Welcome to the Nexus of Ethics, Psychology, Morality, Philosophy and Health Care

Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy

Thursday, October 25, 2018

Novartis links bonuses to ethics in bid to rebuild reputation

John Miller
Reuters
Originally posted September 17, 2018

Swiss drugmaker Novartis (NOVN.S) has revealed its employees only get a bonus if they meet or exceed expectations for ethical behavior as it seeks to address past shortcomings that have damaged its reputation.

Chief Executive Vas Narasimhan has made strengthening the Swiss drugmaker’s ethics culture a priority after costly bribery scandals or legal settlements in South Korea, China and the United States.

Employees now receive a 1, 2 or a 3 score on their values and behavior. Receiving a 2, which Novartis said denotes meeting expectations, or a 3, for “role model” behavior, would make them eligible for a bonus of up to 35 percent of their total compensation.

Novartis said it began the scoring system in 2016 but details have not been widely reported. Company officials outlined the system on Monday on a call about its ethics efforts with analysts and journalists.

The info is here.

The Little-known Emotion that Makes Ethical Leadership Contagious

Notre Dame Cetner for Ethics
www.ethicalleadership.nd.edu
Originally posted in September 2018

Here is an excerpt:

Elevation at Work

Elevation is not limited to dramatic and dangerous situations. It can also arise in more mundane places like assembly lines, meeting rooms, and corporate offices. In fact, elevation is a powerful and often under-appreciated force that makes ethical leadership work. A 2010 study collected data from workers about their feelings toward their supervisors and found that bosses could cause their followers to experience elevation through acts of fairness and self-sacrifice. Elevation caused these workers to have positive feelings toward their bosses, and the effect spilled over into other relationships; they were kinder and more helpful toward their coworkers and more committed to their organization as a whole.

These findings suggest that elevation is a valuable emotion for leaders to understand. It can give ethical leadership traction by helping a leader's values and behaviors take root in his or her followers. One study puts it this way: "Elevation puts moral values into action."

Put it in Practice

The best way to harness elevation in your organization is by changing the way you communicate about ethics. Keep these guidelines in mind.

Find exemplars who elevate you and others.

Most companies have codes of values. But true moral inspiration comes from people, not from abstract principles. Although we need rules, guidelines, regulations, and laws, we are only inspired by the people who embody them and live them out. For each of your organization's values, make sure you can identify a person who exemplifies it in his or her life and work.

The info is here.

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

Open Letter: Netflix's "Afflicted" Abandoning Ethics and Science

Maya Dusenbery
Pacific Standard
Originally published September 20, 2018

Here are two excerpts:

The problem is not that the series included these skeptical views. To be sure, one of the most difficult parts of being ill with these "contested" conditions—or, for that matter, even a well-accepted but "invisible" chronic disease—is contending with such doubts, which are pervasive among friends and family, the media, and the medical profession at large. But according to the participants, in many cases, interviews with their family and friends were deceptively edited to make them appear more skeptical than they actually are. In some cases, clips in which family members acknowledged they'd wondered if their loved one's problem was psychological early on in their illness were taken out of context to imply they still harbored those beliefs. In others, producers seem to have put words into their mouths: According to Jamison, interviewees were asked to start their answers by repeating the question they had been asked. This is how the producers managed to get a clip of his mom seemingly questioning if "hypochondria" was a component of her son's illness.

(cut)

Even more irresponsible is the inclusion of such psychological speculation by various unqualified doctors. Presented as experts despite the fact that they have not examined the participants and are not specialists in their particular conditions, they muse vaguely about the power of the mind to produce physical symptoms. A single psychiatrist, who has never evaluated any of the subjects, is quoted extensively throughout. In Episode 4, which is entitled "The Mind," he gets right to the point: "Statistically, it's more likely that the cause of the problem is a common psychiatric problem more than it is an unknown or uncatalogued physical illness. You can be deluded that you're sick, meaning you can believe you're sick when in fact you're not sick."

The info is here.

Chinese Ethics

Wong, David
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2018 Edition)

The tradition of Chinese ethical thought is centrally concerned with questions about how one ought to live: what goes into a worthwhile life, how to weigh duties toward family versus duties toward strangers, whether human nature is predisposed to be morally good or bad, how one ought to relate to the non-human world, the extent to which one ought to become involved in reforming the larger social and political structures of one’s society, and how one ought to conduct oneself when in a position of influence or power. The personal, social, and political are often intertwined in Chinese approaches to the subject. Anyone who wants to draw from the range of important traditions of thought on this subject needs to look seriously at the Chinese tradition. The canonical texts of that tradition have been memorized by schoolchildren in Asian societies for hundreds of years, and at the same time have served as objects of sophisticated and rigorous analysis by scholars and theoreticians rooted in widely variant traditions and approaches. This article will introduce ethical issues raised by some of the most influential texts in Confucianism, Mohism, Daoism, Legalism, and Chinese Buddhism.

