Ethics news
Keep up with ethics-related stories appearing in the news.
Below are stories collected from news sources around the web relating to ethics. Click on the links provided to read the stories in full.
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nb. Links to new stories are generally to external websites. St James Ethics Centre is not responsible for the content on these sites. Some links may become invalid over time and this is beyond our control.
Super trawler banned from fishing in Australian waters
11 September 2012 - Sydney Morning Herald
The controversial FV Abel Tasman super trawler will be banned from fishing in Australian waters for up to two years while further scientific assessments of its environmental impact are carried out.
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Is “philanthrocapitalism” the future of Australian charities?
10 September 2012 - The Conversation
The collapse of the child-care business ABC Learning in 2010 was an extraordinary chapter in Australian corporate history. Colourful Queensland businessman Eddy Groves, built the world’s largest publicly listed child-care operator only to see it blow up after it borrowed too much and expanded too quickly.
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Animal Morality Research Suggests We All Have Complex Emotions
10 September 2012 - The Huffington Post: Science
As young children, most of us are taught right from wrong. Growing up, we were encouraged to say "please" and "thank you," and to play fairly. As we age and mature, we develop our own intrinsic moral codes. But are humans the only species to know right from wrong?
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Ethics Courses Fall Short In Business Schools
9 September 2012 - Daily Herald
Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman famously claimed that the sole purpose of a company is indeed to maximize profits, but a new generation of psychologists looking to analyze the ethics behind the profits.
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Business Ethics: Split the Myth From the Hard Reality
9 September 2012 - Business Report
The London interbank offered rate (Libor) scandal that has seen Barclays bank hit with a £290 million (R4 billion) fine – and another 15 institutions investigated – for manipulating the key benchmark borrowing rate is another in a long line of cautionary tales on bad business ethics. But will anything really change as a result?
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What Work Is Really For
8 September 2012 - New York Times Opinionator: The Stone
Is work good or bad? A fatuous question, it may seem, with unemployment such a pressing national concern. (Apart from the names of the two candidates, “jobs” was the politically relevant word most used by speakers at the Republican and Democratic conventions.)
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Data ethics: Author warns of ethical pitfalls of data collection
6 September 2012 - Search Data Management
In breaching unknown territory there is a good chance you will do something wrong. As in immoral, unethical or just plain bad.
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Smart drugs to “moral enhancement”: a chemical approach to transhumanism
6 September 2012 - Wired UK
Steroids. Ritalin. Modafinil. Prozac. EPO. These are just a selection of drugs that could be described as boosting the cognitive or physical performance of human beings.
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When do we become truly conscious? The new science of consciousness.
4 September 2012 - Slate Magazine
The new science of consciousness should change how we think about thorny ethical dilemmas.
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All dogs go to heaven: Animals at the end of life
4 September 2012 - Psychology Today
Should a pet owner, rather than a vet, be the one to end an animal’s life?
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Religion and Ethics Talk: Is it OK to bring food to the movies?
4 September 2012 - mlive.com
Ann likes to present her students with some interesting questions, like whether it’s okay to lie about your age to get cheaper admission to an amusement park...Is it OK to bring food into a movie theater?
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Ethical companies want ethical workers
2 September 2012 - Daily Herald
Career Coach columnist Joyce E.A. Russell, an industrial and organizational psychologist, discussed workplace issues in a recent online forum.
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Australia’s moral obligation toward people seeking asylum
31 August 2012 - ABC Religion and Ethics
It may be tempting to suggest that looking at the asylum seeker issue from the perspective of ethics or morality is to look at it from a new or different perspective.
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Getting scientists to take ethics seriously: strategies that are probably doomed to failure
31 August 2012 - Scientific American
As part of my day-job as a philosophy professor, I regularly teach a semester-long “Ethics in Science” course at my university. Among other things, the course is intended to help science majors figure out why being ethical might matter to them if they continue on their path to becoming working scientists and devote their careers to the knowledge-building biz.
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Banning cartwheels: school litigation fears are unfounded
30 August 2012 - The Conversation
A few schools have hit the headlines recently for banning traditional playground activities like cartwheels, handstands, ball games and even high fives.
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The church and the ethics of climate change
29 August 2012 - ABC Religion and Ethics
The question of what to do about climate change is fundamentally a moral one. Who is responsible for the problem? Who will be most harmed? What are our obligations to future generations? Who should take the lead in cutting emissions?
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The smart money is on business ethics
23 August 2012 - ABC The Drum
7.30's explosive corruption allegations that reach into the heart of the RBA provide a lesson in ethics to the rest of the Australian business community
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Why banning cigarettes is the next step in tobacco control.
23 August 2012 - The Conversation
The Federal government’s High Court win on cigarette plain packaging is another sign that the carcinogenic mist is dispersing to finally reveal the smoking elephant in our collective lounge room.
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Push for more women, safeguards against harassment in military
23 August 2012 - The Sydney Morning Herald
A LANDMARK review on women serving in the Australian Defence Force has recommended increasing gender targets and punishing leaders who fail to crack down on abuse and sexual harassment.
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Pussy Riot: The new Soviet League of Militant Godless
21 August 2012 - ABC Religion and Ethics
Here we have Russia, a vastly powerful country with a floundering democracy, facing the imminent threat of tyranny.
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'Ethical” investments for ACT
21 August 2012 - ABC News Online
The ACT Government will stop investing in companies involved in the production of tobacco, cluster bombs or land mines.
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Todd Akin: Apology not accepted
21 August 2012 - The Economist: Democracy in America
IF A gaffe is an instance of a politician accidentally expressing his actual beliefs, then Todd Akin has committed a monumental one.
