Peg Tittle's Blog, page 50

Air Bands and Power Point

Air Bands and Power Point

I still remember the feeling I had when I saw my first air band performance. It was a sick kind of feeling.

I hadn’t known what an air band was. The announcement came over the p.a. at my school-for-the-day, and I dutifully shepherded the class to the gym. Then I watched, incredulous, as group after group of high school students came on stage and pretended to play their favourite songs. I mumbled a query to the teacher standing next to me. Apparently this air band stuff was quite big. Students spent weeks practising. They really wanted to get it right. ‘It’ being the appearance, the pretence.

In my day, the guys actually did play, guitars and drums mostly. Each school had a couple bands. From time to time they even played at our dances.

But I tried not to go there. That was then, this was now. There is some skill required for this, I thought. It does take practice to get it right. But still. It bothered me. As everyone applauded – faking it.

I was reminded of that sick kind of feeling just the other day. I heard a new technopop piece on the radio; it was based on a sample from a Gene Krupa drum solo. That’s how technopop is ‘composed’: someone uses bits and pieces (‘samples’) of other people’s music and puts them together – often at random, mostly in repetition. That is to say, there’s no coherent development, no substance.

It’s sad to see that the ability to play, let alone compose for, a musical instrument is on the wane. But it’s frightening to think about the why and the therefore.

I read somewhere that playing a musical instrument is the most mentally challenging task humans perform. Certainly the daily practice requires a level of both concentration and discipline that I just don’t see in young people today. Is it that our kids don’t have the mental stamina needed to learn how to play a musical instrument? Or is it that because they don’t learn how to play a musical instrument, they don’t develop such mental stamina. Either way, it’s cause for concern. And my guess is it’s both.

That is to say, attention to pretence/form instead of to substance/content is both the cause and the effect of a paucity of higher cognitive skills. True, content without form can be incomprehensible. But form without content isn’t anything at all. One must attend to content before one attends to form. At best, content determines form. Further, inattention to content entails inattention to quality of content. And that makes things so much worse.

Consider the addiction many have to the internet. Surfing the net is like watching the news (and browsing the encyclopedia). It’s kibbles and bits of information. That’s all. It’s pure content. Sure, it’s knowledge. But is it valuable knowledge? Is it relevant, is it sufficient? Is it usable? One has to have some of those higher level cognitive skills to go beyond acquisition and comprehension into analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and application.

And, well, I’ve read about the increase in kids’ television viewing time. I’ve heard about their inability to play games at recess: they just stand around, or maybe they play with a ready-made single-purpose toy for a bit and then they’re bored. I’m told that kids, young people, don’t go to the library anymore; they don’t go to the used bookstores either, to trade in one handful of paperbacks for another. I know about the increase in learning disabilities. And I found out about grades inflation: Cs are now Bs, Bs are now As – ‘So what do I give to students who really do get an A?’ ‘Trust me – you won’t have that problem.’ An exaggeration?

For a while, I taught courses at a university. Basically I taught applied philosophy – Informal Logic, Contemporary Moral Issues, Business Ethics. I discovered right away that essays on controversial issues were way over most of the students’ heads. I soon started giving an open book reading comprehension quiz for each essay I assigned – it doubled as a guide to the main points of the essay. I couldn’t teach them to assess what they didn’t even understand.

And in three out of three courses, students told me that the kind of thinking I was demanding, essentially critical thinking, was a new way of thinking: they hadn’t had to do it before. Arts majors, Science majors, and Business majors, even third and fourth year students – they all said the same thing.

And then – I happened to be in an Accounting class, watching students present case studies. The second group was very impressive. They sure had their act together. Respectfully in their suits and ties, standing at business attention, their voices projecting confidence, they introduced themselves as Wannick, Smith, and Pratsk: ‘We thank you for choosing us as your Accounting consultants, and we are happy to present to you today our analysis…’ They had rehearsed, that much was clear. And the power point presentation sure was slick: titles variously fonted with fade-ins and fade-outs, points neatly aligned and bulletted, graphics full of colour and icons – it looked just like the real thing. The class applauded.

