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

by Rushworth M. Kidder

You’d think, by now, politicians would get the point. It’s not as though South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, who last week admitted to marital infidelity, was breaking new ground. The week before, it was Republican senator John Ensign of Nevada stepping before the microphones to make a similar announcement. Last year it was New York governor Elliot Spitzer, along with North Carolina senator and erstwhile presidential candidate John Edwards. Last decade, of course, it was president Bill Clinton.

What keeps these dominoes falling? It’s not enough to fall back on the usual pat answers — that it’s all about lust, ego, power, or thrill seeking. It misstates history to presume deep flaws of character, as though from their earliest years these men were given to venery or adultery. And it certainly won’t do to blame it on their wives, as though these husbands all had been nagged into someone else’s arms by a harridan at home. No, I think what unites them is both simpler and less understood: It’s a failure of mental self-defense.

The reference here is, of course, to physical self-defense. As any soldier knows, there are things you do routinely, almost unthinkingly, to protect yourself in a war zone even when you don’t see any enemies. You wear your helmet, put on body armor, carry your weapon, establish a perimeter, post sentries, keep scanning the horizon, and so forth.

In the war zone of public office, self-defense is of a different sort. The weaponry isn’t physical, nor is it merely political and social, although attackers from opposing parties and commentators from the blogosphere will always be waiting to pounce. The most important weaponry is mental and moral. And the enemy? It’s the drumbeat of excitement and discouragement, praise and blame, success and failure that keeps suggesting, “Give it up. You’re missing out on life. You’re trying too hard to hold high standards in a corrupt world. Climb down a rung or two on the ladder of integrity — you deserve it.”

To their credit, many seasoned politicians I’ve met understand, almost unconsciously, that they need to defend themselves actively from whatever would attack their integrity. They knew, going into public office, that they would have to fend off bribers, alarmists, cynics, and extortionists. They knew they would be tempted not to speak truth to power, muster the moral courage to turn down a campaign contribution, or take stands for integrity in the face of howling constituents. They knew they would have to fight daily to define compromise as an essential ingredient of political accomplishment rather than as a surrender of principle for the sake of expediency. They identified those mental demons, built solid defenses against them, and plunged ahead in spite of them. They possessed a kind of moral futurism that foresaw these ethical challenges before they arose. It was a mental stance that almost expected such an attack and dismissed it with the mental retort, “Oh, that again!”

But the Sanford saga reminds us that, for too many politicians, there’s a hole in the defensive network. It’s almost as though, just outside the politician’s firewall, something wants to plant a virus in the system. It’s called the anti-family virus. It seeks to wreck the one relationship that, for most people, is the key to continuity and success. Destroy that, says this enemy, and everything goes down with it.

How best to destroy it? Not by a direct attack on the family. For most public figures, that would only make them stronger. Best to do it by suggesting an alternative — a little infidelity, a capricious fling, an idle experiment. You can even do it, as in Sanford’s case, by proposing a real love interest — “alienation of affections,” as it was once defined in common law. You then need to insinuate that suggestion into the mind of the political figure. Let him think it’s his own idea, something he thought up and really wants to do. Along the way, blind him to the downside risks, perhaps by puffing up his sense of invincibility — a version of Wall Street’s “too big to fail” syndrome. But most importantly, don’t define it as anti-family. That way, like antiviral software lacking the latest definition of a particular worm, the politician’s mental network won’t pick up on this deadly threat — won’t even know he’s under attack until it’s too late.

What if politicians routinely recognized this potential attacker in their self-defense? What if public figures took it as read that the infidelity ploy would sooner or later appear? What if they saw it as just another trap along the way — as brazen as a scoundrel offering a suitcase of cash, and just as obvious? What if, when the illicit relationship proffered itself, they learned to say, “Oh, that again!” and to dismiss it out of hand?

This kind of self-defense won’t end public infidelity, but I suspect it will diminish it. Along the way, it will help us explain one of life’s anomalies: How it is that so many decent — I would say good — men fall victim to this kind of career-ending move just when the public needs them to continue.

©2009 Institute for Global Ethics

Listen to this week’s commentary by clicking here, or by downloading our podcast, Ethicast™, now available on i-Tunes.

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

“He stole from the rich. He stole from the poor. He stole from the in between. He had no values. He cheated his victims out of their money so he and his wife Ruth could live a life of luxury beyond belief.”

– Tom Fitzmaurice, speaking Monday morning at the sentencing hearing for convicted swindler Bernard Madoff. Fitzmaurice was among Madoff’s victims, who collectively were cheated out of at least $13 billion, reports the Associated Press.