The info is here.

Tuesday, October 23, 2018

James Gunn's Firing Is What Happens When We Outsource Morality to Capitalism

Anhar Karim
Forbes.com
Originally posted September 16, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

A study last year from Cone Communications found that 87% of consumers said they’d purchase a company’s product if said company showed that they cared about issues consumers cared about. On the flip side of that, 75% of consumers said they would not buy from a company which showed they did not care. If business executives and CEOs are following along, as they surely are, the lesson is this: If a company wants to stay on top in the modern age, and if they want to maximize their profits, then they need to beat their competitors not only with superior products but also with demonstrated, superior moral behavior.

This, on its face, does not appear horrible. Indeed, this new development has led to a lot of undeniable good. It’s this idea that gave the #MeToo movement its bite and toppled industry giants such as Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey and Les Moonves. It’s this strategy that’s led Warner Brothers to mandate an inclusion rider, Sony to diversify their comic titles, and Marvel to get their heroes to visit children in hospitals.

So how could any of this be negative?

Well, consider the other side of these attempts at corporate responsibility, the efforts that look good but help no one. What am I talking about? Consider that we recently had a major movie with a song celebrating difference and being true to yourself. That sounds good. However, the plot of the film is actually about exploiting minorities for profit. So it falls flat. Or consider that we had a woman cast in a Marvel franchise playing a role normally reserved for a man. Sounds progressive, right? Until we realize that that is also an example of a white actor trying her best to look Asian and thus limiting diversity. Also, consider that Sony decided to try and help fight back against bullying. Noble intent, but the way they went about it? They helped put up posters oddly suggesting that bullying could be stopped with sending positive emojis. Again, all of these sound sort of good on paper, but in practice, they help no one.

The info is here.

Why you need a code of ethics (and how to build one that sticks)

Josh Fruhlinger
cio.com
Originally posted September 17, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

Most of us probably think of ourselves as ethical people. But within organizations built to maximize profits, many seemingly inevitably drift towards more dubious behavior, especially when it comes to user personal data. "More companies than not are collecting data just for the sake of collecting data, without having any reason as to why or what to do with it," says Philip Jones, a GDPR regulatory compliance expert at Capgemini. "Although this is an expensive and unethical approach, most businesses don’t think twice about it. I view this approach as one of the highest risks to companies today, because they have no clue where, how long, or how accurate much of their private data is on consumers."

This is the sort of organizational ethical drift that can arise in the absence of clear ethical guidelines—and it's the sort of drift that laws like the GDPR, the EU's stringent new framework for how companies must handle customer data, are meant to counter. And the temptation is certainly there to simply use such regulations as a de facto ethics policy. "The GDPR and laws like it make the process of creating a digital ethics policy much easier than it once was," says Ian McClarty, President and CEO of PhoenixNAP.  "Anything and everything that an organization does with personal data obtained from an individual must come with the explicit consent of that data owner. It’s very hard to subvert digital ethics when one’s ability to use personal data is curtailed in such a draconian fashion."

But companies cannot simply outsource their ethics codes to regulators and think that hewing to the letter of the law will keep their reputations intact. "New possibilities emerge so fast," says Mads Hennelund, a consultant at Nextwork, "that companies will be forced by market competition to apply new technologies before any regulator has been able to grasp them and impose meaningful rules or standards." He also notes that, if different silos within a company are left to their own devices and subject to their own particular forms of regulation and technology adoption, "the organization as a whole becomes ethically fragmented, consisting of multiple ethically autonomous departments."

The info is here.

Monday, October 22, 2018

Trump's 'America First' Policy Puts Economy Before Morality

Zeke Miller, Jonathan Lemire, and Catherine Lucey
www.necn.com
Originally posted October 18, 20198

Here is an excerpt:

Still, Trump's transactional approach isn't sitting well with some of his Republican allies in Congress. His party for years championed the idea that the U.S. had a duty to promote U.S. values and human rights and even to intervene when they are challenged. Some Republicans have urged Trump not to abandon that view.

"I'm open to having Congress sit down with the president if this all turns out to be true, and it looks like it is, ... and saying, 'How can we express our condemnation without blowing up the Middle East?" Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said. "Our foreign policy has to be anchored in values."

