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Again from Marianne M. Jennings’ The Seven Signs of Ethical Collapse: How to Spot Moral Meltdowns in Companies… Before It’s Too Late:

Some years ago a former dean asked me to look into a new way of teaching students business ethics. He wanted to stop sending our students over to the philosophy department for their ethics training. His reasoning was that “they go over there, find out capitalism is a tool of the devil, and then switch majors.” His theory had one more part to it. Those who did not switch majors and returned to study business came back with a guilt complex. They assumed, based on the views of their philosophy professors, that they had already sold their souls to the devil, so what possible difference could a little cooking of the books mean in their eternal damnation? So, those who remained became comfortable with crossing ethical lines.

Ethics instruction during the era in which the crop of officer felons was
trained was not virtue ethics. Rather, these students were given a heavy dose of social responsibility and little or no discussion of the ethical issues in financial reporting. Their ethics instruction focused on these distinct areas:

• Environmentalism
• Diversity
• Human rights
• Philanthropy
• Giving back to the community

The ethics books and curriculum of this generation of business leaders (and regretfully, still today) define doing the right thing in these areas as ethics writ large. Moral relativists are hesitant to establish bright lines between right and wrong, except in areas they deem appropriate. These topics and guidelines for business ethics come directly from the AACSB accrediting body for business schools, which mandates the following content in the business-school curriculum if the school desires AACSB accreditation for its programs:

• Ethical and global issues
• The influence of political, social, legal and regulatory, environmental and technological issues
• The impact of demographic diversity on organizations

Those trained under this pedagogical philosophy will order, “No sweat shops,” but could never bring themselves to say, “Always be honest.” They can condemn lumber companies for destroying the rain forests, but they would never suggest that corporate executives should control their conduct in their personal lives. To students trained in this era of business-ethics instruction, a demented sort of logic and attitude has resulted. As long as the company had a good record on community development and contribution, a little fraud was fine. They were not trained to ask the question “Does social conscience in some areas atone for the lack of moral conscience in finances and financial reporting?” Fannie Mae was named number one by Business Ethics magazine in its annual list of the most ethical companies in America in the same month that Fannie Mae’s multibillion-dollar accounting deception was unfolding. The CEO was forced out by his board because of questions about the firm’s financial reports even as the same group that created the parameters of ethical behavior in such a facile and arbitrary manner was honoring the company. True, few organizations have done more to help individuals get affordable housing than Fannie Mae. But recognition for a job well done does not justify misrepresentation in the marketplace.

From Marianne M. Jennings’ The Seven Signs of Ethical Collapse: How to Spot Moral Meltdowns in Companies… Before It’s Too Late:

Sign #7: Goodness in some areas atones for evil in others

…Beware the socially responsible company. Watch out for the big donors. There is a certain con component in the Yeehaw Culture. The con men and women of the Yeehaw Culture have figured out a formula for drawing attention away from company performance and, in many cases, its financials. Even without the Yeehaw Culture, this dedication to causes and charity seems to be a distraction from running the business. The result is not just a lack of focus, but also a diversion of funds that were needed for simple things, including, for example, the employees’ pensions. That distraction comes in the form of virtuous efforts in the community, charities, and all those social goals one can now find on pretty much every company’s website. Stunningly, that information will be located on the investor-information home page. As cynical as it seems, skepticism about social responsibility and philanthropy may be one of the most certain determinants of a Yeehaw Culture. If you find these present in a company, check for the other factors of ethical collapse because the generosity and service may be a cover in a troubled soul and even more troubled books.

The term “yeehaw culture” comes from the Wyoming Law Reviews’ “Restoring Ethical Gumption in the Corporation: A Federalist Paper on Corporate Governance—Restoration of Active Virtue in the Corporate Structure to Curb the ‘Yeehaw Culture’ in Organizations”. It’s also the cry of Billy Crystal in City Slickers.

The book also encourages researching the community connections between management and charities.

Via Earl Stewart on Cars.

I greatly enjoy this leap of ethics in my spam folder over the weekend:

Hi,

My name is David Smith, I am a Project Coordinator with UNICEF’s Office of Emergency Programs (EMOPS) we are the focal point for emergency Assistance, humanitarian policies, staff security and support to UNICEF Offices in the field, as well as strategic coordination with external Humanitarian partners both within and outside the United Nations system. It is indeed with great optimism that I am writing you because I had to ensure that whoever I would contact in regards to this transaction must be someone I can trust.

Last year, series of donations amounting to US$5.8M (Five Million Eight Hundred Thousand Dollars) were made to our organization. These donations were later earmarked for developmental projects in two West African countries. The problem is when funds are released for these sort of projects especially In Africa, they are most often misused or in some cases believe it or not, embezzled by corrupt government officials there.