After hearing victims’ testimony, U.S. district judge Denny Chin sentenced Madoff to the maximum penalty of 150 years in prison, ignoring his lawyers’ pleas for leniency. “Here the message must be sent that Mr. Madoff’s crimes were extraordinarily evil and that this kind of manipulation of the system is not just a bloodless crime that takes place on paper, but one instead that takes a staggering toll,” Chin said, reports the AP.

Source: AP, June 29.

Forbes analysis notes trend of “example-setting from the bench” on white-collar crime; Bloomberg says investigators continue to pull on more threads in the case

NEW YORK
Convicted swindler Bernard Madoff was sentenced Monday to 150 years in prison for his multibillion fraud, reports the Associated Press.

Madoff’s lawyer had asked for a 12-year sentence, saying the 71-year-old defendant was unlikely to outlive his requested minimum by more than a year and complaining that Madoff’s victims were merely clamoring for a “type of mob vengeance.”

U.S. district judge Denny Chin rejected that line of reasoning, slapping Madoff with the maximum penalty of 150 years, saying a signal needed to be “sent that Mr. Madoff’s crimes were extraordinarily evil.”

An analysis by Forbes shows that the requested maximum for Madoff falls far short of some other white-collar sentences handed down in recent years, including an 845-year sentence from a Florida federal judge imposed on Sholam Weiss, who was convicted of wire fraud and other charges in 2000. Forbes reports that the sentences are part of a “new fervor for example-setting from the bench.”

Madoff’s sentencing will not end the case, according to sources who tell Bloomberg that the FBI is pursuing evidence of accomplices in Europe. Experts interviewed by Bloomberg say it is reasonable to expect that others will be charged because of the depth and complexity of the case. Other separate probes and cases also are currently under way, including an investigation by the New York State attorney general and a “clawback” civil suit against hedge funds that steered money to Madoff.

Sources: AP, June 29 — CNN, June 27 — Wall Street Journal, June 26 — Bloomberg, June 26 — Forbes, June 24.

For more information, see: Related Newsline Commentary, June 15 — Related Newsline story, May 18 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 23 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 16 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 2.

While some say decision was right because it protected life, other posit that it put loyalties to a few in front of broad principle

VARIOUS DATELINES
There is another ethics debate swirling over a news blackout designed to protect a kidnapped reporter, according to press reports last week.

The Christian Science Monitor reports that the kidnapping of New York Times journalist David Rohde had been hushed up by most Western media at the urging of the Times.

Rohde and his assistant escaped from a Taliban compound last week after seven months in captivity. Their driver remains in custody.

Times editor Bill Keller said that suppressing the story was “an agonizing decision that we revisited over and over again,” but said he was convinced that publicizing the kidnapping would jeopardize the reporter, reports the Press Association.

The incident echoes a similar kidnapping reported in Ethics Newsline in November of last year, when Western media put the lid on a story involving the abduction of a CBC journalist in Afghanistan.

Again last week, ethics experts noted that withholding information is always a tricky decision for news media, particularly when it involves one of their own.

“News organizations are balancing competing obligations if a journalist is kidnapped or detained,” Poynter Institute ethicist Bob Steele told Editor & Publisher. “The primary obligation to the public is to report accurately and timely on meaningful events. If you have a journalist who is detained or kidnapped, that will generally reach the level of newsworthiness.”

But Steele added that news organizations also have an equal obligation to minimize harm. “That means showing care and caution to not further endanger someone whose life may be in jeopardy. These are competing obligations and loyalties.”

Steele indicated that the primary ethical responsibility should be preservation of life, according to the Editor & Publisher report.

But another Poynter ethicist, writing on the Institute’s website, disagreed. In an open letter to the Times’s Keller, Kelly McBride argues that the blackout amounted to putting loyalties to a few in “front of the larger journalistic principles of truth-telling.”

“You have indicated that when a life is in danger, we should avoid reporting the truth until that life is secure,” McBride writes. “In taking this position, you’ve created a standard that we journalists can’t possibly uphold.”

“By telling the story of Rohde’s escape, we’ve already violated it, compromising the life of the driver who was left behind. The driver’s life may be in even more danger now from those same kidnappers. If we were to uphold your standard, we would continue the news blackout until the driver, too, is safe.”

Sources: Poynter Online, June 24 — Press Association, June 24 — Christian Science Monitor, June 20 — Editor & Publisher, June 20.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Nov. 24, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 17, 2008 — Related Newsline Commentary, Oct. 6, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 6, 2008 — Related Newsline story, June 16, 2008.

