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

by Rushworth M. Kidder

In a festering economy, not-so-bad news is good news. July’s unemployment figures were, by most standards, dismal: Some 247,000 jobs evaporated. But because that was only a third of the 741,000 jobs lost in January — and the smallest loss since last August — the markets shot upward. Some pundits even declared the recession over, though others warned of further losses.

There’s hope that as the recession wanes, those jobs will return. But what if they don’t? What if advances in robotics, nanotechnology, and computing power finally have brought automation to the point where machines start replacing people in massive numbers? Science fiction foresaw that possibility long ago. Now, as physics and engineering bring it to pass, sociology is sending up warning flares about its human impact — and economics is head-scratching over its cost-benefit ratios.

That’s all to the good, but we need to hear from another discipline: philosophy. Without a much deeper look at the intellectual and moral ramifications of robotics and automation, we risk missing the real meaning of these changes.

It was the philosopher and university president Michael Hooker who, more than two decades ago, first called my attention to the metaphysics (his word) of this issue. In an interview for my 1986 book An Agenda for the 21^st Century, Hooker noted that new technologies would continue to improve productivity until even service-sector jobs would begin to disappear. His example was straightforward: When a robot can take your order, cook your Big Mac, serve it, and make change, why hire people?

Hooker wasn’t worried about the economy — in his view, it would be rich enough to support everybody. It just couldn’t guarantee every person a job. For him, the big question wasn’t, How will people earn a living? It was, What will people do all day? He foresaw “a kind of growing intellectual and cultural and ethical anomie” — drawing on his philosopher’s training for a Greek word meaning rootlessness or lack of purpose. He defined it as “a condition where people have nothing to live for, nothing to commit their lives to, no sense of meaningful activity in their lives, because they have no sense of meaningfulness in their lives.”

“I’m not worried that service workers won’t be fed and clothed,” he said. “They will be. But they won’t be service workers anymore. They will be idle. What will they do with their lives? And what in the world could we be doing now to prepare for that day?”

Hooker’s question has been answered by several decades of inaction. Given the practicality of the U.S. work ethic — where what you do so fully defines who you are — the loss of jobs becomes, in Hooker’s words, a question of “metaphysics … [concerning] our conception of the nature of life and our place in it.” That may sound ethereal, but it’s soberingly practical. If thousands of Americans aren’t going hungry but aren’t needed in the workforce, how will they spend their time? Where will they find meaning? How will they know what “meaning” looks like if they’ve only been trained to work?

The scary thing is that maybe we have been preparing for that day. We’ve put in place a far-reaching culture of pseudo-significance. We’ve created vast malls, huge online stores, and a yard-sale culture that reinforces a shop-’til-you-drop mindset. We’ve invented enormous individual distractions, from Twitter and talk shows to Facebook and cell phones, where a few breaths of gossip can swirl into a global squall in a matter of seconds. And we’ve created a video culture so pervasive that soon no one, within a single lifetime, will be able to watch all of the video a single iPod can hold. Plenty to do, yes. But to what end and with what sense of meaning?

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that all of those lost jobs provided much meaning. Many of them, rottingly routine and hypnotically dull, just barely provided an occupation. But they did provide that uniquely American twist — “I work, therefore I am” — to Descartes’ famous dictum. They also papered over the gaps left by an educational system that rarely required students to consider the meaningfulness of their lives, even at the university level. Now, caught unprepared by that education, what are the nonworking to do? Surely there’s more for them than roaming the malls of America, looking for stuff to buy. Surely there’s a system for meaning-making.

In the end, that’s what Hooker meant by metaphysics. The tools for meaning-making have to do with core values, ethical decision making, and the courage to stand up for what’s right. Those tools help us live our lives in close relation to honesty, responsibility, respect, fairness, and compassion, where real meaningfulness arises. These aren’t elite ideas: I’ve seen underserved seventh-graders — and grandparents with only seventh-grade educations — take to these conversations with enormous energy. As yet, however, these ideas aren’t commonly taught.

But the hopeful signs are there. There’s a public hunger for something more than today’s economy can provide. As slowing job losses give us room to shift toward this higher-productivity, lower-employment culture, the specter of unemployment may stimulate new efforts to educate for meaning rather than just for doing. The moment is ripe, and Hooker’s question, posed years before this year’s graduating class even was born, still prods us: What are we doing about it?

©2009 Institute for Global Ethics

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“Our Constitution respects freedom of thought and freedom of expression, but that should come with respect for society as a whole, and for moral behavior. It is not easy to balance security and democracy. It is like being a tightrope walker.”

