Ethics news:
16 March 2005
Ethics News is regularly updated with links and introductions to ethics-related news stories gathered from all over the web. Discuss the ethical issues raised by these stories in our Ethics Forum by clicking on the 'discuss' links.
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The effort of ethics
Ethical codes now abound in business, but their actual use is less prevalent. Over nine out of ten FTSE 100 companies now have a code of business ethics, up from around seven out of ten four years ago, but poor implementation means most of them have no "noticeable effect", according to recent research. The Institute of Business Ethics (IBE) last month found that less than half of companies (45%) provide ethics training to their staff. Of those that do, only two-thirds include such training to new recruits, despite the fact that companies cite providing guidance to staff as the most common reason for ethics codes ...
The Guardian - 10 March 2005
The art of darkness
Evil repels us, so why are we so fascinated by its horrors? Angela Bennie explores the allure of theatre's great villains. One of the most notorious ideas to come out of the very troubled 20th century is the philosopher Hannah Arendt's notion of "the banality of evil". The famous phrase was the result of Arendt's observations of Adolf Eichmann at his trial in Jerusalem for genocide. At the heart of his defence was Eichmann's claim that he did what he did because he was just following orders; he was really just doing his job. That his job was to arrange the transport of millions of Jews to their deaths in the extermination camps of the Third Reich did not seem to be of any consequence to him ...
The Sydney Morning Herald - 12 March 2005
A night at the movies that shames us all
The account of one man's heroism lays bare the toll of our complacency. I didn't really want to see Hotel Rwanda last weekend. Yes, I knew the reviews were terrific and it was, by all accounts, a very fine film. But a Saturday night at the movies, for me, is all about a couple of hours relaxation, my weekly fix of escapism. I did not particularly want my nose rubbed in yet another chronicle of man's inhumanity to man. Not wanting to make waves, however, and as everyone else wanted to see the movie, I went along with them. It was a predictably harrowing experience. But, far more than that, it was deeply shaming ...
The Age - 16 March 2005
A sneaky way to not quite say what you mean
Cigarettes are "smooth", speed traps are "traffic cameras". What next? SBS Television recently ran a series on the English language: its extraordinary history, its foibles, its sweeping grandeur. Perhaps they should tape an extra episode on wimp words. Yesterday, for example, it was revealed in The Age that Philip Morris is to change the labelling on its cigarette packets to "smooth", "full" or "fine" flavour because Graeme Samuel's consumer crusaders feel that "light" and "mild" do not really reflect the artery-popping carcinogens these things pump into your lungs. You will notice that there is no suggestion that the artery-popping poisons be reduced. They will attempt to fix the problem with vocabulary ...
The Age - 10 March 2005
Someone to blame: responsibility has come to a sorry end
A genuine apology should not be seen as a sign of weakness. So Jesse Kelly has been arrested on charges including manslaughter. His aunt was allegedly caught on tape suggesting a cover-up to her nephew. Police, according to local residents, have abused their powers in Macquarie Fields for some time, taunting, goading and beating up young men on the estate. And the Government has, for years, ignored the plight of the poor, dispossessed communities who live there. Is it likely that any of these people will apologise for their role in this tragic story? Is it possible someone just might admit that they made a mistake? I think we all know the answer. "Sorry" seems not only to be the hardest word, but a dirty one, too ...
The Sydney Morning Herald - 14 March 2005
We should grow up and accept the blame
The blame game is becoming tiresome. In 16th-century Europe, when a severe cold snap caused crops to fail there was a spike in witchcraft trials. Witches became scapegoats for bad weather. The modern version is only slightly different. These days, bad behaviour is blamed on our genes or our upbringing. But where does society end up if we treat people as little more than automatons, irrevocably pre-programmed by their DNA or their environment, without free will or the ability to make choices? To answer this question, start with the violent riots in Macquarie Fields, southwest of Sydney, last week. As night after night, hundreds of youths and residents pelted police with rocks and bottles, well-meaning people began showcasing a more modern species of scapegoat ...
