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

by Rushworth M. Kidder

It was early June when Terri arrived back at the camp. As a longtime trustee, she again had volunteered to help the counselors open up the cabins for the children who, by month’s end, would pour into this northern New England lakeside facility.

That week an environmental education program had rented the facility. The program supplied its own instructors to work with a group of 6th-graders from a local middle school. She’d always felt comfortable with kids that age, she told me. But neither Terri nor the camp counselors had any official role with their program, so she hardly could have suspected that one of these kids would open for her a moral can of worms that, months later, still troubles her — and that, taken to its logical extension, helps explain today’s economic recession.

Like so many moral issues, this one unfolded at lightning speed. Terri was sitting by the water’s edge after dinner, enjoying the long summer evening with several counselors, when a group of kids from the environmental program came down to fish. Their instructors led them to various rocks along the shore where they could cast their bobbers into the still water. One child, Terri noted, had brought an elaborate tackle box, out of which he took a paper cup of worms.

“You can’t use those,” an instructor told him.

“Why not?” he asked.

Because, the instructor explained, this lake has stringent environmental standards: Motor boats aren’t permitted, and no live bait is allowed.

Unfazed, the child went right on baiting his hook. “Nobody will know,” he said, noting that there weren’t any wardens around to catch him. The instructor simply shrugged, said nothing, and walked away, and the boy cast his worm into the lake.

At which point Terri did…. Well, let me break into the narrative here. What should she have done?

On one hand, she recalls, “it bothered me, sitting there, that here was a teachable moment that was lost.” What a great opportunity, she felt, to make a point about law, obedience, responsibility, respect, fairness — any one of a host of virtues. Would the boy have been responsive? He was, she felt, “just a normal kid in jeans and a tee-shirt, not a hoodlum.” Besides, there were three adult instructors with the environmental program who, she said, “had been doing this for 15 or 20 years.” Surely, she felt, it was their responsibility to train these children to obey environmental regulations.

Yet she wasn’t part of this program. Would it have been right for her to intervene, countermand the instructor’s indifference, and help the boy grasp these things? Or would she have been seen simply as a meddling adult inserting herself where she didn’t belong? Besides, though she’d been visiting that lake for years, she’d never known about the no-worms rule. Only later did she learn that the local lake association, concerned about introducing alien species into the waters, had banned any use of live bait.

In the end, the moment passed, and Terri did nothing. And the more she thought about it, the more disappointed she grew with her own lack of moral courage. Yes, she could see arguments for restraint. But had she been sucked into a phenomenon known as bystander apathy, a term often used in connection with the 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese, whose cries for help went unheeded by at least 38 neighbors in Queens, New York? That concept, as researchers explain, also describes inhibitions in situations far less serious than capital crimes — where, in the presence of an audience of others who also fail to act, it becomes easier to justify your own inactivity and dilute your sense of responsibility.

Had Terri known the no-worms rule and been alone with the boy when he baited his hook, would she have spoken up? No doubt. Did she fail to act out of uncertainty, or because of the presence of others, or a combination of both? Who knows? What she’s sure of is “the lack of respect of kids for their teachers — and of teachers for the kids” that she witnessed. She also knows that when adults set the bar low, kids aim low, but that “when you hold the standard up to kids, they’ll hit it.” Next time, she says, “I’m going to step up.”

Terri’s experience, small though it is, has big-picture implications. In the past year, how many financial-sector employees, minding their business by their own metaphorical lakesides, suddenly observed corporate corruption, deception, and deliberate rule breaking? How many of the rule-breakers were, in effect, moral adolescents — fully mature adults, of course, but with no more conscience than that kid with the tackle box? How many of these bystanders said and did nothing? And how many now are sensing, in the ethical collapses that swept the economy into a grinding recession, the fruits of their silent inaction?

One thing is sure: People can be taught moral courage. But it’s best not to wait until they reach the banks and trading floors of adulthood. Better catch them early, some summer evening by the shore, when they think nobody’s watching.

What do you think Terri should have done? Let us know, and we’ll share the results next week.

©2009 Institute for Global Ethics

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

“The court does not give the government a high degree of deference because of its prior misrepresentations regarding the state secrets privilege in this case.”

– U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, ruling on Monday that the CIA committed fraud in distorting and obscuring the facts in a case accusing the agency of wiretapping one of its own covert agents in the early 1990s. Lamberth, who originally dismissed the case due to CIA assurances that the proceedings would expose state secrets, slammed the CIA for its behavior and “is considering sanctioning as many as six who have worked at the agency, including former CIA Director George Tenet,” reports the Associated Press. According to the AP, “Lamberth also denied the CIA’s renewed efforts under the Obama administration to keep the case secret because of what he calls the agency’s ‘diminished credibility.’”