I mumbled a query to the prof sitting next to me. ‘Suitcoats and power point aside, which group had the better analysis?’ ‘The first group – these guys missed some important discrepancies in the accounts.’ Hm. And if they didn’t get an A, there was hope, I thought.

Then again, no there wasn’t. The week after, the Student Union held an air band competition.

The Futility of Teaching Business Ethics or Why Our World Will End

There are four reasons why teaching ethics to business students is an exercise in futility.

1. The profit motive trumps everything. As long as this is the case, there’s no point in teaching students the intricacies of determining right and wrong. Whether something is morally acceptable or not is simply irrelevant to them. It might come into play when two options yield the same profit, but how often does that happen? And even so, other concerns are likely to be tie-breakers.

And is this the case? Does the profit motive trump everything? Yes, according to their economics, marketing, and even human resources professors: profit is the bottom line. It’s primary. It’s the raison d’être of business. Good thing. Because business students enrol in business because they want to make a lot of money. I have yet to meet someone who’s enrolled in business to make the world a better place. (Wait a minute. Don’t shareholders matter? Doesn’t what they want trump everything? In theory, yes. In practice, no. Most don’t cast their vote. And anyway most also want to make a lot of money. As much as possible, in fact. I have yet to meet someone who becomes a shareholder, who invests, to make the world a better place.)

2. Ethics is a grey area. It’s complicated. There are often no clear-cut answers. Ironically, there’s seldom a right and wrong answer to questions of right and wrong. Men prefer black and white. They gravitate toward the quantitative, the ill-(but sexually aptly-)named ‘hard sciences’ of engineering and chemistry, rather than the ‘soft sciences’ of psychology and sociology. They say such fields are not as legitimate, but really they’re just harder to navigate because the reasoning and the evidence are ‘stronger’ and ‘weaker’ rather than ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. (Which is why, when men do get involved with ethics, they prefer moral legalism, the approach that equates right and wrong with legal and illegal, which is black and white.)

3. Ethics is for girls. (Apparently.) And business is dominated by boys. It’s mom who teaches us right from wrong; she’s the moral compass. And anything mom does is to be held in contempt as soon as a boy hits twelve. In order to become a man, it’s necessary. To hold in contempt all things female. Ethics presumes caring, and real men don’t care. (Qualification: they don’t care about others. They care about profit, their own place in the scheme of things, and because their sons are extensions of themselves, they care about them, their place in the scheme of things, but caring about strangers? Strangers are other; the other is the competition.) Ethics is something for priests to worry about and we all know priests aren’t real men. They’re celibate for god’s sake. So, men avoid ethics – it’s effeminate to be concerned about right and wrong.

So actually, there’s just one reason why teaching business ethics to business students is an exercise in futility: business is dominated by men (point 3), and the masculist mode is quantitative (points 1 and 2). This explains, or is supported by, their obsession with size. Girth which in a woman would be considered obese and disgusting is carried by men as if it increases their legitimacy, their authority: they thrust out their gut just as they thrust out their chest. It brings to mind animals that inflate themselves to achieve greater size (the balloonfish can actually double its size). Men are concerned not only with physical size – in general and in particular – but also with the size of their cars, their houses, their corporations. Their profit. The bigger, the better. I think this is because the male mind is more primitive, and at a very primitive level, the contest for survival is won by the bigger animal. (Actually, that’s not true even at a basic level – small creatures with toxic stings and the capacity to remain hidden often survive. But unfortunately, they’ve evolved enough to create a system in which it is true.) (And anyway, even as they don’t win, they’ll take the rest of us down.)

Political Science – A Costly Misnomer

Science is the pursuit of knowledge according to the scientific method: hypotheses must be testable, and results must be verifiable by replication.  Obviously, the more quantifiable something is, the more accurate and precise its measurement can be, and the more accurate and precise something is, the more testable and verifiable it is – it’s hard to test and then verify an uncertain or vague something-or-other.  So the definition of science really comes down to quantification.  Well, that and matter – only material things can be quantified.