Some say private matters don’t impact on state governance, but others allege misuse of public money and say if he were in the private sector, Mark Sanford would be fired

COLUMBIA, S.C.
The spectacle surrounding South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, who last week was pushed into admitting an extramarital affair with an Argentine woman, continues to highlight ethical issues. Among the major angles surfacing last week:

• Watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a complaint against Sanford, saying he may have violated South Carolina law by using state resources for trips to Argentina, CBS News reports. Sanford admitted that he took a taxpayer-funded trip to South America last summer, during which he met with his mistress, but says he will reimburse the state. He claimed his travel was part of “an entirely professional and appropriate business development trip,” but he “made a mistake while I was there in meeting with the woman who I was unfaithful to my wife with.”
• If Mark Sanford were in the private sector, he would get a pink slip, according to the Columbia, South Carolina, State, which interviewed a variety of business- management and ethics experts. A chief executive in Sanford’s situation might be able to get away with an affair or disappearing for a few days, ethics-seminar leader Chuck Gallagher told the State, but the combination of events would bring on the ax at most companies. “”When you don’t speak the truth, you find everything around you collapses,” he said. “A board of directors would remove a CEO or executive vice president [for acts similar to Sanford's].”
• What Sanford did is considered more morally wrong than 16 other “ethically iffy” acts put forth in a recent Gallup Poll, writes MSNBC commentator Brian Alexander. According to the poll, 92 percent of respondents say it is morally wrong to have an affair, compared with 88 percent who say cloning a human is wrong. Committing suicide garnered an 80 percent rating of morally unacceptable. Alexander notes that the heavy moral condemnation of adultery seems statistically out of sync with estimates showing about 30 percent of Americans actually do have extramarital affairs.
• Sanford apologized to his cabinet, in front of about two dozen reporters and cameramen. According to the Associated Press, he likened his plight to that of King David, the Biblical ruler who was torn between his urges and his desire to do right. One cabinet member told the AP that everyone has personal issues that they want kept out of the spotlight, and that those issues are not as important as the needs of the people of South Carolina. But some legislators are not so forgiving and continue to call for Sanford’s resignation.

Sources: CBS News, June 26 — AP, June 26 — State, June 26 — MSNBC, June 25.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 1 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 20 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 23 — Related Newsline Commentary, Aug. 11, 2008.

Washington Post ponders whether you can honor a man’s music while having a disdain for a man’s morality; unconfirmed Twitter reports turned out to be right this time, but media critics note that reporting rumor can be risky; the site that appeared to have the scoop on the story is viewed as ethically questionable

VARIOUS DATELINES
The coverage of the sudden and mysterious death of Michael Jackson last week included a good deal of moral soul searching. Among the top items:

• The Washington Post’s Liz Kelly examines the dichotomy of admiring Jackson the entertainer while entertaining reservations about his morality. “[I]s it possible to honor one while continuing to back away from the other? To reconcile the very real disdain for the man while at the same time recognizing his music as every bit worthy of praise? And by admitting that we appreciate the art of someone we find morally objectionable, are we selling out our own ethics?” Kelly notes that this is hardly a new dilemma, ranging back to classical musicians who were openly anti-Semitic. Kelly concludes that Jackson’s music was not a reflection of his personal life, justifying her view with a quote from music critic Dimitri Drobatschewsky: “Unfortunately, there are so many ‘unsavory characters’ in the world of art, science, literature, and general culture that if you boycotted their given genius, there would be precious little art left to enjoy.”
• Jackson’s death became a test case for the ethics of new-media reporting in the new world of Twitter feeds and email alerts. The Knight Digital Media Center’s Online Journalism Review notes that an avalanche of Twitter feeds reported the death before it was confirmed, and in some cases Twitter feeds were used by major media themselves. The Review’s Robert Niles says that the “Twitterverse” has been wrong about celebrity deaths before, and he urges traditional news organizations to acknowledge Twitter reports but clearly note that they are unconfirmed and that verification is being pursued.
• Celebrity website TMZ appeared to the be the first site to break the story of Jackson’s death, adding to a list of scoops, including Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic rant in 2006 and Alec Baldwin’s angry voicemail to his daughter in 2007. But the Jackson drama, according to the Los Angeles Times’s Scott Collins and Meg James, “puts the spotlight on TMZ at a delicate time. Its tactics have stoked growing outrage among publicists and government officials. Its tabloid sensibilities have made some other news organizations reluctant to cite its reporting…. Some advertisers remain hesitant to pitch their products on the site and the TV series. And TMZ has proven much better at generating controversy than cash for its corporate parent, Time Warner.” The report notes that “lurking behind much of the suspicion is a sense that TMZ is flouting not so much the law as journalistic ethics.”

Sources: Los Angeles Times, June 28 — Washington Post, June 27 — Knight Digital Media Center Online Journalism Review, June 25.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 8 — Related Newsline story, July 7, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 3, 2008 — Related Newsline Commentary, June 20, 2005 — Related Newsline Commentary, Jan. 26, 2004.