Source: AP, July 20.

Reflections on Walter Cronkite; dust-ups over reproduction of allegedly hacked information; controversy over whether licensing Jackson video was checkbook journalism; an electronic twist to publication of 1984 that’s positively Orwellian

VARIOUS DATELINES
Among the week’s top stories involving ethics and communication industries:

• The death of Walter Cronkite last week prompted many observations about the changing nature of journalism, objectivity, and ethics. Among the commentators was CBS’s Andy Rooney, who lauded Cronkite for resisting the push for softer, ratings-building stories. “Walter didn’t care,” Rooney told National Public Radio. “He was absolutely in favor of giving the American people what they needed to know, not what they wanted to hear.” And the New York Times’s Alessandra Stanley offered this thought on why Cronkite’s voice of authority and objectivity left such an indelible mark on society: “When Mr. Cronkite was No. 1, the nightly news mattered. College students nowadays get their information from blogs and Comedy Central, not CBS. Families don’t gather in the den to eat dinner in front of ‘World News Tonight With Charles Gibson.’ Brian Williams and Katie Couric wouldn’t dare sign off with the words ‘and that’s the way it is.’ The television news business long ago lost that kind of prestige and importance; the audience for evening newscasts has so dwindled that this year there were more viewers on an average night for ‘American Idol’ than for the programs on CBS, NBC and ABC combined.”
• U.K. prosecutors say they will not reopen an investigation into claims that reporters from two tabloids illegally hacked into celebrities’ cell phones. Bloomberg reports that the probe will apparently end with charges against only a News of the World reporter and a private investigator hired by the newspaper who were jailed in 2007. Last week, it was revealed that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. paid $1.6 million to settle several lawsuits related to the hacks. After that disclosure, police were pressured to reopen the probe, but Bloomberg reports that prosecutors say there is no new information and no reason to revisit the case.
• Ethics controversy erupted over the hacking of the email account of Twitter CEO Evan Williams after a publication called TechCrunch said it would publish some of the confidential documents leaked by the anonymous hacker. TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington last week defended his decision to publish the hacked documents, telling CNET that other news organizations have published purloined emails and that revealing the information will encourage people to take data security more seriously.
• ABC News was accused of checkbook journalism after it was disclosed that an exclusive interview with Joe Jackson, Michael Jackson’s father, was conducted after ABC News paid $200,000 for video owned by the Jacksons. According to the Los Angeles Times, ABC licensed 10 minutes of the footage, but insists that the exchange of money had nothing to do with landing the exclusive interview and that the news division does not pay for interviews. Critics say it is an example of a common practice of indirectly compensating interview subjects by paying licensing fees or providing other perks, such as first-class airline tickets. (Editor’s note: This week we revisit one of Rushworth Kidder’s columns that dealt with Michael Jackson. See link.)
• An Orwellian ethics dilemma last week directly involved George Orwell: After discovering a problem with the licensing of 1984 and Animal Farm, Amazon remotely deleted the books from customers’ Kindles, the company’s popular electronic book display devices. Atlantic correspondent Edward Tanner wrote that the Orwell incident may not be the last time we consider the implications of digital erasure: “Several years ago, a libel suit persuaded one of the world’s most respected publishers, Cambridge University Press, to withdraw a book published after rigorous academic review. By then, many copies had been sold, and the work is available on the antiquarian market, though often at rare-book prices. But what if all copies of an exclusively electronic book could be instantly and virtually pulped?… Maybe bulky paper isn’t a bug any more; it’s a feature.”

Sources: Slate, July 20 — NPR, July 18 — New York Times, July 18 — Wall Street Journal, July 17 — Atlantic, July 16 — Bloomberg, July 16 — Los Angeles Times, July 14.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, July 6 — Related Newsline Commentary, June 29 — Related Newsline story, June 8 — Related Newsline story, May 25 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 22, 2008.

In Britain, doctors ponder their moral duties; in developing worlds, there’s concern that rich nations will gobble up scarce vaccine; fear of pandemic spurs Internet scams; Thai newspaper questions decision to pare back frequency of flu updates

VARIOUS DATELINES
Health experts say that swine flu is poised to make a comeback — along with a parade of ethical dilemmas.

The BBC notes that with outbreaks soaring in Britain, anxious patients are flocking to the offices of general practitioners, who comprise the medical front lines in the battle against the disease. In response, the government has asked GP offices to designate a “pandemic flu lead,” a member of the practice who will be responsible for dealing with flu patients.