Political science is the study of government organization and political systems.  These things are not quantifiable.  It would seem, then, that political science should have been named political art. 

So?  Well, one, we’re left with an interesting question: why was political science mis-named in the first place?  My guess is that it was because men did the naming.  For whatever reason (and several come to mind), men dominated government and politics, so, of course, they would initiate, dominate, name the field of political science.

And why would they choose to call it a science rather than an art?  Well, simply because the arts are considered feminine.  And this was a bad thing.

And why was science, on the other hand, considered masculine?  Perhaps because male supremacy depends on size.  So size is seen as a good thing.  So quantifiability, the measurability of size, is seen as a good thing.  Science, by quantifiability, is thus linked to masculinity.

And two, we’re surely left wondering what the consequences have been of this error in nomenclature.  Perhaps if political science had been named correctly at the start, if the creation and maintenance of a just society was recognized as an art, not a science, we might have just societies.

We might be focusing on quality, not quantity.  Consider the impact of this on the current economics-by-GNP system (a system in which oil spills and car accidents are good things because they increase the GNP – read Marilyn Waring), the system which directs our Finance Departments.  If we focused on quality, one’s standard of living might not be determined by how much one has, but by how happy one is, how free and autonomous one is.

Systems of organization might be lateral, not hierarchical (hierarchical systems are implicitly incremental, that is, dependent on quantity differences).  Consider the impact of this on the workplace.

Attention might be paid to process, rather than to structure (structure is matter – static quantity).  Consider the impact of this on hospitals and schools.

It might have been understood that societies are dynamic, fluid, and characterized by relationships which must be kept in balance.  Consider the impact of this on trade and foreign relations.

And it might have been understood that each organism has an optimal size, that unlimited growth is not in its best interests, that more is not better.  Consider the impact of this on consumer societies and ‘Defence’ Departments.

Just consider the impact – of the inconsequence, the insignificance, of quantity.

Take Her Seriously

I used to think that the problem with rape was that women weren’t being explicit – they weren’t actually saying no, partly because men weren’t actually asking.  Perhaps because there’s (still?) something shameful about sex that makes people reluctant to come right out and talk about it.  Or maybe that would destroy the romance.  Whatever.

I still think that a pre-sex explicit question-and-answer might be a valuable social custom, but I’m now thinking that a much bigger part of the problem is that women do say no, explicitly and implicitly, and men do understand that ‘no means no’ (I suspect the prevalence of the ‘no means yes’ belief is grossly exaggerated, if not completely fabricated, by men for men), but men don’t hear us: they continue to think that women, like children, should be seen (okay, looked at – all the time, everywhere) and not heard.  And when they do hear us, they don’t take us seriously.  We’ve all read the studies about how a woman will say something in a meeting.  Silence.  Then a little later, a man will say the same thing.  Excellent idea, Bob!  You’re promoted!  Here’s a raise!

Lucinda Vandervort (“Mistake of Law and Sexual Assault: Consent and Mens Rea” in Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 2 ,1987-1988) presents a hypothetical sexual assault trial in which the defendant maintains that all of the woman’s neutral as well as non-cooperative behaviour really indicates consent.  The hypothetical defendant may have been honestly mistaken in his belief that the woman consented (which is accepted as a defence in Vandervort’s hypothetical).  But given the woman’s behaviour (she said no, she did not say yes, she did not co-operate), surely he was being unreasonable, not to mention arrogant, selfish, immature, or just incredibly stupid – to believe as he did.

And in fact, a standard of reasonable is used: “When an accused alleges that he believed that the complainant consented to the conduct that is the subject-matter of the charge, a judge, if satisfied that there is sufficient evidence and that, if believed by the jury, the evidence would constitute a defence, shall instruct the jury, when reviewing all the evidence relating to the determination of the honesty of the accused’s belief, to consider the presence or absence of reasonable grounds for that belief”  (Criminal Code s.244(4), my emphasis).

