Arthur Caplan
Poynter.com
Originally December 21, 2017
Here is an excerpt:
Obviously unethical conduct has been around forever and will be into the foreseeable future. That said, it is important that the leaders of this nation and, more importantly, those leading our key institutions and professions reaffirm their commitment to the view that there are higher values worth pursuing in a just society. The fact that so many fail to live up to basic values does not mean that the values are meaningless, wrong or misplaced. They aren’t. It is rather that the organizations and professions where the epidemic of moral failure is burgeoning have put other values, often power and profits, ahead of morality.
There is no simple fix for hypocrisy. Egoism, the gross abuse of power and self-indulgence, is a very tough moral opponent in an individualistic society like America. Short-term reward is deceptively more attractive then slogging out the virtues in the name of the long haul. If we are to prepare our children to succeed, then attending to their moral development is as important as anything we can do. If our leaders are to truly lead then we have to reward those who do, not those who don’t, won’t or can’t. Are we?
The article is here.