Not surprisingly, notes medical ethicist Daniel Sokol, writing on the BBC website, few have jumped at the offer. In addition to the added responsibility, many dread the prospect of rationing potentially scarce vaccines and worry about increased exposure to the virus.

Sokol points out that the request for a “flu lead” itself poses ethical issues. Is it ethical to ask one doctor to bear an additional risk and burden? What about physicians who have young children at home or frail elderly parents? Should duty of care to patients trump duty of care to loved ones?

“If the strength of our competing duties is morally important,” Sokol writes, “a single doctor with no children may have a greater obligation to be the flu lead than a married doctor with three young children.

“Yet, how would this work in practice? Is a six-year-old daughter ‘worth more’ than a five-year-old daughter? Is a 90-year-old parent worth more than a toddler? Is a girlfriend of 10 years worth less than a wife of five years?” Sokol asks.

With flu cases erupting across Europe, the U.K. Guardian reports, a race among nations to secure vaccines has begun. World Health Organization director general Margaret Chan warns that poor nations will suffer as wealthy nations stockpile vaccines.

In Canada and the United States, there’s a new wrinkle to swine flu dilemmas: Internet scams involving websites that sell phony cures, reports the CanWest News Service.

And in Thailand, there’s an ethics debate over how much information to release on the spread of the flu, according to the Bangkok Post. Like health authorities in many nations, officials in Thailand have cut back on the frequency of public updates and projections because the volatile nature of outbreaks often produces inaccurate, conflicting, and alarming reports.

In an editorial, the Post argues that “with the same life-threatening health crisis hanging over us all, the Thai people certainly deserve to be fully informed in a straightforward and unhindered manner”

Sources: CanWest News Service, July 17 — Bangkok Post, July 17 — Guardian, July 17 — BBC, July 6.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, July 6 — Related Newsline story, May 4 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 27 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 9 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 5, 2007.

Canadian ethicist says government should restrict access to IVF, treating it akin to adoption

VARIOUS DATELINES
An ethics issue resurfaced in world headlines last week when it was revealed that a Spanish woman who received in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and gave birth at 66 died at age 69.

According to U.S. News & World Report, Maria del Carmen Bousada, who lied when seeking fertility treatment by understating her age by a decade, leaves behind toddler twins.

Her death revived the debate over the legal and ethical frameworks underpinning laboratory-assisted births.

In Britain, the Scotsman reports that many fertility experts have condemned the decision by a U.S. clinic to offer the woman IVF treatment.

“The age of 66 is too old for a woman to have children, Dr. Gedis Grudzinskas, a fertility expert, told the Scotsman. “This situation is awful…. Frankly, I do not think the situation regarding the unborn children was addressed. Is there a supporting and nurturing family network here? Are the children going to be cared for?”

In Canada, the incident resonated because it comes in the wake of a Calgary woman who recently gave birth to twins conceived with donor eggs implanted in India, the Vancouver Sun reports.

There are few legal mechanisms governing age and in-vitro fertilization — a situation that Margaret Somerville, founding director of the Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University, argues must be rectified.

Somerville tells the Vancouver Sun that she believes the state has no right to interfere when people want to have children through natural means, but adds that reproductive technology should not be given the same freedom. It should be more like adoption, she argues, where the state is involved because it feels an obligation to protect children.

Age guidelines for IVF treatment in Canada are set by individual clinics. In general, reports the Edmonton Sun, most fertility specialists will not attempt the procedure with a woman past her mid-40s.

Sources: Edmonton Sun, July 17 — Vancouver Sun, July 16 — Scotsman, July 16 — U.S. News & World Report, July 16.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Apr. 27 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 20 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 2 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 9 — Related Newsline story, May 19, 2008.

Retail titan says it will survey its suppliers and compile an easy-to-read indicator of just how green each product is; image-changing venture poses challenges, though

WASHINGTON and CHICAGO
Wal-Mart last week said it will revolutionize the ethics angle on shopping by creating an index of the environmental friendliness of suppliers, manufacturers, and products.

InformationWeek reports that the information will be compiled in a massive database of its more than 100,000 suppliers, who will be given a 15-question survey about their greenhouse gas emissions, water and solid waste reduction efforts, and other details about business practices.

The indexing system was devised by environmental groups and academics, reports the London Telegraph, and will be condensed into an easily understood universal rating system — akin to a version of a nutrition label, but one that will provide details about environmental and social sustainability.

“It is not our goal to create or own this index,” Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke said, reports Agence France-Presse. “We want to spur the development of a common database that will allow the consortium to collect and analyze the knowledge of the global supply chain.”