But Vandervort says that a case such as her hypothetical would probably be screened out as unfounded by the police or rejected for prosecution by the Crown on the grounds that the mistaken belief in consent was not “sufficiently unreasonable” – that is, the defendant’s belief is deemed not only honest, it’s considered reasonable enough.  What?  What planet do you guys live on?  Oh. Um, this one.

On a non-patriarchal planet, the man’s belief in consent, despite what the woman said (“I have to leave”, “Stop”) and did (she struggled, she pushed him away), as well as what she didn’t say (“I want to” “Yes”) and didn’t do (undress), would surely be considered unreasonable.  And delusional.  At the very least, ‘willfully blind’ (and thus unacceptable as a defence).

Further, Vandervort states that in sexual assault cases “the reasonable person standard … focuses on the type and degree of violence used by the assailant and compares it with that used in normal sexual encounters of a similar nature” and notes, somewhat dryly, that “normal sex appears to include some quite extra-ordinary forms of interaction, some of which are quite violent.”  Indeed, according to Lorenne Clark and Debra Lewis (Rape: The Price of Coercive Sexuality, The Women’s Press, 1977), most men (against whom rape complaints were laid with the Metropolitan Toronto Police Department in 1970) consider violent behaviour to be normal for a sexual encounter.  I wonder how many women would agree.  (Though perhaps ‘preferred’ should be substituted for ‘normal’: it could be that a similar finding – that is, that most women also consider violent behaviour to be normal for a sexual encounter – merely reflects the reality of sex because it usually involves a man.)

Even so, one has to wonder just who’s being consulted about what’s normal?  Consider Robin Weiner’s comments: “What is ‘normal’ according to male social norms and ‘reasonable’ according to male communication patterns and expectations does not accord with what women believe to be reasonable…. A woman may believe she has communicated her unwillingness to have sex – and other women would agree, thus making it a ‘reasonable’ female expression.  Her male partner might still believe she is willing – and other men would agree with his interpretation, thus making it a ‘reasonable’ male interpretation….  The use of a reasonable person standard thus has a basic flaw.  Courts do not clarify the perspective from which the ‘reasonableness’ standard should be applied” (“Shifting the Communication Burden: A Meaningful Consent Standard in Rape” in Harvard Women’s Law Journal 6, 1983).  And anyway why isn’t what’s acceptable used instead?  Just because everyone does it that way (it’s normal) doesn’t mean it’s right!

Look, guys, we take you seriously.  We can’t help but do so.  Your repertoire of facial expressions, your body language, and your attire are limited to ‘serious’ and ‘more serious’.   And when we don’t take you seriously, when we laugh at you, for example, you get really mad.

So, please, show a little respect.  Acknowledge that we too have brains.  That we know what we want and what we don’t want.  That we can express ourselves accurately.  Take us seriously.  Or don’t take us at all.

Ethics without Philosophers

Could someone without a business degree become a marketing consultant?  Then how is it that people without philosophy degrees are becoming ethics consultants? [1]  Is it that people don’t know that Ethics is a branch of Philosophy just as Marketing is a branch of Business?  Doubtful.  Is it just the typical male overstatement of one’s expertise? [2]  Perhaps.  Is it that people think they already know right from wrong, they learned it as children, there’s really no need for any formal training in ethics?  Possible.  I have certainly met that attitude in business ethics classes and ethics committees. [3]  Or is it that ethics consultants (advisors, officers, practitioners, and so on) don’t really act as consultants about ethics?  They act as consultants about managing ethical behavior.  No, not even that.  Ethical consultants, practitioners, officers, focus on how to increase the likelihood that employees will follow some specific professional code of ethics or, more likely, the ethical rules the company’s elite want them to follow. [4] [5]

As far as I can see, business ethics taught by business faculty, ethics programs run by managers, and so on  –  any applied ethics taught by non-philosophers  –  is superficial at best.  [6] First, following a code if just an appeal to custom, an appeal to tradition, which philosophers consider a weak basis, even an actual error in reasoning: just because it’s common to do it that way, doesn’t mean it’s right; just because you’ve always done it that way doesn’t mean it’s right. 

