The Moral Injury of Pardoning War Crimes

The Editorial Board
The New York Times
Originally posted 22 Nov 19

Here is an excerpt:

That Mr. Trump would pardon men accused or convicted of war crimes should come as little surprise, given that he campaigned on promises to torture the nation’s enemies and kill their families. Mr. Trump in May became the first modern president to pardon a person convicted of war crimes, when he pardoned Michael Behenna, a former Army lieutenant, who had been convicted of killing a prisoner in Iraq.

The president may think he’s supporting men and women in uniform. “When our soldiers have to fight for our country, I want to give them the confidence to fight,” he said in a statement issued by the White House. “We train our boys to be killing machines, then prosecute them when they kill!” he said on Twitter last month.

Whatever the reason, absolving people who commit war crimes does great harm to society in general, and the men and women who served honorably — as far more than “killing machines” — in the wars since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in particular.

A nation has to know that military action being taken in its name follows morally defensible rules — that soldiers do not, for instance, kill unarmed civilians or prisoners.

To excuse men who have so flagrantly violated those rules — to treat them as heroes, even — is to cast the idea of just war to the winds. It puts the nation and veterans at risk of moral injury, the shattering of a moral compass.

One of the loudest groups pushing for Mr. Trump’s pardons was United American Patriots, a nonprofit organization that supports numerous soldiers accused of crimes, including Mr. Lorance, Mr. Behenna and Major Golsteyn. Last month, Chief Gallagher sued two of his former lawyers and United American Patriots, alleging that his lawyers tried to delay the case to increase fund-raising for the organization.

Supporters of the pardoned men say the military justice system comes down too hard and too often on honorable soldiers fighting through the fog of war. That wouldn’t explain why United American Patriots has made a cause célèbre of Robert Bales, who pleaded guilty to slaughtering 16 Afghan civilians in their homes during a one-man nighttime rampage in 2012.

The info is here.

Supreme Court Ethics Reform

Johanna Kalb and Alicia Bannon
Brennan Center for Justice
Originally published September 24, 2019

Today, the nine justices on the Supreme Court are the only U.S. judges — state or federal — not governed by a code of ethical conduct. But that may be about to change. Justice Elena Kagan recently testified during a congressional budget hearing that Chief Justice John Roberts is exploring whether to develop an ethical code for the Court. This was big news, given that the chief justice has previously rejected the need for a Supreme Court ethics code.

In fact, however, the Supreme Court regularly faces challenging ethical questions, and because of their crucial and prominent role, the justices receive intense public scrutiny for their choices. Over the last two decades, almost all members of the Supreme Court have been criticized for engaging in behaviors that are forbidden to other federal court judges, including participating in partisan convenings or fundraisers, accepting expensive gifts or travel, making partisan comments at public events or in the media, or failing to recuse themselves from cases involving apparent conflicts of interest, either financial or personal. Congress has also taken notice of the problem. The For the People Act, which was passed in March 2019 by the House of Representatives, included the latest of a series of proposals by both Republican and Democratic legislators to clarify the ethical standards that apply to the justices’ behavior.

The info is here.

The Moral Rot of the MIT Media Lab

Justin Peters
www.slate.com
Originally published September 8, 2019

Here is an excerpt:

I made my final emotional break with the Media Lab in 2016, when its now-disgraced former director Joi Ito announced the launch of its inaugural “Disobedience Award,” which sought to celebrate “responsible, ethical disobedience aimed at challenging the norms, rules, or laws that sustain society’s injustices” and which was “made possible through the generosity of Reid Hoffman, Internet entrepreneur, co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn, and most importantly an individual who cares deeply about righting society’s wrongs.” I realized that the things I had once found so exciting about the Media Lab—the architecturally distinct building, the quirky research teams, the robots and the canisters and the exhibits—amounted to a shrewd act of merchandising intended to lure potential donors into cutting ever-larger checks. The lab’s leaders weren’t averse to making the world a better place, just as long as the sponsors got what they wanted in the process.

