The Purposes and Goals of the Ethics Scoreboard

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.

Perhaps the greatest contribution the Ethics Scoreboard can make is through truly "keeping score:" pointing out both outrageous ethical behavior and outstanding ethical behavior, and making clear statements about them. The reluctance of public commentators to do this… to call lies lies, label serious conflicts of interest what they are, and to condemn unethical behavior as neither admirable nor acceptable is a large factor in creating the ethical confusion that reigns today.

The Ethics Scoreboard will try to perform this task fairly, judiciously, and, as much as possible, without bias. When we fail, as inevitably we must, it will both acknowledge and remedy the mistake in true ethical fashion.

It is our intent that the Ethics Scoreboard will promote a greater interest in ethical issues, encourage lively debate, and most of all, champion scrutiny and accountability. The erosion of societal ethics harms our quality of life and our prospects for the future every bit as much as the destruction of the environment, the pollution of the air or the squandering of our natural resources. Fortunately, much of the problem can be solved with illumination.

This is but one source of light, in the hope that others will follow.

More about the Ethics Scoreboard »

Contact Information

The Ethics Scoreboard
ProEthics, Ltd.
2707 Westminster Place
Alexandria, VA 22305

Call: 1-877-PRO-ETHX (1-877-776-3849)
          or 703-548-3754

Fax:  703-548-0695

E-Mail: or

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Suggest an item for the Scoreboard

Is there a ethics story on which you’d like to see commentary? An item that you think screams bad ethics? An Ethics Hero, an unethical Website, a Dunce? Send your ideas for new additions to the Scoreboard to ProEthics President