Second, legal moralism is prevalent: if it’s legal, it’s right, and if it’s not illegal, it’s not wrong.  Few philosophers (and I daresay few intelligent people) accept this equivalence of moral rightness and legality.  After all, slavery was once legal, and even at that time many considered it wrong and had excellent arguments to support their position (which is, to some extent, why the law changed  –  ethics should determine law, not the other way around).

Third, the so-called ‘media test’ and ‘gut test’ are essentially nothing but appeals to intuition, which is nothing more than childhood conditioning that makes us say X ‘feels’ wrong.  I think it far better to approach ethical issues with thought, to consider the many rational approaches to making decisions about right and wrong, such as an appraisal of values, principles, consequences, and so on.

 A second weakness of ethics as done by non-philosophers is that what takes place is usually preaching not teaching.  That is, course material consists of ‘This is the right thing’ and ‘Do this in this situation’  –  professors simply convey the current conventions and standard practices and legal obligations.  The underlying principles and values are unexamined, and likely to be inadequate or contradictory in any case. 

The human resources director or management executive is simply not equipped to examine the principles and values enshrined in the code she or he advocates [7], nor to approach an ethical issue with any rigor (for example, to figure out whether affirmative action programs are really fair, to determine if a proposed advertising campaign is really coercive, or to decide if anticipated environmental destruction is ethically justifiable), let alone teach various ways of making decisions about right and wrong.

Philosophers are.  Not only are they equipped to approach ethical issues with rigor, they look at the principles and values involved in such approaches; they would consider whether one should conform to the codes that are so taken for granted by those in business, whether those codes are at all adequate.  A philosopher’s focus is thus more fundamental.  And therefore prerequisite.  That’s why the business ethics done by non-philosophers is so alarming: it’s building a house without a foundation – or, rather, convincing people to live in the house, without examining the foundation.

A very rudimentary version of a philosopher’s “methodology for ethical decision-making” would be something like this: 

1. Identify the ethical issue, the question to be answered.

2. Identify the relevant facts, consulting all involved.

3. (a) Identify the relevant moral principles and values.

    (b)  Rank them.

4. (a) List all the decision options.

    (b) Identify the consequences for each option.

5.  Align the options with the values and principles  –  which are upheld, which are violated?

6.  Decide what’s the ‘rightest’ thing to do.

7.  Repeat the process for deciding about the ‘rightest’ way of doing it.

 I present below notes that I made for analyses of ethical problems presented while I served on the ethics committee of a local hospital in order to show what a philosophically trained person can do.

I.  A Nephrology Questionnaire was presented to the committee by Dr. X for approval.

The basic question underlying the questionnaire is this: Who gets dialysis?

This question can be framed as

(1) a futile treatment question 

(2) as an allocation of resources question

The first has already been discussed, the main issues being the definition of ‘futile’ and whether we have a moral obligation to provide futile treatment.

With regard to the second, decisions can be made according to the following three criteria:

(i) medical value in prolonging life, alleviating pain, and/or enhancing life  –  key questions are ‘How much value?’ and ‘How likely is the value to be achieved?’ and the central conflict would be between the ‘best outcome’ approach (an end point approach) and the ‘most in need’ approach (a beginning point approach)

(ii) self worth  –   the key question here is ‘Does the person have a high or low quality of life?’ (and is a subjective standard or an objective standard used to determine this?)

(iii) social worth – the key question here is ‘Does the person contribute to or cost society?’ (this would include consideration of emotional and/or economic dependents)

These three criteria can be used

- simultaneously (consider all three at the same time)

- serially (if, and only if, the first criterion is met – that is, the dialysis    does have medical value – is the next criterion considered)

These three criteria can be given equal or different weight.