It is this moral vacuity that has now thrown the Media Lab and MIT into an existential crisis. After the financier Jeffrey Epstein was arrested in July on federal sex-trafficking charges, journalists soon learned that Epstein enjoyed giving money to scientists almost as much as he enjoyed coercing girls into sex. The Media Lab was one beneficiary of Epstein’s largesse. Over the past several years, Ito accepted approximately $1.725 million from Epstein, who was already a convicted felon at the time Ito took charge of the place in 2011; $525,000 was earmarked for the lab, while the rest of the money went to Ito’s private startup investment funds. The New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow further reported on Friday that Epstein helped secure an additional $7.5 million for the Media Lab from other wealthy donors, and that the lab sought to hide the extent of its relationship with Epstein. Ito was Epstein’s contact at the Media Lab. The director even visited Epstein’s private Caribbean island as part of the courtship process.

The info is here.

An Admissions Group Is Scrambling to Delete Parts of Its Ethical Code. That Could Mean Big Changes for Higher Ed.

Grace Elletson
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Originally published August 30, 2019

Here is an excerpt:

A handful of provisions are at issue. One prohibits colleges from offering incentives, like special housing or better financial-aid packages, only to students who use an early-decision application.

Another says colleges can’t recruit or offer enrollment to students who are already enrolled or have submitted deposits to other colleges. Under the NACAC ethics code, May 1 is when commitments by those students are made final, and colleges must respect that deadline.

Another states that colleges cannot solicit transfer applications from a previous applicant or prospect unless that student inquired about transferring.

According to a document sent to NACAC members, the Justice Department believes “that these provisions restrain competition among colleges” and that, if they are removed, thus allowing for more competition, the result “may lower” college costs if colleges can solicit students who have already committed.

If the provisions are removed, the changes will be significant, and turmoil in admissions offices should be expected, said Jon Boeckenstedt, vice provost for enrollment management at Oregon State University.

Removing those parts of the ethical code would allow institutions to recruit students from competitor colleges even after they’ve committed, and to see their own students get poached, he said.

The changes could cause colleges to enter into a precarious dance — keep students committed and simultaneously recruit others, all year long.

Given the uncertainty that the changes would cause for enrollment predictions, especially for smaller, tuition-dependent colleges, higher education’s landscape will be upended, Boeckenstedt said.

The info is here.

Ethics working group to hash out what kind of company service is off limits

Chris Marquette
www.rollcall.com
Originally published July 22, 2019

A House Ethics Committee working group on Thursday will discuss proposed regulations to govern what kind of roles lawmakers may perform in companies, part of a push to head off the kind of ethical issues that led to the federal indictment of Rep. Chris Collins, who is accused of trading insider information while simultaneously serving as a company board member and public official.

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House Resolution 6 created a new clause in the Code of Official Conduct — set to take effect Jan. 1, 2020 — that prohibits members, delegates, resident commissioners, officers or employees in the House from serving as an officer or director of any public company.

The clause required the Ethics Committee to develop by Dec. 31 regulations addressing other prohibited service or positions that could lead to conflicts of interest.

The info is here.

Experts Recommend SCOTUS Adopt Code of Ethics to Promote Accountability

Jerry Lambe
www.lawandcrime.com
Originally posted June 24, 2019


Here is an excerpt:

While the high court’s justices must already abide by an ethical code, many of the experts noted that the current code does not sufficiently address modern ethical standards.

“The impartiality of our judiciary should be beyond reproach, so having a basic ethics code for its members to follow is a natural outgrowth of that common value, one that should be no less rigorously applied to our nation’s highest court,” Roth testified.

He added that disclosures from the court are particularly opaque, especially when sought out by the general public.

“To the outside observer, the current protocol makes it seem as if the judiciary is hiding something. […] With members of the judiciary already filling out and filing their reports digitally, the public should obtain them the same way, without having my organization act as the middleman,” Roth said.

Frost told the subcommittee that holding a hearing on the topic was a good first step in the process.

“Part of what I care about is not just the reality of impartial and fair justice, but the public’s perception of the courts,” she said, adding, “There have been signals by the justices that the court is considering rethinking adopting a code of ethics.”

The info is here.