The Australian - 9 March 2005
Bush is still wrong
Just read the headlines: Syria, respecting America's new muscle, is thrown off balance. Lebanon, long Syria's puppet, is demanding liberty. Egypt's despotic president (and U.S. client), Hosni Mubarak, is suddenly promising fair elections. Saudi Arabia's local elections are more authentic than usual. On the Palestine-Israel front, there's suddenly progress. Iran is negotiating about shutting down its nukes. And in Iraq itself, the process may be a mess, but something real is happening. Wow! If this picture is true, let's nominate George W. Bush for the Nobel Peace Prize. The only trouble is, the picture is not true. ...
International Herald Tribune - 11 March 2005
Still think Bush was wrong?
'It is time to set down in type the most difficult sentence in the English language. That sentence is short and simple. It is this: Bush was right. Thus spake Richard Gwyn, columnist for The Toronto Star and author of such earlier offerings as "Incurious George W can't grasp democracy," "Time for US to cut and run," and, as recently as Jan. 25, "Bush's hubristic world view." The Axis of Weasel is crying uncle, and much of the chorus is singing from the same songsheet. Listen to Claus Christian Malzahn in Der Spiegel: "Could George W be right?" And Guy Sorman in Le Figaro: "And if Bush was right?" ...
International Herald Tribune - 11 March 2005
Whose choice is it anyway?
spiked's conference Whose Choice is it Anyway? Questioning the New Conformism, at London's impressive Institution of Electrical Engineers building at Savoy Place on Friday 11 March, brought together an audience of 150 people from around the UK, to debate the meaning of choice in the twenty-first century. Journalists, academics, policymakers and a group of high-school philosophy students joined other spiked readers and writers to discuss why choice has become a ubiquitous buzzword in politics and public life, yet at the same time has become a degraded concept that accords us less and less capacity to make big decisions about society and everyday life ...
Spiked-Online - 15 March 2005
Students know teaching and they know indoctrination
Teachers help students understand when they are being duped. What's all the fuss about indoctrination in our schools? As a teacher I know how indoctrination can harm children. I also know this because I was on the receiving end of it from an early age. But this was not as catastrophic as many politicians and social commentators seem to think. The trick is to know when you're being duped. My earliest recollection of classroom indoctrination dates back to the time when my kindergarten teacher decided to cast me in the role of peasant for the end of year nativity play. I could never be Joseph - that role went to a blond boy with a milky complexion ...
The Age - 11 March 2005
A stitch in time saves ... the lives of poor women
I hadn't wanted to wake Miss Phoeun from her afternoon nap. My motodop (Moto taxi driver) had no such qualms and rattled the gates until she and the others stirred from their slumber. Miss Phoeun is unmarried, quite pretty, and probably in her early 20s. She also depends upon a set of crutches to get around. I had come to her and her cohorts to have some custom shirts made. Her group was the only one that was worthy, in my opinion, of my shirt-procuring dollars. Cambodia does not have a huge safety net for the welfare of its citizens, especially its women. Especially its disabled women. Due to circumstances well beyond their control, many can barely feed themselves. More than a few sell the only thing they have: their bodies ...
Christian Science Monitor - 16 March 2005
The poor may not be getting richer: but they are living longer, eating better, and learning to read
Wealthier is healthier–and more educated, more equal for women, more electrified, automotive, and computer-literate. So the conventional wisdom in development economics has long been that to boost the prospects of the world's poor, one needs to boost their incomes. This is still true, but as World Bank economist Charles Kenny points out in a provocative article titled "Why Are We Worried About Income? Nearly Everything that Matters is Converging," income growth does not tell the full story. Even though some of the world's poorest people are not earning much more than they were two generations ago, they're still living much better than they were ...