– Taher Naser al-Hmood, Iraq’s deputy cultural minister, explaining a new push by the Iraqi government to restrict citizens’ free speech. The government is moving to “ban sites deemed harmful to the public, to require Internet cafes to register with the authorities and to press publishers to censor books,” reports the New York Times. The paper notes that “opponents of the proposals question why Iraq would seek to impose the same sorts of censorship that had been among the most loathed aspects of daily life under Saddam Hussein.”

Source: New York Times, Aug. 3.

William Jefferson convicted in freezer-cash case; New Jersey corruption sweep now the focus of the state’s race for governor; Ottawa mayor cleared of influence-peddling charges; Alaska’s attorney general speaks out against state’s current ethics laws

VARIOUS DATELINES
Among the top stories last week in ethics and politics:

• Former U.S. congressman William Jefferson, a nine-term Democrat voted out of office in 2008 after a scandal involving hidden cash in his freezer, was convicted last week on several federal bribery and corruption counts, USA Today reports. Jefferson was accused of accepting $400,000 in bribes and seeking millions more in exchange for influencing business deals in Africa, according to the paper.
• A corruption sweep so extensive that it even rattled graft-weary New Jersey has taken center stage in the race for governor there, according to a report from the Newark Star-Ledger. Republican challenger Chris Christie is blaming incumbent Jon Corzine’s “failure of leadership” for allowing political corruption to fester, the Star-Ledger reports. In turn, Corzine’s campaign rolled out a series of TV commercials attacking Christie’s ethics, implying that Christie’s appointment as a U.S. attorney came as a result of fund-raising for the Bush administration. Meanwhile, Corzine stepped up pressure on several public officials charged in the sting to resign. A total of 44 people, including a variety of public-office holders, were charged in a sweep centering on corruption and money laundering.
• Ottawa’s mayor is back at his desk following his acquittal last week on influence-peddling charges. Larry O’Brien had been charged with offering an opponent in the mayoral race a position on the National Parole Board in return for bowing out of the election, the Ottawa Citizen reports. O’Brien has been on leave since May 1.
• Alaska’s attorney general has agreed with former governor Sarah Palin in her campaign against the state’s ethics laws, criticizing what he characterizes as abuses of the system and issuing recommendations that he says could “enhance the integrity of the process.” Dan Sullivan criticized leaks in ethics cases and said there should be reimbursement for public officials who are cleared, reports the Juneau Empire. Palin claimed that politically motivated ethics probes were partly to blame for her decision to resign last month.

Sources: USA Today, Aug. 6 — Juneau Empire, Aug. 6 — Newark Star-Ledger, Aug. 5 — Ottawa Citizen, Aug. 5.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Aug. 3 — Related Newsline story, Aug. 3 — Related Newsline story, July 27 — Related Newsline story, July 13 — Related Newsline story, July 6.

Federal regulators turn fresh eye on privacy; there’s a high-profile resignation from Apple’s board; critics say White House effort to counter fraudulent health-care propaganda could violate First Amendment rights

VARIOUS DATELINES
Several ethics angles topped the news from the tech sector last week. Among the stories:

• The Wall Street Journal reports that regulators are reevaluating their approach to online privacy and security, seeking advice from experts on how to overhaul rules to better protect customers. According to the Journal’s analysis, the Federal Trade Commission recently has become more aggressive in policing online business practices. In response, trade groups have tried to stave off more government regulation with consumer education programs and more transparent privacy policies. Federal officials tell the Journal that they hope to have new privacy guidelines in place by next summer.
• Google chief executive Eric Schmidt has stepped down from Apple’s board of directors, with Apple citing more vigorous competition between the companies, BusinessWeek reports. In addition to concerns over the propriety of having a member of a similar, competing industry on the board, another factor motivating Schmidt’s departure may have been the starkly different views each company has on transparency, according to the report. While Google is a champion of open-source programming and web standards that will allow virtually any software to run on any computing device, Apple is known for its tight control of software that can be sold for its products, a philosophy that detractors claim discourages innovation, notes BusinessWeek.
• There’s controversy over the White House’s request for supporters of the Obama administration’s health care reform package to report “fishy” information they receive by forwarding the emails to a government website. While the White House says it is simply enlisting the help of supporters to keep track of propaganda and misinformation so it can address concerns raised by such messages, critics say the action smacks of Big Brother tactics and could violate First Amendment rights, PC World reports.