Montana city apologizes for demanding passwords to job applicants’ accounts; employers fret over what workers say online; generation gap highlights different views of office technology ethics and etiquette

VARIOUS DATELINES
The ethical implications of social networking were examined in several major stories last week. Among them:

• Officials in Bozeman, Montana, stung by public criticism, apologized for its now-ended practice of requiring applicants for municipal jobs to provide usernames and passwords for social-networking sites. According to the Wall Street Journal, Bozeman city manager Chris Kuluski said that while “the city of Bozeman believes we have a responsibility to ensure candidates hired for positions of public trust are subject to a thorough background check,” the extent of the regulation demanding a candidate’s password, username, or other Internet information “appears to have exceeded that which is acceptable to our community.” Among other problems, the requirement ran afoul of sites’ user policies, which often require that members not pass along their passwords to others.
• A McClatchy Newspapers analysis examines the current state of tension between employers and employees who frequent social-networking sites. McClatchy’s Diane Stafford examines the plight of office manager Jeff LeMasters, who prohibited use of cell phones, texting, and the Internet when employees of his store were on duty, but was perplexed about what to do when an employee started “trashing” the store on Facebook. Stafford writes: “The world of Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube postings is giving employers headaches. Often, employers like LeMasters are exploring on a case-by-case basis what rights they have to police employees’ blogs and social networking pages. LeMasters and business partner Randy Benton quickly learned they had no constitutional right to fight the worker’s postings, but they did have a clear course because some of the Internet use had occurred at the store.” Usually, though, there is not such a bright line to guide employers because many cases fall into the legal and ethical haze between employers’ rights and employees’ free-speech guarantees.
• Office protocol regarding Tweeting, texting, and social networking throughout the working day is becoming a generational issue, according to a report from National Public Radio. Joshua Brockman notes that “recent studies show real tensions are rising between Gen Y, or 20-something employees; Gen X, or 30-something workers; and their older, less tech-savvy, baby boomer bosses.” Brockman cites a recent study by LexisNexis that shows the friction becomes hottest during meetings. LexisNexis’s Michael Walsh tells NPR: “You can have Gen Y-ers who are busy looking at their BlackBerrys. They’ve got their laptops flipped open, they’re engaging in social networking right during the course of a meeting, and you have a boomer rolling their eyes, not understanding it…. Two-thirds of boomers that were surveyed indicated that they felt that use of devices, technology — such as e-mail, social networking, the Internet, etc. — contributed to a decline in office etiquette.”

Sources: Wall Street Journal, June 23 — NPR, June 22 — McClatchy, June 17.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 22 — Related Newsline story, June 8 — Related Newsline story, May 25 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 6 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 23 — Lexis-Nexus Technology Gap Survey, undated.

Provisions of House measure, role of developing countries, and effect of doomsday predictions on children all figure in coverage

VARIOUS DATELINES
The U.S. House of Representatives last week narrowly passed a bill intended to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions and move the nation away from fossil fuel consumption. Major media reported on several ethical angles to the development, including:

• UPI notes that there is considerable controversy about the “cap and trade” provision in the House bill, which would require companies that pollute to pay for the privilege with credits based on the amount of greenhouse gases they produce. In addition to concerns over the issue of being able to buy a pollution pass, critics argue that the provision will make energy more expensive and send jobs overseas.
• China is taking the issue of climate change “very seriously,” according to European Commission head Manuel Barroso. The Agence France-Presse notes that China is a focus of global attention since it is not bound to reduce pollution because the current Kyoto protocol on climate change exempts developing countries. The European Union has pledged to provide up to $70 million to help China build a clean coal-burning plant.
• In U.S. News & World Report, environmental columnist Maura Judkis checks in on the PR aspect of climate change campaigning, noting the wide difference in approaches between skeptics and impassioned worriers. Judkis says there are messages that tread a middle ground and may be less frightening to kids, such as a classroom video called “The Story of Stuff,” which encourages children to think about consumerism without implying “certain doom.”

Sources: AFP, June 26 — UPI, June 26 — U.S. News & World Report, June 15.

For more information, see: Related Newsline Commentary, June 9 — Related Newsline story, May 4, 2009 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 27 — Related Newsline story, May 5, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 21, 2008.

Legal and ethical issues arise, as some claim that the firm is obscuring details of the health of its founder — information that could affect investments

SAN FRANCISCO
Apple may be one of the world’s coolest companies, reports the New York Times, but it steers clear of one “cool-company trend” — openness with the public.

