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Obama
and the Peace Prize
There are several ethical issues raised by the stunning
announcement that President Barack Obama had won the Nobel Peace
Prize. More, perhaps, were raised by the reactions to it.
Imagine, if you will, that you are a cast member in
a Hollywood movie of dubious quality. Personally, you think the
director is in over his head and that the movie is an empty, pompous
failure. To your amazement, however, critics like the film. It is
a surprise winner at an international film festival, and the director
wins the “Master Film-maker” prize. Are you outraged,
or pleasantly surprised? Do you congratulate the director for the
honor, or do you tell him he is an undeserving fraud? Do you feel
pride for your own connection to the award—you were in the cast,
after all—or do you feel resentment? I would think the answers
to all these questions are obvious. The civil, fair, respectful
and kind response, the Golden Rule response, is to feel pride because
your leader and colleague has been recognized for an enterprise
in which you played a role. You should offer congratulations, and
mean it. Whatever doubts you may harbor about the judgment of the
award-giving panel should remain unexplored and unexpressed until
another day.
This is exactly the situation that Americans faced
with Obama’s honor
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Ethical Analysis Toolkit: Definitions, Principles and
Concepts
A large percentage of ethics discussions break down over disputes over definitions and the lack of common terms and concepts. This section contains some useful tools to permit analysis, discussion, and argument to go forward, and to provide a quick reference for readers when one or more of these appear in the Ethics Scoreboard.
Go to the Ethical Analysis Toolkit »
From
Jack Marshall, President, ProEthics
The Ethics Scoreboard exists because, to be blunt,
national media, academia, law, the arts, government, and the church have
been timid, garbled, and worst of all, boring in their efforts (such as
they are) to apply our society’s ethical standards and principles to the
daily events that bombard us. The results of this failure are apparent:
a proliferation of ethics-related incidents, a lack of coherent discussion
regarding them, and in too many cases, public apathy.
The Ethics Scoreboard intends to counter
this environment by doing four things:
- Providing some simple tools for ethical
analysis.
- Identifying current events and issues
that raise important ethical issues
- Using those tools to make a straight-forward
assessment of these
- Talking about them.
This site will not attempt to be exhaustive,
but will focus on raising ethical issues and observations that are not
appearing elsewhere.
Ethics
Presentations
If your
company, association, organization, club or school is interested
in hosting an entertaining, provocative and interactive presentation
by Mr. Marshall on current ethics issues, call 1-703-548-5229.
We are booking now
through the rest of 2009, and into 2010.
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Beginning November 1, the regular
ethics commentary that has appeared on The Ethics Scoreboard since 2004
will be published instead on the newly launched blog, Ethics Alarms.
The new site’s URL: www.ethicsalarms.com.
The increasing interest in ethics, along with the large volume of important
ethical issues raised by current events, have made it necessary to move
to a blog format, where content can be added quickly, daily, and hourly
if necessary.
Much of the content will remain the same,
including the Ethics Heroes and Dunces, and Unethical websites, But the
new format will allow for shorter commentary on a daily basis to accompany
the longer essays that have been a staple of The Scoreboard. The format
will also encourage more comments from readers, one area in which the
Scoreboard, despite over a thousand visitors a day, was consistently lacking.
The Ethics Scoreboard will remain as
a resource and an archive. There are nearly 2000 articles here, and some
will be revisited on Ethics Alarms. I want to thank the Scoreboard’s many
loyal readers and fans, who have kept a steady stream of arguments, kudos,
criticism and proof-reading notes coming to my mailbox. I hope you all
follow me to Ethics Alarms, and bring some new visitors as well. There
is a lot to talk about and think about on the topic of ethics. I look
forward to doing both with you.
Jack Marshall,
President, ProEthics
EASY
CALLS
Quick Takes on
Current Events |
~ Wilson, Williams, West & Jordan
~ Nancy Pelosi |
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Unethical/Ethical Website of the Month
Suggest an item for the Scoreboard
Please send suggestions regarding issues, news
stories, unethical web sites and other topics for discussion on The Ethics
Scoreboard to ProEthics President
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A long time ago, while studying the life of George
Washington for my college thesis (I guess I didn’t have to say that
this was a long time ago), I read that he memorized a published list of
110 rules of comportment and proper social conduct, and scrupulously worked
to follow them for his whole life. At the time, I tried to track down
the list, but couldn’t, at least not without dropping out of school
or getting a research grant. Once the computer age arrived, I tried to
find a full version of the list on-line, also without success. At some
point, I stopped looking.
Naturally, that’s about when the list became
available. In 2003, it seems, Richard Brookhiser
published a book about Washington’s rules and how they formed his
character and influenced his career. The list ended up, finally, on the
web in several places, and I was able to read it. I have attached it below.
Even though it is about almost 400 years old, most
of the rules are still valid. Some of those that are not, are funny. And
some of the rules that are almost universally ignored today, I think,
would be welcome if they somehow gained currency again. Not just regular currency, but also cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Furthermore, cryptocurrency is being a new trendsetter in allowing people to profit from crypto trading. In a way to promote it, brokers like eToro enable users to buy, trade, and invest in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, and more. Although many UK brokers no longer offer crypto, eToro is one of the few brokers that offer cryptocurrencies. See etoro review UK learn more about it.
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The David Manning Liars of the Month
The
fictional David Manning, a film critic invented by the Sony Corporation,
stands for the dubious proposition that as long as your self-serving lie
is in a trivial arena (usually entertainment) where dishonesty and misrepresentation
are commonplace, or is a lie that nobody believes, it isn’t reprehensible.
All intentional public deceptions do harm, however, so The Ethics Scoreboard
regularly recognizes The David Manning Liars of the
Month, and urges the public to make them come clean…
Liars for
September 09:
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Liars for
July 09:
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“The
Essential Words and Writings of Clarence Darrow”
Edited and with an Introduction
by Edward J.Larson and Jack Marshall
The courtroom
oratory, essays and speeches of America’s greatest lawyer raise fascinating
ethical and social issues, while giving us a window into one of the most
provocative minds the nation ever produced.
Buy “The
Essential Words and Writings of Clarence Darrow” book at:
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