Trump dismisses the notion that he buddies up to dictators, but he does not express a sense that U.S. leadership extends beyond the U.S. border.

In an interview with CBS' "60 Minutes" that aired Sunday, he brushed aside his own assessment that Putin was "probably" involved in assassinations and poisonings.

"But I rely on them," he said. "It's not in our country."

Relations between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia are complex. The two nations are entwined on energy, military, economic and intelligence issues. The Trump administration has aggressively courted the Saudis for support of its Middle East agenda to counter Iranian influence, fight extremism and try to forge peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

The info is here.

Why the Gene Editors of Tomorrow Need to Study Ethics Today

Katie Palmer
www.wired.com
Originally posted September 18, 2018

Two years after biochemist Jennifer Doudna helped introduce the world to the gene-editing tool known as Crispr, a 14-year-old from New Jersey turned it loose on a petri dish full of lung cancer cells, disrupting their ability to multiply. “In high school, I was all on the Crispr bandwagon,” says Jiwoo Lee, who won top awards at the 2016 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for her work. “I was like, Crisprize everything!” Just pick a snippet of genetic material, add one of a few cut-and-paste proteins, and you’re ready to edit genomes. These days, though, Lee describes her approach as “more conservative.” Now a sophomore at Stanford, she spent part of her first year studying not just the science of Crispr but also the societal discussion around it. “Maybe I matured a little bit,” she says.

Doudna and Lee recently met at the Innovative Genomics Institute in Berkeley to discuss Crispr’s ethical implications. “She’s so different than I was at that age,” Doudna says. “I feel like I was completely clueless.” For Lee’s generation, it is critically important to start these conversations “at as early a stage as possible,” Doudna adds. She warns of a future in which humans take charge of evolution—both their own and that of other species. “The potential to use gene editing in germ cells or embryos is very real,” she says. Both women believe Crispr may eventually transform clinical medicine; Lee even hopes to build her career in that area—but she’s cautious. “I think there’s a really slippery slope between therapy and enhancement,” Lee says. “Every culture defines disease differently.” One country’s public health campaign could be another’s eugenics.

The info is here.

Sunday, October 21, 2018

Leaders matter morally: The role of ethical leadership in shaping employee moral cognition and misconduct.

Moore, C., Mayer, D. M., Chiang, and others
Journal of Applied Psychology. Advance online publication.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/apl0000341

Abstract

There has long been interest in how leaders influence the unethical behavior of those who they lead. However, research in this area has tended to focus on leaders’ direct influence over subordinate behavior, such as through role modeling or eliciting positive social exchange. We extend this research by examining how ethical leaders affect how employees construe morally problematic decisions, ultimately influencing their behavior. Across four studies, diverse in methods (lab and field) and national context (the United States and China), we find that ethical leadership decreases employees’ propensity to morally disengage, with ultimate effects on employees’ unethical decisions and deviant behavior. Further, employee moral identity moderates this mediated effect. However, the form of this moderation is not consistent. In Studies 2 and 4, we find that ethical leaders have the largest positive influence over individuals with a weak moral identity (providing a “saving grace”), whereas in Study 3, we find that ethical leaders have the largest positive influence over individuals with a strong moral identity (catalyzing a “virtuous synergy”). We use these findings to speculate about when ethical leaders might function as a “saving grace” versus a “virtuous synergy.” Together, our results suggest that employee misconduct stems from a complex interaction between employees, their leaders, and the context in which this relationship takes place, specifically via leaders’ influence over employees’ moral cognition.

Beginning of the Discussion section

Three primary findings emerge from these four studies. First, we consistently find a negative relationship between ethical leadership and employee moral disengagement. This supports our primary hypothesis: leader behavior is associated with how employees construe decisions with ethical import. Our manipulation of ethical leadership and its resulting effects provide confidence that ethical leadership has a direct causal influence over employee moral disengagement.

In addition, this finding was consistent in both American and Chinese work contexts, suggesting the effect is not culturally bound.

Second, we also found evidence across all four studies that moral disengagement functions as a mechanism to explain the relationship between ethical leadership and employee unethical decisions and behaviors. Again, this result was consistent across time- and respondent-separated field studies and an experiment, in American and Chinese organizations, and using different measures of our primary constructs, providing important assurance of the generalizability of our findings and bolstering our confidence that moral disengagement as an important, unique, and robust mechanism to explain ethical leaders’ positive effects within their organizations.

Finally, we found persistent evidence that the centrality of an employee’s moral identity plays a key role in the relationship between ethical leadership and employee unethical decisions and behavior (through moral disengagement). However, the nature of this moderated relationship varied across studies.