Times reporters Brad Stone and Ashlee Vance write: “Few companies, indeed, are more secretive than Apple, or as punitive to those who dare violate the company’s rules on keeping tight control over information. Employees have been fired for leaking news tidbits to outsiders, and the company has been known to spread disinformation about product plans to its own workers.”

But even by Apple’s standards, they report, the handling of news about its founder, Steve Jobs, who has been stricken with pancreatic cancer and recently received a liver transplant, has been extraordinary.

Apple representatives have refused to discuss Jobs’s health, saying only that he is due back to work at the end of June, according to the Times.

Ethical and legal questions surround the company’s handling of Jobs’s health status because some governance experts speculate that the level of secrecy deprives investors of important and necessary information and may violate laws governing what companies must disclose about the well-being of their CEOs.

Few companies are so closely linked with their founders, and observers say that the death or incapacitation of Jobs could significantly damage the firm’s standing.

Sources: New York Times, June 23.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 8 — Related Newsline story, May 18 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 19 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 6, 2008 — Related Newsline story, May 19, 2008.

Poll finds that different phrasings of same concept elicit disparate reactions

From the Pew Research Center:

“With the Supreme Court expected to soon rule on a case involving job discrimination claims by white firefighters, and Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s decision in a lower court ruling on the case drawing scrutiny, there is renewed focus on public opinion about affirmative action programs and overall efforts to improve the position of minorities in this country. The public has generally been supportive of such efforts, but is decidedly opposed to the idea of providing preferential treatment to minorities.

“In the most recent Pew Research Center values survey, released May 21, just 31% agreed that ‘we should make every effort to improve the position of blacks and minorities, even if it means giving them preferential treatment.’ More than twice as many (65%) disagreed with this statement. That balance of opinion has fluctuated only modestly through the 22-year history of the values survey.

“The values survey revealed continuing racial differences in attitudes about this issue. Majorities of both African Americans (58%) and Hispanics (53%) favor preferential treatment to improve the position of blacks and other minorities; just 22% of whites agree….

“While the public rejects the use of preferential treatment to improve the position of minorities, in the past it has expressed broad support for affirmative action programs aimed at helping blacks and women gain access to better jobs and education.

“In January 2007, 70% said they favored ‘affirmative action programs to help blacks, women and other minorities get better jobs and education,’ while 25% opposed these programs. Support for affirmative action programs had increased substantially from the mid-1990s….

“Notably, between 1995 and 2007 there was a sharp increase in the proportion of whites expressing support for affirmative action programs….

“Pew Research surveys have found far less support for affirmative action programs when they are described as giving preferences to African Americans. In 2007, as part of a major survey about public opinion about race relations, the Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends project asked separate groups of respondents different questions about affirmative action programs intended to ‘overcome past discrimination.’

“One group was asked about affirmative action programs ‘designed to help blacks get better jobs and education:’ 60% favored these programs, while 30% were opposed. The other group was asked about affirmative action programs that ‘give special preferences to qualified blacks in hiring and education.’ Opinion was more evenly divided in this case; 46% favored affirmative action programs that give special preferences to qualified blacks, while 40% oppose these programs….”

For the full release from Pew, June 2, click here.

“We can often do more for other men by correcting our own faults than by trying to correct theirs.”

– François Fénelon (French writer, poet, and theologian, 1651-1715)

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

by Rushworth M. Kidder

Over breakfast last week with several senior Washington-based analysts, we got talking about America’s moral character. One of them, after sketching out the greed and corruption underlying the current recession, concluded with a personal assertion.

“I don’t think anybody is honest anymore,” he said flatly.

It was said less in anger than in sadness, reflecting the disappointment of a lover of humanity more than the triumphalism of a cynic. He wasn’t arguing, as cynics would, that the very idea of goodness is an illusion. He just felt that, at every turn, people seemed ready to ignore or abuse goodness for their own selfish ends.

There’s nothing new about this argument. It surfaces among the ancient Greeks. It finds expression in Thomas Hobbes’s view that men in a state of nature, unmediated by government, are condemned to lives that are “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” How to address it remains a key task of the world’s major religions. And how deeply it’s believed will determine how the citizens of any nation view one another along a scale stretching from suspicion to trust.