Reason - 9 March 2005
From the editor's desktop
Pete Clifton, the editor of the BBC News website, takes a look back at the week and answers some of your friendly, upbeat, angry and downright rude responses. So what can you put on the site, and what do you leave out? How grim can images be, and what kind of language should fall through the web? Plenty of criticism this week of our decision to use an image of the body of Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov and some of the more graphic detail from the Michael Jackson trial. No handy 9pm "watershed" on the web, so you have to make decisions on the fly. You don't want to offend people unduly, but nor do you want to sanitise stories for a grown-up audience. ... If there are important, relevant but unpleasant pictures we should be prepared to use them ...
BBC News - 11 March 2005
A bullet is the new censor when reporters dig too deep
Some regimes may allow the media greater freedom but turn a blind eye when others restrain it. The Economist managed to put a positive spin on news that international journalism has never been so deadly. "Bad, but not as bad as it looks," the magazine noted, reassuringly. That 129 journalists were killed worldwide last year was not, primarily, a consequence of the international media flocking to the perilous war zone of Iraq, although 19 journalists died there, some after appalling hostage ordeals. Globally, news gathering is becoming more dangerous simply because many more journalists are digging up much more dirt on powerful figures. And those with vested interests don't like it ...
The Sydney Morning Herald - 14 March 2005
Everybody's busy but what are we doing?
Although extreme busyness is hardly a new phenomenon, the subject is getting renewed attention from researchers. They find that technology, consumerism, two-career families, and growing parental responsibilities all contribute to overly full schedules. They also observe that while some overextended people say they long for free time, many refuse to give up any activities. "We increasingly define ourselves and our families by doing, not being," says Chuck Darrah, an anthropologist at San Jose State University in California, who spent 200 hours with each of 12 working families, following them on their daily rounds ...
Christian Science Monitor - 16 March 2005
Fairytale defies the feminists
Mary's love story shows romance is hard-wired into women's DNA. Wherever Crown Princess Mary of Denmark went in the past week she was thronged by admiring little girls dressed in plastic tiaras and frilly dresses. From Sydney Opera House to the War Memorial in Canberra, Mary Glucksborg, nee Mary Donaldson of Tasmania, was greeted enthusiastically by junior wannabe princesses, proffering posies and Fruit Tingles. Not to mention the big girls, keen for a first-hand encounter with the dazzling blue eyes of dishy Crown Prince Frederik, 37. "Mary, Mary," chanted the crowd in Canberra 15 minutes before she arrived. "She's scored an extremely hot prince," one onlooker, Natalie Hubbard, told a reporter ...
The Sydney Morning Herald - 10 March 2005
When sex got boring
Now that every kind of sexual behaviour is on display all the time, explicitness in the arts fails to thrill. 'Let's talk about sex,' is the slogan for the new film about Alfred Kinsey, and in his time that was a pretty heroic thing to do. The man who helped to convince the western world that masturbation is not unnatural and homosexuality not a sin had to struggle against forces of conservatism and intolerance every day of his life; his determination to take them on was what made him something of a hero. But the film also reminds us that his times are not our times ...
The Guardian - 9 March 2005
Fishing for a solution
Modern fishing methods have come under repeated attack this week over the impact they have on marine and bird life, even drawing royalty into the row. So is there an environmentally-friendly way to catch a fish? Prince Charles said the plight of the endangered albatross is the "ultimate test" of whether or not the human race is serious about conservation, on a visit to a bird colony in New Zealand. The legendary protector of seafarers is fighting for survival because tens of thousands drown every year when looking for food and becoming trapped in the huge nets of fishing fleets, some of which are as wide as 50 football pitches ...
BBC News - 9 March 2005
Trampling on sacred ground
The Government's support for road building at Gallipoli is bulldozing our heritage. The Gallipoli battlefields are, in effect, one of the finest outdoor museums in the world. They represent surely the most significant outdoor museum of interest to Australia and Australians that is beyond our shores. Some would assert that it is the most important one for us anywhere. After I went to Gallipoli years ago I wrote about my visit for The Age. "The most striking feature of the Anzac area is how little it has altered," I wrote. "There has been no agriculture, no buildings, no development" ...
The Age - 16 March 2005