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Moral Hazard? Better Than No Euro.
21 August 2012 - Wall Street Journal: The Euro Crisis Blog
Does moral hazard matter? The European Central Bank is wrestling with the issue and it looks like “no” will win. The ECB might well be willing to ignore moral hazard in order to save the euro.
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Do Real World Morals Have A Place In Video Games?
20 August 2012 - Forbes
The creators of violent video games have a responsibility to the message their work conveys, even if video games play by different rules than the real world.
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Russia: Putin must show clemency to Pussy Riot
19 August 2012 - The Observer
The Russian president will appear a tyrant if he persists in the persecution of free speech.
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Babies ‘Moral Compass’ Called Into Question By New Research
16 August 2012 - The Huffington Post
Do babies have an innate moral compass? In recent years, scientists have presented evidence that tykes have an inborn sense of justice, but a new study calls these results into question.
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It’s Our Duty to Have Designer Babies
16 August 2012 - Reader's Digest Main
If you were having a baby, would you prefer a boy or a girl? How about a child who’s cold and unemotional or warm and empathetic? Intelligent or average? Musically gifted or tone deaf? Extroverted or introverted? Kind or selfish?
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The Anti-Abortion Fallacy
13 August 2012 - ABC Religion and Ethics
In the Dominican Republic last month, a pregnant teenager suffering from leukemia had her chemotherapy delayed, because doctors feared that the treatment could terminate her pregnancy and therefore violate the nation's strict anti-abortion law.
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The Veil of Opulence
12 August 2012 - The New York Times: Opinionator
More than 40 years ago the philosopher John Rawls, in his influential political work “A Theory of Justice,” implored the people of the world to shed themselves of their selfish predispositions and to assume, for the sake of argument, that they were ignorant.
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Fuelled by unfinished business’
11 August 2012 - Sydney Morning Herald: Business Day
CAROL Schwartz's office, perched a few floors above Melbourne's chichi Flinders Lane, is a riot of colour. Walls and corridors are filled with artworks, and the picture windows are draped with the most delicious sheer curtains laced with pink swirls and filigrees.
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Is there a moral distinction between providing guns that deal death directly, and phones that help the process?
10 August 2012 - The Telegraph
Suppose a rebel army mounts a raid on government forces that ends with the cold blooded execution of prisoners. Country ‘A’ donated the satellite phones that were used to organise the operation, while the weapons came from country ‘B’.
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Herald Sun intern debacle is a hard lesson in newsroom culture
9 August 2012 - The Conversation
The fury unleashed on a young Melbourne University student for writing about her internship at Australia’s biggest selling newspaper provides lessons for us all
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What is the problem with asylum seekers?
10 August 2012 - ABC Religion and Ethics: Guest Blog
What is the problem with asylum seekers? I'm not asking rhetorically. It's a serious question - perhaps the most serious question in the entire debate that surrounds them. And yet it is the one least asked.
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What’s So Bad About a Boy Who Wants to Wear a Dress?
8 August 2012 - The New York Times: Magazine
The night before Susan and Rob allowed their son to go to preschool in a dress, they sent an e-mail to parents of his classmates. Alex, they wrote, “has been gender-fluid for as long as we can remember, and at the moment he is equally passionate about and identified with soccer players and princesses, superheroes and ballerinas (not to mention lava and unicorns, dinosaurs and glitter...
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Compromising positions
14 August 2012 - ABC's The Drum
Six weeks ago, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott - speaking at one of his regular press doorstops, on this occasion situated at Aaron's Linen Service, in Brisbane - accused the Prime Minister of stubbornness and pride in her approach to the asylum seekers issue
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What did Ayn Rand teach Paul Ryan about monetary policy?
13 August 2012 - The Washington Post
In 2005, Paul Ryan explained that he often looks to Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged” as inspiration for his views on monetary policy.
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In Defence Of Women's Right To Be Safe
31 July 2012 - 702 ABC Sydney
Phil Cleary is calling for a Royal Commission into the Law of Provocation, partly in reaction to a Four Corners program on Monday night.
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Domestic violence: how the law treats women who kill a violent partner
31 July 2012 - The Conversation
In the vast majority of cases where women kill their partners, there is a history of domestic violence.
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Syria crisis: Fresh clashes in Aleppo
31 July 2012 - BBC News
There have been fresh reports of clashes and attacks by helicopter gunships in Aleppo as the Syrian army offensive enters its fourth day.
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Olympics 2012: the alternative medals table
30 July 2012 - The Guardian
We all know who's in the lead on the medal tables - but what would happen if you looked at them by population size, or GDP - or even compared to the number of athletes in each team?
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A Matter of Life and Death
30 July 2012 - Four Corners
How authorities are failing to protect women and children in mortal danger, and failing to prevent their partners' homicidal rage.
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The age of inequality: The 1 per cent and the rest
30 July 2012 - New Scientist
The richest 1 per cent control a huge proportion of the world’s wealth, and inequality is a major political issue. But does it really matter?
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The Morality of Migration
20 August 2012 - The New York Times
In announcing the Department of Homeland Security's policy directive on June 15 stating that undocumented migrant youths who meet certain conditions would no longer be deported, President Obama said that "It was the right thing to do".
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Did Your Brain Make You Do It?
27 July 2012 - The New York Times
ARE you responsible for your behavior if your brain “made you do it”?
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FIFA Head Investigator Garcia May Probe World Cups, Sepp Blatter
27 July 2012 - Bloomberg
The new investigators at soccer ruling body FIFA said they may start probes into President Sepp Blatter and the World Cups awarded to Russia and Qatar.
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