To cheat or not to cheat? Researchers uncover the moral dilemmas of doping

Press Release
University of Birmingham
Originally posted May 9, 2019

Elite athletes are less likely to take banned substances if they consider the morality of what they are doing, and not just the health consequences of doping, according to a new study led by the University of Birmingham and funded by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

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The researchers were also interested in finding out what factors might reduce these justifications, which would ultimately allow athletes to suppress their feelings of guilt and use banned substances. The key factor which seems to protect athletes from doping was moral identity. This means how important it was to the players to be a moral person, and how strong their moral values, such as being fair or honest, were. Those players who had a strong moral identity did not use justifications for doping, expected to feel more guilt for doping, and ultimately were less likely to dope.

The researchers also found that coaches' behavior, and the 'performance climate' in which athletes were training also had a significant effect on their doping likelihood. If coaches were creating a climate in which players who made a mistake were penalised, or if they gave undue attention to the best players, athletes were more likely to turn towards banned substances. The coach can therefore play an important role in doping prevention.

The research findings are forming the basis for anti-doping interventions aimed at challenging players' attitudes towards banned substances. Funded by the World Anti-Doping Agency and the International Olympic Committee, the team has developed a series of interventions which highlight the moral angle through stories of athletes who have been affected by these issues, and what it has meant for them, and for their team mates and families.

The pressor is here.

What's The Difference Between Compliance And Ethics?

Bruce Weinstein
Forbes.com
Originally posted May 9, 2019

I've noticed some confusion about the roles that ethics and compliance play in organizations. This confusion arises, in part, from the way these two fields are identified. Some companies have only a compliance department. Others have a compliance and ethics (or ethics and compliance) department. Some companies have a Chief Ethics Officer separate from compliance.

To get some clarity on these crucial roles, I asked seven leaders who are involved in both ethics and compliance to explain the similarities and differences as they saw them. I'll present their views, offer my own analysis and then consider what this means for your career and your organization.

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The Takeaways

What does all of this mean for you?

1. If you're in compliance and/or ethics, it's worth having a clear understanding of what each department or program is about, how they're similar and how they differ. Then make sure that everyone in the organization understands these similarities and differences and what this means for their own roles.
2. If you're not in compliance or ethics, find out how the company defines each area and what this means for you. Whether you want to move up in the organization or simply remain gainfully employed there, you will put yourself in good stead if you know the difference between ethics and compliance as your company defines them.
3. No matter how your company views compliance and ethics, what its code of conduct is or whether you work within or outside of the compliance and ethics programs, it's not enough to ask, "What do laws, regulations or policies require of me?" The follow-up question should always be, "What is the right thing to do?"

The info is here.

Is there such a thing as moral progress?

John Danaher
Philosophical Disquisitions
Originally posted March 18, 2019

We often speak as if we believe in moral progress. We talk about recent moral changes, such as the legalisation of gay marriage, as ‘progressive’ moral changes. We express dismay at the ‘regressive’ moral views of racists and bigots. Some people (I’m looking at you Steven Pinker) have written long books that defend the idea that, although there have been setbacks, there has been a general upward trend in our moral attitudes over the course of human history. Martin Luther King once said that the arc of the moral universe is long but bend towards justice.

But does moral progress really exist? And how would we know if it did? Philosophers have puzzled over this question for some time. The problem is this. There is no doubt that there has been moral change over time, and there is no doubt that we often think of our moral views as being more advanced than those of our ancestors, but it is hard to see exactly what justifies this belief. It seems like you would need some absolute moral standard or goal against which you can measure moral change to justify that belief. Do we have such a thing?

In this post, I want offer some of my own, preliminary and underdeveloped, thoughts on the idea of moral progress. I do so by first clarifying the concept of moral progress, and then considering whether and when we can say that it exists. I will suggest that moral progress is real, and we are at least sometimes justified in saying that it has taken place. Nevertheless, there are some serious puzzles and conceptual difficulties with identifying some forms of moral progress.

The info is here.

Mark Zuckerberg And The Tech World Still Do Not Understand Ethics

Derek Lidow
Forbes.com
Originally posted March 11, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

Expectations for technology startups encourage expedient, not ethical, decision making. 

As people in the industry are fond of saying, the tech world moves at “lightspeed.” That includes the pace of innovation, the rise and fall of markets, the speed of customer adoption, the evolution of business models and the lifecycles of companies. Decisions must be made quickly and leaders too often choose the most expedient path regardless of whether it is safe, legal or ethical.