One can judge 

- according to consequences (in which case the ‘best outcome’ might weigh heavily, but one would have to ask outcome for who – the patient only, or for the family, or for society as a whole)

- according to rights (do all have equal rights to the treatment, in which case we toss a coin or consider ‘first come, first served’)

- according to justice (are some more deserving than others?)

One can also, of course, combine these approaches: for example, a person might by lifestyle forfeit their rights and so another might be more deserving.

 This is how non-philosophically trained people (the others on the ethics committee) would’ve responded: ‘I think the questionnaire’s okay’ or ‘I think it’s too long.’  See the difference?

II.  Dr. Y was faced with a request by a mother to employ aggressive management for her newborn son whose longevity is limited (following a premature birth and surgery for a severe fetal anomaly). 

I identified six ethical issues involved the decision faced by Dr. Y:

(1) the conflict between physician and patient/proxy issue:

- the physician can override patient/proxy requests in some circumstances, one of which is a request for futile treatment, another of which is a request for harmful treatment unbalanced by benefit; this may be especially defensible if the proxy has already made an ethically questionable decision (in this case, the decision to carry to term with full knowledge of the defect)

objection: patient/proxy requests must always be fulfilled

response: this position simply seems indefensible                                            

(2) the futile treatment issue:

(i) the “aggressive practices” requested fall into the category of ‘futile treatment’ (they won’t cure the condition)

(ii) the “aggressive practices” won’t prolong life – and if they do, such life is of ‘insufficient’ quality (must define ‘insufficient’, perhaps by reference to mental abilities, physical abilities, and presence of pain) and/or the prolonging is too short-term to be worthwhile (must define ‘worthwhile’, perhaps as above)

(iii) the “aggressive practices” won’t alleviate pain

objection: treatment would alleviate the parents’ pain

response: this would be using the baby as a means to others’ end; such   alleviation doesn’t override lack of  benefit to the baby; such alleviation doesn’t override harm to the baby

objection: life should be maintained at all costs in all cases

response: this position is indefensible                                               

(3) the harmful treatment issue:

- the “aggressive practices” requested fall into the category of harmful treatment unbalanced by benefit because there is physical trauma involved and/or because there is no resulting recovery, minimal prolonging (quality and quantity), and/or minimal alleviation of pain

(4) the DNR issue:

- the physician should (a) make a DNR order (b) against the proxy’s wishes

- re (a), arguments re futile treatment apply

- re (b), arguments re conflict apply

- also, proxies don’t have medical expertise

- also, proxies are biased by love/emotion

objection: the parents bear the consequences the most

(5) the euthanasia issue:

- the physician should (a) provide euthanasia (b) against the proxy’s wishes

- re (a) and (b), if the patient is in pain, especially/but only (?) serious pain, which is resistant to alleviation and/or there is no hope of recovering to a certain quality of life ( must define ‘certain’ perhaps as above with ‘insufficient’)

- re (b), if the proxy’s wishes are clearly not in the patient’s best interests (in this case, we can’t use the ‘patient’s previously expressed wishes’ standard, nor the ‘patient’s would’ve expressed wishes’ standard)

objection: life should be maintained at all costs in all cases

response:  this position seems indefensible

objection:  passive, but not active, euthanasia is acceptable

response:  there is no difference if the motive, intention, and consequence are the same

objection: euthanasia is illegal in Canada

response:  ethics overrides legalities

(6) the allocation of resources issue:

- probably doesn’t apply in this case, but if it does, it seems merely to strengthen most of the preceding arguments (rather than add any)

Recommended reading:

“Defective Newborns” Michael D. Bayles

“Selective Nontreatment of Handicapped Newborns” Robert F. Weir

This is how the non-philosophically trained people on the committee would’ve responded: I think you should do what the mother has asked you to do, after all, she’s the mother; I think you should do whatever is in the baby’s best interest.  Again, see the difference?  These responses are no different than, no better than, what the physicians would’ve gotten in the lunch room.  Which is why they brought the matters to the ethics committee!