According to the Chicago Tribune, Wal-Mart’s announcement was the latest and most ambitious step in the chain’s multiyear effort to transform itself into a company that is seen as environmentally friendly — a move the company thinks will expand its appeal to younger customers.

But the Tribune report contends that the goal won’t be easy to accomplish, citing an expert on eco-friendly retailing who notes that experts disagree on what makes a product “green,” and that standards can be difficult to apply. Clothes may be made with organic cotton, for example, but produced at an energy-hogging plant.

The Tribune notes that Wal-Mart’s efforts to change public perception got their start in 2005: “When Wal-Mart launched its green initiative, it was reeling from a barrage of negative headlines portraying the company as a behemoth that mistreats its workers, squeezes its suppliers and puts mom-and-pop merchants out of business.”

“To remake its image, the company latched onto the then-fledgling green movement as a way to attract a new generation of shoppers that are more likely to hold big companies accountable for their behavior,” reports the Tribune.

The initiative is expected to unfold over a three-year period, according to reports.

Sources: AFP, July 17 — Telegraph, July 16 — InformationWeek, July 16 — Chicago Tribune, July 16.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, May 11 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 19 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 8, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 27, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 21, 2008.

Federal and state officials say scammers bilked homeowners with empty promises; news reports say it’s another sign of desperation in collapse of housing market

LOS ANGELES and WASHINGTON
There’s more ethical and legal fallout from the implosion of the housing market: Prosecutors across the United States last week filed 189 legal actions against “loan modification consultants” accused of scamming desperate homeowners.

According to the Associated Press, the lawsuits and cease-and-desist orders were part of a nationwide sweep, called “Operation Loan Lies,” conducted by the Federal Trade Commission and officials in 19 states.

“It’s an operation full of hollow promises designed to fatten the pockets of criminals and con artists,” FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz said in announcing the move at a press conference in Los Angeles, the Reuters news agency reports.

“These con artists see the high foreclosure rates as an opportunity to prey on people in distress,” Leibowitz said. “They promise to rescue homeowners in troubled financial waters, but after they take their money, they throw them an anchor instead of a lifeline.”

The FTC says the defendants typically would falsely claim that they could help troubled homeowners stop foreclosure, obtain a new mortgage, or both, according to the Baltimore Sun. Typically the firms cited by officials allegedly would charge the equivalent of one or more month’s mortgage payment, do nothing, and then fail to deliver promised refunds.

BusinessWeek notes that desperate people living on the financial edge can be more susceptible to scams.

As reported in last week’s edition of Ethics Newsline, mortgage fraud of all varieties is skyrocketing, with the FBI reporting a 36 percent increase over the previous year.

Sources: AP, July 16 — Reuters, July 16 — Baltimore Sun, July 16 — BusinessWeek, July 14.

For more information, see: Related Newsline Commentary, July 13 — Related Newsline story, July 13 — Related Newsline story, July 6 — Related Newsline story, June 22 — Related Newsline story, June 8.

Chen Tonghai convicted of taking $30 million in bribes

BEIJING
The former chairman of Sinopec, China’s largest oil refiner, last week was sentenced to death, but given a reprieve, after being convicted of taking bribes.

UPI reports that Chen Tonghai was found guilty of accepting nearly $30 million in illicit payments.

The official Chinese government news agency Xinhua says Tonghai’s reprieve means that his sentence will be commuted to life in prison if he commits no further crimes while behind bars.

Another state-run news source, Shanghai Daily, reports that Chen’s reprieve came about because of his “good attitude” in confessing his crimes — presumably identifying other allegedly corrupt officials.

Chen was chairman of state-owned Sinopec, also known as the China Petroleum and Chemical Group, from 1999 until he was jailed in 2007 as he attempted to flee the country, the Financial Times reports.

Following Chen’s arrest, investigators found cash hidden in fish tanks, toilets, and stuffed under roof tiles.

Sources: UPI, July 15 — Xinhua, July 15 — Shanghai Daily, July 16 — Financial Times, July 15.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 15 — Related Newsline story, May 25 — Related Newsline story, May 11 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 23 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 16.