This practice has gone on for so long and not very much has been done about it and  I have always been made to understand that my work is based on humanitarian grounds and I have done this work to the best of my ability but there is very little to show for it for somebody in my position.

As a result, I have painstakingly decided to divert some of these funds as a retirement benefit because even if this money is released, it will still  be stolen by officials in Africa anyway.

This is why I am contacting you, because I need your acceptance and co-operation in allowing these funds to be transferred to you as the Sub-contractor of these projects in Africa.

At least he goes on to offer a 50/50 split.

Despite it being a class on Critical Thinking I’m a little grossed out by “ethical, empathic and just” behavior being described as a deductive exercise.  But then again, I did agree with Justice Sotomayor’s “wise-Latina” remark.

The above is  Dr. Richard Paul and Dr. Linda Elder’s Miniature Guide to Understanding the Foundations of Ethical Reasoning.

I just finished reading The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding.  I posted upon the book earlier

, but I wanted to paste in the conclusion, which I think presents an interesting closure to their introductory thesis: “doing is knowing, and all knowing is doing”—a thesis the authors make a compelling case for.

The knowledge of knowledge compels. It compels us to adopt an attitude of permanent vigilance against the temptation of certainty. It compels us to recognize that certainty is not a proof of truth. It compels us to realize that the world everyone sees is not the world but a world which we bring forth with others. It compels us to see that the world will be different only if we live differently. It compels us because, when we know that we know, we cannot deny to ourselves or to others that we know.

That is why everything we said in this book, through our knowledge of our knowledge, implies an ethics that we cannot evade, an ethics that has its reference point in the awareness of the biological and social structure of human beings, an ethics that springs from human reflection and puts human reflection right at the core as a constitutive social phenomenon. If we know that our world is necessarily the world we bring forth with others, every time we are in conflict with another human being with whom we want to remain in coexistence, we cannot affirm what for us is certain (an absolute truth) because that would negate the other person. If we want to coexist with the other person, we must see that his certainty—however undesirable it may seem to us—is as legitimate and valid as our own because, like our own, that certainty expresses his conservation of structural coupling in a domain of existence—however undesirable it may seem to us.  Hence, the only possibility for coexistence is to opt for a broader perspective, a domain of existence in which both parties fit in bringing forth of a common world.  A conflict is always a mutual negation. It can never be solved in the domain where it takes place if the disputants are “certain.” A conflict can go away only if we move to another domain where coexistence takes place. The knowledge of this knowledge constitutes the social imperative for a human-centered ethics.

Quoting the conclusion here doesn’t do it justice since this comes proceeding 9 closely interlinked chapters, but I think the authors make a powerful statement.

But, to follow up, I’ve been wanting to throw the following quote into a post for quite sometime.  The quote is from Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age and, as the book takes place in the future, is ostensibly a statement of our current times:

“You know, when I was a young man, hypocrisy was deemed the worst of vices. It was all because of moral relativism.  You see, in that sort of a climate, where you are not allowed to criticize others—after all, if there is no absolute right and wrong, then what grounds is there for criticism?

“Now, this lead to a good deal of general frustration, for people are naturally censorious and love nothing better than to criticize others’ shortcomings.  And so it was that they seized on hypocrisy and elevated it from a ubiquitous peccadillo into the monarch of all vices.  For, you see, even if there is no right and wrong, you can find grounds to criticize another person by contrasting what he has espoused with what he has actually done.  In this case, you are not making any judgment whatsoever as to the correctness of his views or the morality of his behaviour—you are merely pointing out that he has said one thing and done another.  Virtually all political discourse in the days of my youth was devoted to ferreting out of hypocrisy.”

I want to add this quote because I think it throws into sharp relief the emphasized statement in the first quote: “every time we are in conflict with another human being with whom we want to remain in coexistence”. The ethical statement makes the case that all viewpoints are personally valid, but need not be embraced let alone tolerated inter-personally nor socially—nor geo-politically, if you want to go there.  Though there is—as the case is strongly made in the Tree of Knowledge—an expansion of self, and thus knowledge, and thus realm of action, in that understanding of others. Which is important indeed.

(Also regarding that last quote: I also really dislike it when people whine about hypocrisy.)

I could care less about the politics, but it’s interesting to see that a congresswoman was caught “plagiarizing” (“borrowing” or “incorporating” if you want to play the pronoun game) in a newspaper column via “a program that monitors high school and college student papers for acts of copying and forgery”. (via ThinkProgress.org)

I didn’t realize that people were using things like Turn It In for non-schoolwork.

Not that I’d want to cite Johnny 10th Grader, but I wonder if their algorithm/database would work for looking for references (which then you could *properly* cite).