Sources: Wall Street Journal, Aug. 6 — PC World, Aug 6 — BusinessWeek, Aug. 3.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Aug. 3 — Related Newsline story, July 27 — Related Newsline story, July 6 — Related Newsline story, June 29 — Related Newsline story, June 22.

New commissioner admits agency has been slow to respond to previous problems

WASHINGTON
In the aftermath of several ethics-related incidents involving consumer safety and product adulteration, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) top official vowed last week to speed up the warning process when violations are found during inspections and act more aggressively to protect consumers.

The Reuters news agency reports that FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg, who has been on the job for two months, said the move “will help to ensure that violations are taken seriously, that warning letters and enforcement actions occur in a timely manner.”

Hamburg said that in some cases, serious violations had gone unaddressed by the FDA for far too long, including issues with product quality, adulteration, misbranding, and false and misleading advertising, according to a report from the Washington Post and a transcript of her speech provided by the FDA.

In related news, a prominent bioethicist has been recruited to be a senior adviser to Hamburg. R. Alta Charo is expected to formulate ethics strategies related to issues such as stem-cell therapies and in-vitro fertilization, reports Science Magazine.

Sources: Reuters, Aug. 6 — Washington Post, Aug. 6 — Science Magazine, Aug 6 — FDA, Aug. 6.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 8 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 23 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 9 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 10, 2008.

Debate over spending on swine flu vaccine becomes increasingly bitter; study shows that few actually take advantage of Oregon’s decade-old assisted suicide law; embryo donations are raising moral questions, including whether being impregnated with a donated embryo is a medical procedure or an adoption

VARIOUS DATELINES
Ethics dilemmas were confronted last week in several major press reports. Among them:

• What is becoming a recurring ethical theme in the news surfaced again last week as the Agence France-Presse reported on a bitter debate escalating over the gap between the spending by rich and poor nations on swine flu vaccine. Critics ratcheted up the volume last week, charging that spending is so unbalanced that it amounts to “health apartheid,” while others contend that mammoth sums are being wasted — spent on a vaccine for a flu strain that is in fact no more lethal than seasonal flu, one of many common diseases that takes thousands of lives daily in poor countries.
• When Oregon passed the United States’ first measure legalizing assisted suicide in 1997, the ethics controversy predictably was fierce — with many arguing that the law would open the floodgates to reckless and needless suicides. But a new study by two Oregon doctors has concluded that the vast majority of dying Oregonians are either not interested in the doctor-assisted suicide option or are medically ineligible to participate, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports. One of the study’s authors, Dr. Katrina Hedbuerg, said the results were not surprising as it takes a “pretty assertive individual” to plan a suicide. Certain categories of patients were particularly unlikely to avail themselves of the assisted-suicide law, according to the report: people 85 and older; those dying from causes other than cancer, AIDS, or ALS; those without a high school education; and those who are not white or Asian. The analysis appears in the Journal of Clinical Ethics.
• Canadian fertility experts tell the Calgary Herald that there is a looming and largely overlooked ethics problem stemming from in-vitro fertilization: what to do with unused embryos left over after the process is complete. Some couples are uncomfortable destroying the embryos and pay to have them frozen. Sometimes couples choose to donate their embryos to recipients who cannot produce them by any means — a situation that can become uncomfortable to doctor, donor, and patient. “There is a big tendency to treat this as a medical procedure instead of the adoption it really is,” Diane Allen, the director of a fertility network, told the Herald. “To give your embryos to somebody else, that is really complex because what it means is somebody else could well end up raising your genetic children — children who are full siblings to the children you are raising.” Laura Shanner, professor of health ethics at the University of Alberta, added this: “We just kind of assume that we can take the genetic material from one person and give it to another and everybody’s happy…. Whether it works for the child is a completely different question that nobody bothers to ask.”

Sources: AFP, Aug.6 — Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Aug. 6 — Calgary Herald, Aug. 6.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, July 27 — Related Newsline story, July 20 — Related Newsline story, July 20 — Related Newsline story, July 13 — Related Newsline story, July 6.