So I won’t try to refute it in a brief column. Instead, let me offer three recent global news items I wish I’d thought of that morning, all touching on the goodness of young people:

• In graduate business programs at Harvard, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Arizona, and a host of other schools, student activism is centered increasingly on ethics. Example: More than half of the 900 MBA students in this year’s class at Harvard have signed the “MBA Oath,” pledging to “serve the greater good,” act with “utmost integrity,” pursue their work “in an ethical manner,” and guard against “decisions and behavior that advance my own narrow ambitions but harm the enterprise and the societies” served by their employers.
• Across Indonesia, “honesty cafes” are springing up in local schools — places where students take drinks and snacks from the shelves and, in the absence of a cashier, pay by making their own change and leaving money in an untended box. Part of the government’s new campaign against corruption, these cafes — already numbering more than 7,000 — are largely successful. The move is part of a bid by a country long known for endemic corruption to breed habits of honesty in the young, who appear to be responding with enthusiasm.
• As the government in Tehran began expelling foreign journalists last week, Iranians took to the streets with video cameras and cell phones to record huge public protests against the apparently dishonest vote count in the June 12 election. In a country where 60 percent of the population is under 30, these videos appear to be coming largely from tech-savvy youths, who at one point last week were sending the BBC about five videos a minute.

You can of course quibble about these issues. At Harvard, are students signing up because, as the Economist notes, many graduates “see non-profit and government jobs as their best bet” in a drooping corporate economy and think that “embracing the ‘values agenda’ could prove useful”? In Indonesia, where’s the evidence that youthful peer pressure, making it cool to be honorable in the cafes, will translate into an adult willingness to resist bribes worth thousands of times more than a bag of chips? In Tehran, is this just the hacker mentality at work among students who salivate at the chance to prove they can outwit their enforcers?

These are valid reservations, no doubt holding true for some young people. But I sense the makings of a larger trend toward honesty. Perhaps it has to do with the widely documented ethical lapses that led us into the current global recession. Perhaps it’s a reaction to the excesses of me-first materialism, coupled with a dimming of the life of the mind, that characterized recent decades. Perhaps it’s a sense of communal guilt at what we’ve done to ourselves — “Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame,” as Shakespeare called it. Or perhaps it’s simply that, as survey data shows, the coming generation expects to have a lower living standard but a higher moral standard than its elders.

Whatever the reason, I’d be hard pressed to make the case that honesty has rotted out. Yes, there’s a bumper crop of moral outrage. But if the choice is between that and moral apathy, I’ll take the former any day. A citizenry that has lost its capacity for outrage has lost its moral compass. And yes, it’s easy to lose heart under the journalistic jackhammer of bad-ethics headlines. But look what happens when we dig a little deeper. When the next generation of leaders is signing on to ethics oaths, paying for snacks on the honor system, and demanding electoral honesty, I’m a long way from being dispirited. Which, of course, is what I should have said over breakfast.

©2009 Institute for Global Ethics

Listen to this week’s commentary by clicking here, or by downloading our podcast, Ethicast™, now available on i-Tunes.

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

“On the record before us, there is no reason to deny access to the evidence and there are many reasons to provide it, not least of which is a fundamental concern in ensuring that justice has been done.”

– U.S. Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens, dissenting in last week’s ruling that rejects the right of prisoners to examine DNA evidence that may clear their name, as reported in the Washington Post.

The 5-4 majority opinion, authored by chief justice John Roberts, admitted that new DNA testing technology offers an “unparalleled ability both to exonerate the wrongly convicted and to identify the guilty,” but then said such resources can remain off limits to prisoners while state legislatures consider the issue.

Source: Washington Post, June 19.

For more information, see: AP, June 18 — New York Times, June 18 — Related Newsline Research Report, Nov. 17, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 19, 2007.

Critics say proposal would concentrate too much power in the Fed and overreach government’s authority; backers argue such protections could have prevented current economic meltdown

WASHINGTON
President Obama’s plan to more closely regulate financial risk last week prompted ethical debate over how large a role the government should assume in protecting consumers.

Obama framed the issue in moral terms, saying enhanced regulation was called for because “a culture of irresponsibility took root from Wall Street to Washington to Main Street, ” reports the New York Times. “A regulatory regime basically crafted in the wake of a 20th century economic crisis — the Great Depression — was overwhelmed by the speed, scope, and sophistication of a 21st century global economy,” Obama said.

But critics say Obama’s plan, which essentially consolidates regulatory power in the Federal Reserve, gives too much power to the Fed — an agency that has been blamed for past recessions after detractors say it missed early warnings of looming problems.

Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), who chairs the Banking Committee, said consolidating power in the Fed “is like a parent giving his son a bigger, faster car right after he crashed the family station wagon,” UPI reports.

The proposed super-agency residing in the Fed would be called the Consumer Financial Protection Agency and would have broad authority over consumer-oriented financial products, such as mortgages and credit cards. Obama’s blueprint for the agency says it will play a “leading role” in educating consumers about finance and ensure that financial products such as mortgages are offered in simplified, “plain vanilla” forms, according to Consumer Reports.

Executives of banks and other financial institutions characterized the proposal as overreaching. But proponents, such as Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, counter with the claim that such an agency could have prevented the most damaging abuses in the subprime real estate market and consumer lending.

