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.

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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.

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• More about the Ethics Scoreboard »

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

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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

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.

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• Global Warming Ethics: Part One of Three. Convenient Misrepresentations
  
  
• Global Warming Ethics, Part Two of Three: The Offset Illusion
  
  
• Global Warming Ethics, Part Three of Three: Ideology and Bias
  

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…

“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:

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• Random House
• Find an independent bookstore that carries this book at Booksense