New training program at West Point presents cadets with ethical dilemmas in simulated battle conditions; Ohio school cancels graduation after cheating scandal; commission issues scathing report on admissions process at the University of Illinois

VARIOUS DATELINES
Several ethics issues related to education made news last week. Among them:

• The West Point Military Academy has started a new training program that deals in part with ethics decisions on the battlefield. The Times Herald-Record of Middletown, New York, reports that the program takes decisions out of a classroom scenario: Now they’re “getting their boots muddy,” as one instructor put it, during their senior year. Simulations, according to the report, include “the tactical and ethical dilemmas of today’s battlefields: distinguishing between enemies and ‘friendlies,’ meeting with sheiks, evacuating casualties.’” Experienced instructors play the “bad guys,” simulating dilemmas and creatively adding to the complications.
• An Ohio school is tightening computer security after a cheating scandal that reportedly involved more than half of the seniors who took a test in world studies last spring, reports the Cleveland Plain-Dealer. Centerburg High School canceled its graduation ceremonies and vowed to strengthen the district’s electronic firewall after it was discovered that a tech-savvy student hacked into the system, according to the Plain-Dealer report.
• A state commission has determined that officials at the University of Illinois developed an admissions system that manipulated decisions in favor of applicants who were supported by politicians, donors, and other VIPs, the New York Times reports. Several deans at the university were cited in the commission’s report as encouraging the admission of what the Times describes as privileged but sometimes underqualified applicants.

Sources: Middletown Times Herald-Record, Aug. 5 — New York Times, Aug. 6 — Cleveland Plain-Dealer, Aug. 5.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, July 6 — Related Newsline story, May 4 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 9 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 16 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 12.

Christian Science Monitor reports that with recent crashes linked to overburdened schedules, federal authorities are looking into new rules; critics contend that pilots cause part of the problem through lifestyle choices

BOSTON
Stories involving the ethics of driving while using cell phones, driving while texting, and driving while drowsy have dominated the news in recent months — and last week the Christian Science Monitor highlighted a similar issue: pilots who cover too many air miles on too few hours of sleep.

The Monitor’s Amanda Marx reports that a series of mishaps has put pilot fatigue on the front burner at the National Transportation Safety Board.

Recent crashes, including one in Buffalo, New York, in which 50 people were killed, have shed light on the grueling schedules kept by pilots for smaller, regional airlines, according to the report.

Federal authorities have resisted new rules governing the amount of rest required for pilots, according to analysts interviewed for the piece, because some airlines maintain that their rules already are strict and they question the validity of research used in the study of pilot fatigue.

Some critics argue that airlines resist rest rules simply because putting more down-time in pilots’ schedules would cost money, according to the report.

Pilots are blamed by some for contributing to the fatigue factor because of lifestyle choices: choosing to live far from the airports where they usually fly from or taking free flights from their homes to the venue where their planes depart.

Pilots counter that salaries at regional airlines can be so low that they cannot afford to live near the cities where they are based, according to the Monitor.

Source: Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 6.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Aug. 3 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 15, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 22, 2008 — Related Newsline Commentary, Mar. 10, 2008 — Related Newsline Commentary, Nov. 5, 2007.

Majority favors international “handling of offenders in 2008 post-election violence,” Gallup finds

From Gallup:

“Kenya’s government last week announced judicial reform aimed at restoring the public’s trust in the judiciary before trying offenders in the country’s deadly post-election violence of early 2008. Gallup’s April survey of Kenya reveals a daunting challenge — 27% of Kenyans are confident in the country’s judicial system, half the percentage that expressed confidence in 2007.

“Lack of confidence in the judicial system is central to the politically charged debate over how to handle the cases of those accused of participating in the post-election violence last year that left more than 1,000 people dead. External mediator Kofi Annan recently granted Kenyan officials more time to establish a local tribunal to prosecute the offenders, but the prospect of including some international judges was met with resistance in the Kenyan cabinet, as it might open its own members to prosecution.

“On July 30, Prime Minister Raili Odinga announced that the approach had been abandoned in favor of the country’s normal court system. On Wednesday during her visit to Kenya, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton criticized the lack of progress in prosecuting offenders as symptomatic of the unchecked corruption stymieing the country’s development. The International Criminal Court (ICC), which is now tasked with monitoring the situation, has said that if the Kenyan officials failed to establish a special tribunal, offenders would be tried at the ICC’s facilities in The Hague.

“Overall, Kenyans are somewhat more likely to say it would be fairer to try offenders in The Hague (52%), than to say it would be fairer to try them in Kenyan courts (42%). Results vary significantly by education level, with better-educated Kenyans more likely than those in the lowest education category to favor trial in The Hague….”

For the full release from Gallup, Aug. 5, click here.

“You can’t just go on being a good egg. You must either hatch or go bad!”

– C. S. Lewis (British novelist and essayist, 1898-1963)