Observers discuss aftermath of Pope’s call for restraint, transparency

VARIOUS DATELINES
Commentators from the worlds of finance and religion took to the opinion pages in major publications last week after Pope Benedict XVI’s appeal for global reform in financial ethics. Among the opinions:

• Darrell Delamaide, “Political Capital” columnist for MarketWatch, writes: “Benedict’s core message is not that controversial. Charity, in the form of everyone’s obligation to seek the common good, and truth are essential for any economy to function, at a local, national or global level….These are precisely the values driving many of the top economic issues in this country — from healthcare reform to combating global warming to improving disclosure and transparency in financial products. The pope insists that markets aren’t just about an exchange of goods, but a social compact based on a shared understanding of what is just and fair.”
• Father Thomas Massaro, a professor of moral theology at Boston College, contends in an opinion piece for Newsday: “Our world desperately needs this timely call for ethical renewal…. Well-developed economic ideals are precisely the tools we will need if we hope to crawl out of the economic hole we’ve dug for ourselves through the cynical manipulation of credit and other markets in recent years….The Pope does us a great service in calling us to place the long-term common good of humanity ahead of greed and myopic self-interest.”
• William O’Neill, a professor of social ethics at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, California, tells the San Francisco Chronicle: “I suspect, had [the papal encyclical calling for ethics reform] been issued prior to the economic crisis, it would have been met with a kind of constrained interest. Today, we would almost say it’s prophetic, because there is a general understanding that the failures of international regulation, the crises of a globalizing economy, will require a kind of profound ethical appraisal…. This encyclical comes at a time when many of us would say business as usual is no longer acceptable. We need significant structural change rather than just making minor modifications and hoping that the great capitalist engine will continue to function.”

Sources: Newsday, July 17 — MarketWatch, July 15 — San Francisco Chronicle, July 13.

For more information, see: Related Newsline Research Report, July 13 — Related Newsline story, July 13 — Related Newsline story, July 6 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 6.

New survey finds “scientific achievements less prominent than a decade ago”

“From the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press in collaboration with the American Association for the Advancement of Science:

“Americans like science. Overwhelming majorities say that science has had a positive effect on society and that science has made life easier for most people. Most also say that government investments in science, as well as engineering and technology, pay off in the long run.

“And scientists are very highly rated compared with members of other professions: Only members of the military and teachers are more likely to be viewed as contributing a lot to society’s well-being.

“However, the public has a far less positive view of the global standing of U.S. science than do scientists themselves. Just 17% of the public thinks that U.S. scientific achievements rate as the best in the world.

“A survey of more than 2,500 scientists, conducted in collaboration with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), finds that nearly half (49%) rate U.S. scientific achievements as the best in the world….

“While the public holds scientists in high regard, many scientists offer unfavorable, if not critical, assessments of the public’s knowledge and expectations. Fully 85% see the public’s lack of scientific knowledge as a major problem for science, and nearly half (49%) fault the public for having unrealistic expectations about the speed of scientific achievements.

“A substantial percentage of scientists also say that the news media have done a poor job educating the public. About three-quarters (76%) say a major problem for science is that news reports fail to distinguish between findings that are well-founded and those that are not. And 48% say media oversimplification of scientific findings is a major problem.

“The scientists are particularly critical of television news coverage of science. Just 15% of scientists rate TV coverage as excellent or good, while 83% say it is only fair or poor. Newspaper coverage of science is rated somewhat better….

“A majority of the public (60%) says that government investment in research is essential for scientific progress; only about half that percentage (29%) is of the view that private investment will ensure that enough scientific progress is made even without government intervention.

“Moreover, large percentages think that government investments in basic scientific research (73%) and engineering and technology (74%) pay off in the long run. Notably, the partisan differences in these views are fairly modest, with 80% of Democrats and 68% of Republicans saying that government investments in basic science pay off in the long run….

“…87% of scientists say that humans and other living things have evolved over time and that evolution is the result of natural processes such as natural selection. Just 32% of the public accepts this as true.

“And the near consensus among scientists about global warming is not mirrored in the general public. While 84% of scientists say the earth is getting warmer because of human activity such as burning fossil fuels, just 49% of the public agrees….

“Most scientists had heard at least a little about claims that government scientists were not allowed to report research findings that conflicted with the Bush administration’s point of view. And the vast majority (77%) says that these claims are true. By contrast, these claims barely registered with the public — more than half heard nothing at all about this issue. Only about a quarter of the public (28%) said they thought the claims were true.

“Both scientists and the public overwhelmingly say it is appropriate for scientists to become active in political debates about such issues as nuclear power or stem cell research. Virtually all scientists (97%) endorse their participation in debates about these issues….

“Americans are knowledgeable about basic scientific facts that affect their health and their daily lives. But the public is less able to answer questions about more complex science topics….

“Previous Pew Research Center knowledge surveys have shown that young people are poorly informed about current events and politics. But this is not the case with science knowledge. In fact, those younger than age 30 get higher scores on the knowledge test than do those ages 65 and older. Still, the best-informed people about science, according to the results of this quiz, are those ages 30 to 49….”

For the full release, July 9, click here.

“Watch lest prosperity destroy generosity.”

– Henry Ward Beecher (U.S. clergyman, 1813-1887)