 This “move fast and break things” ethos is embodied in practices like working toward a minimum viable product (MVP), helping to establish a bias toward cutting corners. In addition, many founders look for CFOs who are “tech trained—that is, people accustomed to a world where time and money wait for no one—as opposed to a seasoned financial officer with good accounting chops and a moral compass.

The host of scandals at Zenefits, a cloud-based provider of employee-benefits software to small businesses and once one of the most promising of Silicon Valley startups, had their origins in the shortcuts the company took in order to meet unreasonably high expectations for growth. The founder apparently created software that helped employees cheat on California’s online broker license course. As the company expanded rapidly, it began hiring people with little experience in the highly regulated health insurance industry. As the company moved from small businesses to larger businesses, the strain on it software increased. Instead of developing appropriate software, the company hired more people to manually take up the slack where the existing software failed. When the founder was asked by an interviewer before the scandals why he was so intent on expanding so rapidly he replied, “Slowing down doesn’t feel like something I want to do.”

The info is here.

Officials gather for ethics training

Jon Wysochanski
Star Beacon
Originally posted March 23, 2019

Here is an excerpt:

A large range of actions can constitute unethical behavior, from a health inspector inspecting his mom and dad’s restaurant to a public official accepting a ticket to an Ohio State Buckeyes’ game because he doesn’t consider it monetary, Willeke said. Unethical behavior doesn’t have to be as egregious as the real world example of a state employee inspecting a string of daycare centers she and her husband owned.

It’s not possible to find someone void of personal bias, Willeke said, and it is common for potential conflicts of interest to present themselves. It’s how public officials react to those biases or potential conflicts that matters most. The best thing for a public official facing a conflict to do is to walk away from the situation.

“Having a conflict of interest has never been illegal,” Willeke said. “It is when people act on those conflicts of interest that we actually see a crime under Ohio Ethics Law.”

When it comes to accepting gifts, Ohio law does not stipulate a dollar amount, only whether the gift is substantial or improper. A vendor-purchased dinner at Bob Evans might not violate the law, while dinner at a high-end restaurant complete with the best wine and most expensive menu items would.

And when it comes to unlawful interests in public contracts, a contract means any time a government entity spends money. That could mean the trustee who takes home a township backhoe on weekends to do work on the side, the library director who uses the copier to print hundreds of flyers for their business, the state employee who uses a state computer to run a real estate business or the fireman who uses a ladder truck on a home painting job.

The info is here.

Editor's note: We need more of this type of training for government officials.

Psychiatrist suspended for ‘inappropriate relationship.’ He got a $196K state job.

Steve Contorno & Lawrence Mower
www.miamiherald.com
Originally posted February 28, 2019

Less than a year ago, Domingo Cerra Fernandez was suspended from practicing medicine in the state of Florida.

The Ocala psychiatrist allegedly committed one of the cardinal sins of his discipline: He propositioned a patient to have a sexual and romantic relationship with him. He then continued to treat her.

But just months after his Florida suspension ended, Cerra Fernandez has a new job. He’s a senior physician at the North Florida Evaluation and Treatment Center, a maximum-security state-run treatment facility for mentally disabled adult male patients.

How did a recently suspended psychiatrist find himself working with some of Florida’s most vulnerable and dangerous residents, with a $196,000 annual salary?

The Department of Children and Families, which runs the facility, knew about his case before hiring him to a job that had been vacant for more than a year. DaMonica Smith, a department spokeswoman, told the Herald/Times that Cerra Fernandez was up front about his discipline.

The info is here.

OpenAI's Realistic Text-Generating AI Triggers Ethics Concerns

William Falcon
Forbes.com
Originally posted February 18, 2019

Here is an excerpt:

Why you should care.

GPT-2 is the closest AI we have to make conversational AI a possibility. Although conversational AI is far from solved, chatbots powered by this technology could help doctors scale advice over chats, scale advice for potential suicide victims, improve translation systems, and improve speech recognition across applications.

Although OpenAI acknowledges these potential benefits, it also acknowledges the potential risks of releasing the technology. Misuse could include, impersonate others online, generate misleading news headlines, or automate the automation of fake posts to social media.