“It is not hard for an expert in finance to devise financial instruments that most people cannot understand,” Baker told PBS’s “NewsHour.” “By blocking this path to profitability, these reforms, if effectively applied, will lead to a more efficient financial industry. The country does not benefit from having people at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley spending their time devising ways to rip off small city school districts with auction rate securities.”

Sources: New York Times, June 19 — UPI, June 19 — Consumer Reports, June 18 — PBS’s “NewsHour,” June 18.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 15 — Related Newsline story, June 15 — Related Newsline story, May 25 — Related Newsline story, May 4.

Are medical schools hygienic in separating marketing and education? Should prisoners have the right to DNA testing? Are “brain boosting” drugs immoral or just part of humanity’s continuing quest for improvement? Should wife be allowed to make decisions about life support for the man who allegedly killed her children?

VARIOUS DATELINES
Issues in medicine and the life sciences raised a number of ethics questions in last week’s press coverage. Among them:

• A survey of medical schools says many are improving their conflict-of-interest policies to monitor ties with drug and medical-device manufacturers, reports the Wall Street Journal. But more than half of the schools still have inadequate policies or none at all, according to the joint study by the American Medical Student Association and the Pew Prescription Project. Scrutiny of medical-school relationships was ratcheted up after pressure from Congress and a series of press articles examining how marketing drove prescribing habits and information imparted to medical trainees.
• A sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court last week ruled that prisoners do not have a constitutional right to DNA testing that could potentially prove them innocent, reports TIME magazine. The court ruled that whether to provide DNA tests was an issue for legislatures, not courts. Chief justice John Roberts, siding with the 5-4 majority, said that having the court impose such rules would short-circuit the legislative process.
• The London-based Independent reports that a noted professor of bioethics says it is time to embrace the possibilities of drugs that enhance mental abilities. John Harris, director of the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation at the University of Manchester, says arguments against the use of the drugs, such as Ritalin, have been unpersuasive. “It is not rational to be against human enhancement,” he argues. “Humans are creatures that result from an enhancement process called evolution and moreover are inveterate self-improvers in every conceivable way.” Ritalin, part of a class of drugs used to treat attention deficit disorder, has been shown in some studies to increase cognitive abilities in people without impairments.
• A Houston hospital is the setting for a bizarre medical-ethics case centered on a man who police say shot his two children, killing them, then turned the gun on himself in a failed suicide attempt. The man’s self-inflicted injuries are so serious that he is now on life support, and the decision on whether to pull the plug apparently is now in the hands of his wife — the mother of their two murdered children. A medical ethicist and law professor interviewed by the Houston Chronicle said that the wife, usually the person given priority in end-of-life decisions involving a married man, has a conflict of interest in the case. As this issue of Newsline went to press, no word on final decisions on the matter had been published.

Sources: Independent, June 19 — Houston Chronicle, June 18 — TIME, June 19 — Wall Street Journal, June 16.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 1 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 13 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 16 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 16 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 9.

Job seekers in Montana city asked to provide passwords for blogs and social-media accounts; recording piracy case concludes with whopping damages assessment; congressional testimony reveals that very few Web users opt out of privacy collection; a researcher is writing computer code for a robot code of ethics

VARIOUS DATELINES
Some intriguing junctions of morality and technology were featured in press reports last week. Among them:

• Job seekers applying for a local government job in Bozeman, Montana, are being asked to list all potentially compromising aspects of their Web presence, such as chat rooms, blogs, Facebook, and MySpace accounts, and provide the passwords they use to access the sites, reports U.S. News & World Report. Billings TV station KTVQ reports that a city attorney defended the demands, saying the background check does not extend to items protected under state constitutional privacy guarantees.
• The only case to go to trial concerning the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) series of anti-piracy suits ended with a whopping $1.92 million verdict against a Minnesota woman who illegally up- and downloaded songs. Jammie Thomas-Rasset was found liable for infringement, reports Wired. The RIAA is winding down its campaign of lawsuits, notes the magazine, and is now focusing on lobbying ISPs to disconnect file sharers. All the other cases brought by the RIAA were settled out of court for an average settlement of about $3,500.
• Testimony during congressional hearings on a proposed U.S. privacy law revealed that a very low percentage of search engine users opt out of data-collection systems. A privacy executive from Yahoo admitted that the number is probably “far lower than 1 percent.” A Google representative said she did not know the percentage. Forbes reports that the issue is at the center of a debate over whether advertisers and search engines should use an opt-in or opt-out system to protect surfers’ online privacy.
• A U.S. researcher has begun writing computer code that will help robotic warriors follow an ethics code in the heat of battle, reports Popular Science. Ron Arkin, a robotics engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology, says that in some cases programming drone warriors is fairly straightforward, such as an actual instance in a 2006 battle in Afghanistan where an unmanned, armed vehicle was programmed not to fire on subjects in a cemetery, a violation of existing rules of war. But the complexity of human emotions and ethics makes programming difficult when situations are less clear cut. One point in the robot’s favor, notes the Popular Science report: They don’t seek revenge.

