religious leader calls for panel to investigate ethical implications of bioscience; Brazil upholds measure to allow embryonic stem-cell research; and medical ethics and government policy are colliding in Missouri, where executions are set to resume

VARIOUS DATELINES
Moral questions related to science and medicine figured in various reports last week. Among the top stories:

• The leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales tells the BBC that he is “deeply disappointed” by Parliament’s recent decision to allow embryonic stem-cell research, particularly studies into human-animal hybrids. Cardinal Cormac Murphy is calling for the establishment of a national commission composed of ethicists, religious leaders, scientists, and health workers to examine the implications of evolving science. Science “does wonderful things,” he told BBC Radio 4, but it cannot exist “within a moral vacuum.”
• Brazil’s supreme court last week upheld a 2005 law allowing embryonic stem cell research. According to the Jurist legal site, the court ruled 6-to-5 to reject a challenge from the nation’s attorney general who claimed the law infringed on “the constitutional right to life.”
• With executions resuming in the United States after the lifting of a Supreme Court-imposed hiatus, a new controversy is brewing in Missouri, where it has been revealed that the state has placed an anesthesiologist on the team for a pending execution despite the medical profession’s ethical guidelines against the practice. The Kansas City Star reports that the doctor’s presence was revealed in a federal court case brought on behalf of death row inmates challenging the qualifications and training of the state’s execution team. The Star reports that the name of the doctor will not be revealed by the court, even though his or her qualifications will be discussed. The American Society of Anesthesiologists has adopted the American Medical Association’s policy against physician assistance in executions. The policy is expected to become a part of the argument waged by attorneys for the death-row inmates, who are expected to challenge the qualifications of a doctor who willingly would violate an ethics code.

Sources: BBC, May 31 — Jurist, May 30 — Kansas City Star, May 24.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, May 27 — Related Newsline story, May 27 — Related Newsline story, May 19 — Related Newsline story, May 19 — Related Newsline story, May 5.

United States rejects accord on cluster bombs, which are viewed as unreliable and indiscriminate, posing a threat long after hostilities end

DUBLIN
Representatives of more than 100 nations attending a conference in Dublin last week signed on to a treaty to ban cluster bombs.

The weapons are challenged by critics because they are unreliable, inaccurate, and pose a threat to civilians long after the end of armed conflict, according to a report from CNN.

Proponents of the ban say they hope the landmark convention will stigmatize the weapons as much as landmines, reports the Agence France-Presse.

The United States, along with several other nations, has not signed on to the accord, saying that while it was “deeply concerned” about the humanitarian impact of the weapons, there were “disagreements” over the best way to move forward, according to the AFP.

The United States has not used the weapons since 2003, reports the Christian Science Monitor, and has suspended exports since Congress banned the foreign sale of cluster weapons with a less than 99-percent reliability rate.

Cluster weapons, reports the Monitor, are notoriously unreliable — as pointed up during the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, where a “dud rate” of about 70 percent left a treacherous landscape for civilians trying to navigate home.

Some nations, including Germany, announced their intention to immediately destroy their arsenal, reports the Berlin-based news service Deutsche Welle.

Sources: CNN, May 31 — AFP, May 31 — Christian Science Monitor, May 31 — Deutsche Welle, May 31.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Mar. 3 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 22 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 15, 2004 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 22, 2001 — Related Newsline story, May 3, 1999.

Scotland told to market ethical image; “light green” is newest trend in ethical investment; and Washington Post comes up with new glossary for subprime meltdown

VARIOUS DATELINES
Recent developments in the world economy were reflected in a variety of business-ethics stories last week. Among them:

• In the wake of the subprime mortgage implosion, Scotland should take advantage of one of its most important assets, its reputation for ethics, says the chief of the nation’s banking association. The Scotsman reports that Simon Thompson, head of the Chartered Institute of Bankers in Scotland, says the crisis in global banking presents an opportunity for Scotland to “export” its reputation for ethical business conduct. “Current events have added huge urgency to this,” he said. “One of the big strengths of the Scottish financial services industry is our emphasis on prudence and professionalism. It’s at the very heart of the Scottish brand as a home for financial services.”
• There is a new “light green” approach to ethical investing, reports the London Telegraph, in which funds invest in firms that may not yet be fully green but are working on improving their ethical credentials. While many investments remain “dark green,” entirely screening out sectors such as tobacco, oil, or arms, the “light green” approach not only allows a wider range of investment but prods more investors and companies in an ethical direction, according to the Telegraph.
• The Washington Post reports that the global lending crisis has created a new lexicon to cope with a new wave of issues relating to the transgressions of subprime lenders. Among the entries in the Post’s “subprime glossary”: liar loans (loans to borrowers who verify their own income, which is often inflated) and NINJA loans (loans that require No Income, No Job and no Asset verification).

