Oh dear — government ethics.
I’m going to be accused of clickbait, I know it.
Transcript and additional commentary follow the column.
Transcript:
Is an ethical government also ‘moral’?
So you want an ethical government? Good, we all do. . . but wait, are you sure . . . absolutely sure, that you understand the definition and nature of the word ethics?
Similar definitions can be found in any popular dictionary, but the most common is, the study of the general nature of morals and of specific moral choices, and the rules or standards governing the conduct of the members of a profession.
During the next year, the most written about, most talked about aspect of government and industry, barring an economic collapse, will be ethics.
Yet, few people are positive about drafting ethical standards because they do not fully understand the principles, concepts and methods of reasoning that can be used to analyze moral issues.
Twenty years ago, Dr. Raymond Baumhart published a study of 100 businessmen who were asked, “What does the word ethical mean to you?” Fifty percent of those interviewed defined ethical as what my feelings tell me is right; 25 percent defined it in religious terms as “what is in accord with my religious beliefs;” and 18 percent defined ethics as what conforms to the “golden rule.”
These are all personal feelings and most of you know that feelings are a notoriously inadequate basis on which to make decisions affecting all of us.
Then how can we deal with pressing ethical issues in a manner acceptable to all citizens? Will we ever be successful in drafting both legal and moral standards by which our leaders can effectively . . . and honestly, serve?
We may gain a better understanding of moral standards if we take note of the most important social functions they serve — to identify situations in which each person must restrain his or her self-interests. And it is these self-interests with which ethics should be concerned.
Yes, I know, each of us has certain rights that appear to many of the moral arguments about ethics. But remember, our right to shake our fists at the other person’s nose.
There is a classic example of the dilemma facing our society, and our leaders, when we deal with both legal and moral issues of ethics. . . A man sold 500 tickets at $1 each for the chance of winning a horse. When the winning ticket was drawn, the losing 499 people threw down their tickets, complaining, “Aw, I never win anything.”
The winner went to receive his prize and was informed that the horse (which never existed), had died. The man demanded and received his dollar back. Everyone left satisfied. . . or did they? After all, the other people would have lost anyway, and the winner never lost because he received his money back.
Can you honestly say you understand all the ethical issues involved in this case? What were the moral obligations of all 501 people involved? I can assure you it is not as simple as you first believe!
If you are successful in answering all these questions, perhaps you can contribute to the drafting of ethical standards for both government and industry.
A man once said, “I believe that I am as responsible when I refrain from interfering with evil as I am when I perform the evil myself, since knowingly allowing something evil to happen is morally no different from knowingly making it happen.” If that is true, then we should become a nation of whistleblowers and begin to feel good about our ethics. . .
Alex Taylor’s column on history and criminology appears in The Times on Tuesdays.
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Dead Horse Lotto
Can’t relate? Here’s an actual morality tale that occurred just a few months ago:
A sparkling new local fast food establishment held their Grand Opening this past June. A couple of weeks later, someone (me) noticed that this restaurant was charging the wrong sales tax rate — 8% instead of 6%. Since my overage amounted to a few cents, and the drive-thru was busy, I let it go. No biggie; they’ll sort it soon enough. I wouldn’t return until they did. A week later, a local social network was abuzz with queries regarding the tax overage. The restaurant’s management was alerted. They said they were aware of it, blaming their sales systems and corporate management. A hot debate ensued. Comments varied from accusations of mob lynching, and absurd vigilantism, “Just think of all those employees you want to put out of work!”, “It’s just a few cents! You can’t afford it?!?”, tax codes broken, jail, mathematical computations of the three-week haul (it is significant, mind you), but mostly, “It’s just a mistake and they will fix it.”
Thing is, they didn’t until news of the online firestorm reached a local county commissioner. The rate quickly changed to the correct 6%. So, what happened to the ill-gotten tax dollars? (Estimated somewhere between $1,000-$1,800) Nobody seemed to care.
For me, as soon as management was aware they were overcharging and continued to do so, they were violating law, ethics, and of course, morality — the other F-word … fraud. That’s from my perspective, a pickpocketing for extra change as it may be. From other customers’ perspectives, it wasn’t a big enough issue to worry about because of the workers’ needs and the personal needs for that new restaurant outweighed the few cents out of their pocket. From the restaurant’s perspective, it wasn’t important to correct the issue quickly so long as no business was lost and nobody important made inquiry. Unfortunately, this seems to be a standard practice for certain upstarts who possess a playbook for deviant gains.
Oh, and speaking of whistleblowers, Facebook’s latest appears to be leading a morality charge that also seeks to define and generalize what the company considers misinformation, which much of it is, while commingling/mislabeling truthful information that happens to disagree with its preferred narrative of “the truth”. Today’s filtering has become quite complicated, indeed!