Sources: U.S. News & World Report, June 19 — KTVQ, Billings, Montana — Wired, June 18 — Forbes, June 18 — Popular Science, June 18.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 8 — Related Newsline story, May 25 — Related Newsline story, May 18 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 27 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 9.

Kenyan bookstores have been reluctant to carry it for fear of libel suits

NAIROBI
A book about corruption in Kenya is causing widespread controversy, even though many bookstores are refusing to sell it because of fear of libel suits by the government.

The book, It’s Our Turn to Eat, details government official John Bithongo’s failed attempts to curb corruption and his subsequent exile.

Author Michela Wrong tells the Voice of America that the title is a common phrase in Kenya, used to indicate the notion that a particular ethnic group wants to feed on government resources.

Wrong told National Public Radio that a “rotating series of ethnic elites” have run the economy to benefit themselves, “and it’s an attitude that has obviously destroyed the economy.”

Ironically, reports the Nairobi’s Daily Nation, bookstores’ reluctance to carry the title has afforded it wide publicity and distribution. A partnership between media, churches, and other civic groups is distributing the book for free.

The churches also intend to start discussion groups focusing on the book.

It’s Our Turn to Eat has attracted attention in other African nations, reports the Kampala, Uganda, Weekly Observer, because in the years following its 2002 elections, many international observers regarded Kenya as a test case for democratic and economic reform throughout Africa.

Sources: Voice of America, June 18 — NPR, June 16 — Nairobi Daily Nation, June 16 — Kampala Weekly Observer, June 10.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Mar. 2 — Related Newsline story, June 30, 2008 — Related Newsline story, June 30, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 4, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 22, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 14, 2008.

Newsweek essayist calls for moral compass in capitalism; Monitor writer warns that ethics programs are cut back in hard economic times, exactly when they are needed; new research counters common perception of whistle-blowers

VARIOUS DATELINES
Business ethics was the topic of several essays and features last week. They included:

• Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International, last week examined the global economic crisis and the accompanying angst over the future of capitalism. In a wide-ranging essay titled “Greed is Good: Up to a Point,” Zakaria concluded with this observation about the difference between law and ethics as it applies to capitalism: “Most of what happened over the past decade across the world was legal. Bankers did what they were allowed to do under the law. Politicians did what they thought the system asked of them. Bureaucrats were not exchanging cash for favors. But very few people acted responsibly, honorably or nobly (the very word sounds odd today). This might sound like a small point, but it is not. No system — capitalism, socialism, whatever — can work without a sense of ethics and values at its core. No matter what reforms we put in place, without common sense, judgment and an ethical standard, they will prove inadequate.”
• Christian Science Monitor correspondent G. Jeffrey MacDonald notes that the recession is pressuring some companies to cut back on ethics training — ironically, he argues, during the time when it is needed most. He quotes Michael Hoffman, executive director of Bentley University’s Center for Business Ethics, who warns that, “In a time where the economy is bad and corporations are struggling to survive, there is more temptation to cut corners and step over the ethical line than there is in other times.” MacDonald contends that there is some statistical evidence to back this up, citing a 2008 study by the Ethics Resource Center that found that workplace misconduct tends to increase by about 11 percent during tumultuous times, and a December Compliance Week/Deloitte survey in which 36 percent of executives surveyed said they expected fraud levels in their organizations to increase (only 3.6 percent expected it to decrease).
• New research indicates that whistle-blowers who go public may not have originally intended to inflict maximum damage through widespread publicity. Rather, reports the British online management journal Management-Issues.com, researchers from Indiana University and Georgetown University say it is usually the case that people try to go through internal channels but are frustrated because of poor policies or procedures, or because middle management simply mishandles the complaint. “The stereotype is that whistle-blowers always start out going to the media and try to go for the maximum publicity,” says Indiana’s Janet Near. “They don’t. If I’m a manager, and I find out that whistle-blowers typically don’t do that, then it behooves me to set up procedures so they can blow the whistle internally and minimize the damage to the organization externally.”

Sources: Newsweek, June 22 — Christian Science Monitor, June 19 — Management-Issues.com, June 19.

For more information, see: Related Newsline Commentary, June 15 — Related Newsline story, June 15 — Related Newsline story, June 1 — Related Newsline story, June 1 — Related Newsline Commentary, May 4.