But I argue these malicious applications are already possible without this AI. There exist other public models which can already be used for these purposes. Thus, I think not releasing this code is more harmful to the community because A) it sets a bad precedent for open research, B) keeps companies from improving their services, C) unnecessarily hypes these results and D) may trigger unnecessary fears about AI in the general public.

The info is here.

Federal ethics agency refuses to certify financial disclosure from Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross

Jeff Daniels
CNBC.com
Originally published February 19, 2019

The government's top ethics watchdog disclosed Tuesday that it had refused to certify a financial disclosure report from Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

In a filing, the Office of Government Ethics said it wouldn't certify the 2018 annual filing by Ross because he didn't divest stock in a bank despite stating otherwise. The move could have legal ramifications for Ross and add to pressure for a federal probe.

"The report is not certified," OGE Director Emory Rounds said in a filing, explaining that a previous document the watchdog received from Ross indicated he "no longer held BankUnited stock." However, Rounds said an Oct. 31 document "demonstrates that he did" still hold the shares and as a result, "the filer was therefore not in compliance with his ethics agreement at the time of the report."

A federal ethics agreement required that Ross divest stock worth between $1,000 and $15,000 in BankUnited by the end of May 2017, or within 90 days of the Senate confirming him to the Commerce post. He previously reported selling the stock twice, first in May 2017 and again in August 2018 as part of an annual disclosure required by OGE.

The info is here.

Why Won’t John Roberts Accept an Ethics Code for Supreme Court Justices?

Steven Lubet
Slate.com
Originally posted January 16, 2019

Here is an excerpt:

Chief Justice John Roberts addressed the anomaly of the missing ethics code in his 2011 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, acknowledging that the lower courts’ code is a good “starting point” for ethics inquiries. Nonetheless, he asserted that there is “no reason” to adopt a SCOTUS code because members of his court consult a wide variety of other sources for guidance. In addition, Roberts noted that current iterations of the judicial code do “not adequately answer some of the ethical considerations unique to the Supreme Court,” and that “no compilation of ethical rules can guarantee integrity.”

The chief justice’s observations are all reasonable, but they do not begin to justify the absence of a Supreme Court code. Nearly all of his explanations apply with equal force to every other court in the U.S., and yet those courts have, without exception, adopted written codes. It is true, of course, that no “compilation” of rules can guarantee compliance, but the same could be said for all other codes, ranging from the Bill of Rights to the Ten Commandments. He is right that existing judicial codes do not address issues “unique to the Supreme Court,” but that is why the proposed legislation allows “provisions that are applicable only” to SCOTUS justices.

The info is here.

How Our Attitude Influences Our Sense Of Morality

Konrad Bocian
Science Trend
Originally posted January 18, 2019

Here is an excerpt:

People think that their moral judgment is as rational and objective as scientific statements, but science does not confirm that belief. Within the two last decades, scholars interested in moral psychology discovered that people produce moral judgments based on fast and automatic intuitions than rational and controlled reasoning. For example, moral cognition research showed that moral judgments arise in approximately 250 milliseconds, and even then we are not able to explain them. Developmental psychologists proved that at already the age of 3 months, babies who do not have any lingual skills can distinguish a good protagonist (a helping one) from a bad one (a hindering one). But this does not mean that peoples’ moral judgments are based solely on intuitions. We can use deliberative processes when conditions are favorable – when we are both motivated to engage in and capable of conscious responding.

When we imagine how we would morally judge other people in a specific situation, we refer to actual rules and norms. If the laws are violated, the act itself is immoral. But we forget that intuitive reasoning also plays a role in forming a moral judgment. It is easy to condemn the librarian when our interest is involved on paper, but the whole picture changes when real money is on the table. We have known that rule for a very long time, but we still forget to use it when we predict our moral judgments.

Based on previous research on the intuitive nature of moral judgment, we decided to test how far our attitudes can impact our perception of morality. In our daily life, we meet a lot of people who are to some degree familiar, and we either have a positive or negative attitude toward these people.

The info is here.