To see similar differences in business, one need only compare business ethics articles with papers written by philosophers.  The philosophers will deal, in depth, with any one of a number of difficult issues; for example, if the issue is advertising, she or he might investigate the various kinds and degrees of influence and deception; the rights of persons to be free from intrusions in their physical, sonic, and visual space;  the difference between private and public space; the special rights of children given their undeveloped cognition; the relevance of what’s advertised and how it’s advertised; and so on.  The managers will present a checklist for making sure their marketing campaigns don’t break any laws.  The former will contain arguments, the latter mere assertions. 

How has this terrible misunderstanding, this doing ethics without philosophers, come about?  Perhaps the problem lies with the term ‘applied ethics’.  Business people take it to mean applying ethical codes, setting up policies and procedures that conform to – well, there’s the problem: that conform to which ethics?  (And perhaps only a philosopher would ask this question.)

Perhaps the problem is that philosophers have understood ‘applied ethics’ to mean applying ethical analyses – identifying and examining the ethical issues in business.  Because ‘ethics’ doesn’t mean ‘moral rules’; ‘ethics’ means ‘the study of moral rules’.  This is a common misunderstanding.  A term with a very specific meaning among specialists has been adopted and used erroneously in the general population.[8]

But I can’t help wondering if it hasn’t just been a case of blatant appropriation. Business has hijacked ethics as a marketing tool, just as it did with environmentalism, and turned it into something superficial and useless. Managers aren’t really not interested in the substantial, fundamental matters.  They just want a new way to attract customers and clients and so increase profits.  Indeed the blurb for an ethics seminar titled “Integrity Wins”, offered by and for ethics practitioners, not philosophers, described its purpose as “explor[ing] how ethical issues … can affect the legal status, revenue generation, and perceived trustworthiness of your organization.”  A subscription form for The Corporate Ethics Monitor says this:

 “Successful executives, investor relations professionals, and independent corporate directors understand that business ethics is not a fad.  They know why companies are beefing up their ethical management, training and compliance programs.  They understand that high-profile misconduct can cause serious repercussions for a company – including alienation of customers, suppliers, employees, investors and business partners.  Therefore, quite apart from a desire to avoid fines and other financial penalties resulting from ethical problems, an effort to identify potential points of ethical weakness can pay off in higher morale and productivity, an enhanced reputation, and a healthier bottom line.”

Nothing is said about doing the right thing because it’s the right thing! 

However, I don’t want to put the blame solely on business.  If philosophy faculty didn’t have such disdain for business, and if they took a little responsibility for their discipline, there would be more preparation for philosophy majors to be ethics practitioners.  Philosophy departments should advise their students of careers as ethics officers and consultants; they should encourage their students to, therefore, take courses in business (if they want to become a business ethics officer) or science (if they want to become ethics consultants in bioethics or environmental ethics), because without a background in business or science, philosophers won’t know which questions to ask, what difficulties to anticipate (for example, ethical belief in intercultural business is a real thorny issue – philosophy students will have to grapple with moral relativism in a big way…).  Philosophy departments could even arrange to have their applied ethics courses team-taught; this would require business, similarly, to dampen their disdain for philosophy.          

[1] I have only anecdotal information here.  I did send a three-item questionnaire to survey the Ethics Officer Association (U.S.), the Ethics Practitioners Association of Canada, and the Canadian Center for Ethics and Corporate Policy.  In the first case, I was informed they have no way to track the education status of their members as that was not one of the questions asked on their membership application, and apparently they were not interested in sending my three questions to their members; in the second case, again, I don’t think my questions got passed on; in the third case, my questions did get passed onto the Board of Directors, but no further, and I received three replies  –  one person had a B.A. in Science and an M.B.A., another indicated that he was a Chartered Accountant, and the third had a B.A. and an LL.B. with no particular training in ethics.   