Sources: Scotsman, May 31 — Times of London, May 31 — Washington Post, June 1.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, May 27 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 17 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 10 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 25 — Related Newsline Commentary, Feb. 18.

Hidden cameras detect age and gender of person viewing the billboard, customizing message; privacy groups object

NEW YORK
One of the more persistent ethics quandaries in media is the degree to which advertising and its results can be measured. The The New York Times reports on how this factor can be taken to the extreme — with billboards that talk back to the viewer.

Times reporter Stephanie Clifford notes that billboards were perhaps the last vestige of the old media: “The best guesses about viewership numbers come from foot traffic counts or highway reports, neither of which guarantees that the people passing by were really looking at the billboard, or that they were the ones sought out.”

But now, some enterprising entrepreneurs have introduced technology that ostensibly solves that problem. They are equipping billboards with cameras that gather data on people who view them — gender, approximate age, and time spent looking at the display.

Companies venturing into billboard metrics say they are not storing actual images, only recording measurements of viewership. Eventually, marketing firms plan to factor race into the equation.

The goal: to digitally display an ad that will have the maximum impact on the computer-detected viewer — “to show,” writes Clifford, “one advertisement to a middle-aged white woman, and a different one to a teenage Asian boy.”

The startup firms pioneering the practice say that because no actual personal data is gathered, individualized displays do not pose a threat to privacy. But organized privacy groups disagree, according to the Times report, which notes that the placement of surreptitious cameras in public places has caused controversy in a variety of venues.

While some are ready to accept monitoring for security reasons in closed areas or even in public, the notion of surveillance cameras to enhance marketing efforts may pose acceptance problems among the public, notes the report.

Source: New York Times, May 31.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, May 19 — Related Newsline story, May 5 — Related Newsline story, May 5 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 28 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 21.

Yet majority says it is more important to control gun ownership than to protect the right to own guns

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

“As the Supreme Court considers the constitutionality of Washington, D.C.’s ban on handguns, a majority of Americans (59%) say they would oppose a law that banned the sale of handguns. Opposition to a prohibition of handgun sales is up slightly, from 55% a year ago shortly after the Virginia Tech shootings, but it represents a more substantial increase from the 1990s, when roughly half of Americans opposed a ban on handguns.

“The latest survey … finds that public attitudes about gun control also have shown little change in recent years.

“Despite the public’s opposition to a ban on handgun sales, most Americans continue to say that in general it is more important to control gun ownership than to protect the rights of gun owners. Roughly six-in-ten (58%) say it is more important to control gun ownership while 37% say it is more important to protect the rights of Americans to own guns.

“Public attitudes about gun control and a handgun ban are divided along political, gender and racial lines. Nearly three-quarters of Republicans (73%) oppose a ban on handgun sales, a view shared by 59% of independents and just half of Democrats….

“Opposition to a prohibition on handgun sales is greater among men than women (65% vs. 53%), and among whites than blacks (61% vs. 49%). In addition, though majorities of urban, suburban and rural residents oppose a handgun ban, more rural residents than urban residents oppose a ban. Southerners are more likely to oppose a handgun ban than are Northeasterners or Midwesterners….

“Public opinion about gun control has been stable in recent years. Notably, last year’s shootings at Virginia Tech University had little impact on these attitudes….

“Support for controlling gun ownership rose somewhat following the 1999 massacre at Colorado’s Columbine High School; in May 1999, about two-thirds of the public said controlling gun ownership was more important than upholding gun owners’ rights (65% in May 1999). But the proportion expressing this view fell sharply the following spring from 66% in March 2000 to 55% in April. Since then, the proportion saying that controlling gun ownership takes precedence over gun owners’ rights has fluctuated modestly.

“There are greater partisan and demographic differences in opinions about gun control than in views of a law banning handgun sales. More than twice as many Republicans as Democrats say it is more important to protect the rights of gun owners than to control gun ownership (59% vs. 23%)….”

For the full press release, May 14, click here.

“The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.”

– James Madison (U.S. president and founding father, 1751-1836)