Recent events highlight an unpleasant scientific practice: ethics dumping

Science and Technology

The Economist

Originally published January 2019

Here is an excerpt:

Ethics dumping is the carrying out by researchers from one country (usually rich, and with strict regulations) in another (usually less well off, and with laxer laws) of an experiment that would not be permitted at home, or of one that might be permitted, but in a way that would be frowned on. The most worrisome cases involve medical research, in which health, and possibly lives, are at stake. But other investigations—anthropological ones, for example—may also be carried out in a more cavalier fashion abroad. As science becomes more international the risk of ethics dumping, both intentional and unintentional, has risen. The suggestion in this case is that Dr He was encouraged and assisted in his project by a researcher at an American university.

The info is here.

Google is quietly infiltrating medicine, but what rules will it play by?

Michael Millenson
STAT News
Originally posted January 3, 2019

Here is an excerpt:

Other tech companies are also making forays into fields previously reserved for physicians as they compete for a slice of the $3.5 trillion health care pie. Renowned surgeon and author Dr. Atul Gawande was hired to head the still-nascent health care joint venture between Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan. Apple recently hired more than 50 physicians to tend its growing health care portfolio. Those efforts include Apple Watch apps to detect irregular heart rhythms and falls, a medical record repository on your iPhone, a genetic risk score for heart disease, and a partnership with medical equipment manufacturer Zimmer Biomet aimed at improving knee and hip surgery.

Google is hiring physicians, too. Its high-profile hires include the former chief executives of the Geisinger Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic. The company’s ambitious health care expansion plans reportedly encompass everything from the management of Parkinson’s disease to selling hardware to providers and insurers.

To be clear, I’ve connected the dots among separate Google companies in a way Google might dispute. However, there are some concerns about how and whether any separation of information will be maintained. In November, Bloomberg reported that plans in the United Kingdom to combine an Alphabet subsidiary using artificial intelligence on medical records with the Google search engine were “tripping alarm bells about privacy.”

The info is here.

A Top Goldman Banker Raised Ethics Concerns. Then He Was Gone.

Emily Flitter, Kate Kelly and David Enrich
The New York Times
Originally posted September 11, 2018

By the tight-lipped standards of Goldman Sachs, the phone call from one of the firm’s most senior investment bankers was explosive.

James C. Katzman, a Goldman partner and the leader of its West Coast mergers-and-acquisitions practice, dialed the bank’s whistle-blower hotline in 2014 to complain about what he regarded as a range of unethical practices, according to accounts by people close to Mr. Katzman, which a Goldman spokesman confirmed. His grievances included an effort by Goldman to hire a customer’s child and colleagues’ repeated attempts to obtain and then share confidential client information.

Mr. Katzman expected lawyers at the firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, which monitored the hotline, to investigate his allegations and share them with independent members of Goldman’s board of directors, the people close to Mr. Katzman said.

The complaints were an extraordinary example of a senior employee’s taking on what he perceived to be corporate wrongdoing at an elite Wall Street bank. But they were never independently investigated or fully relayed to the Goldman board.

The information is here.

Ohio State places winning above morality by failing to fire Urban Meyer

Ryan Pawloski
The Daily Nebraskan
Originally published August 29, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

These off-field scandals were no secret back when Meyer was at Florida, and Ohio State showed that it was willing to look past them when it hired him a year after he left Gainesville.

It is evident that Ohio State kept Meyer because he wins, but the question still remains: Why did Ohio State fire Tressel after the 2011 tattoo scandal, but keep Meyer after knowing he kept a domestic abuser on his staff and lied about not knowing?

Tressel had a successful tenure as the Ohio State head coach from 2001-10 as he went 106-22 — 94-22 after NCAA sanctions — and won five Big Ten titles and one national title in 2002. Many would think that Ohio State would have kept Tressel just like it did with Meyer because he won, too.

The answer is simple. Meyer has been better for the Buckeyes than Tressel was. Tressel was one of the top coaches in the country at Columbus and any program would have taken him if he was on the market, but Meyer was better.

Meyer retired from coaching in 2010 because of health and family reasons. About six months later, Tressel was forced out by Ohio State because of NCAA violations. An explanation for Tressel’s termination was that Meyer was on the market and Ohio State knew it had a chance to get the coach it always wanted.

The info is here.