[2] Most ethics consultants are men, I believe.

[3] Though, of course, childhood ethics doesn’t tell you who gets the kidney and at what price.

[4] Since “developing methodologies to inform decision-making” (a common part of the job description) surely refers to making decisions that accord with the company code  –  because methodologies for making ethical decisions already exist: are ethics practitioners intending to reinvent or surpass Aristotle, Kant, Mill, McIntyre, and the many, many others who have developed ways to determine what is right?

[5] And yet even at this rudimentary level, they fail.  Perhaps the biggest obstacles to ethical behavior are bonuses for behavior that increase profit.  Dangling such a carrot in front of someone for doing the profitable thing makes it harder, not easier, to do the right thing.  High salaries, which will be lost if one loses one’s job, which will happen if one doesn’t increase profit, is another way exactly not to “encourage compliance”.  So of course if a company were really serious about their ethics, they’d give bonuses for doing the right thing, whether or not profit is increased or decreased. 

[6] Of all the conferences I’ve attended, only for the ethics practitioner one was I told what to wear.  Philosophers don’t care; they understand it’s not important. 

[7] Consequently, ethical codes remained unexamined and, therefore, more often than not, useless.  Partly, this is because there is no definition: what exactly is professionalism, for instance?  Excellence?  Integrity?  The latter, so often listed as value in codes of ethics, is nothing more than non-hypocrisy: having integrity means that if you think X is right, you should do X.  It doesn’t indicate what is right in the same way that, for example, ‘honesty’ or ‘beneficence’ does.  Examination reveals that ‘transparency’ and ‘accountability’ are similar to integrity.  I’ve even seen ‘objective’ listed in a code of ethics – again, qualified attention to definition would reveal that objective isn’t a moral value.

And partly this is because of internal conflict and lack of prioritization.  For example, one code I looked at says employees “shall act in a manner that is in the best interests of their clients and employer consistent with the public interest.”  That one item alone is fraught with internal conflicts.  It doesn’t take a genius to imagine an instance in which the best interests of the client collide with the best interests of the employer, let alone the public interest.  When they collide, when, for example, honesty conflicts with loyalty, or providing the highest quality of service conflicts with providing the highest return to shareholders, which one is to take precedence?  The code doesn’t say. I’ve seen no code of ethics provide a means of ranking values, a means of resolving such conflicts.

[8] The term ‘philosophy’ is itself is another example: to philosophers, it means something like ‘the critical examination of fundamental concepts’, but to the general population it means simply ‘a certain view of or attitude toward life”. 

 

Dr. Frankenstein, meet Dr. Spock

Thanks to genetic research, we may soon see people with the money to do so making sure their kids are born-to-succeed – parents paying to guarantee their kids have the right stuff.  I’m not talking about a straightened spine or a functional optic nerve.  I’m talking about designer kids: those made with healthy bodies, intelligent minds, and perhaps a certain specific ability to boot.

First, success isn’t happiness.  Let’s be clear about that at the start.

Second, having intelligence or ability is not nearly as important as knowing what to do with it.  So success isn’t necessarily goodness either.

Third, this ain’t a meritocracy.  Sure, there are certain attributes that are favoured, but as far as I can tell, intelligence and ability aren’t among them.  Sex is.  Colour is.  And a certain freedom from physical abnormality.  And yes, tall men, especially those with deep voices, get more respect than short ones who squeak.  But at best, these are necessary attributes.  They are certainly not sufficient attributes.

Success more often depends on being in the right place at the right time.  Have we found the good luck gene yet?  Success also depends on who you know.  The schmooze gene?  And who you know often depends on how much money you have.  In which case, the kids of people rich enough to design them don’t need to be designed. 

The thing is this: only to the extent that our genes control us should we get excited about controlling them.  Those advocating, and fearing, genetic engineering for its designer kids application seem to be forgetting that we are products of both nature and nurture.  There are many whose natural intelligence remained undeveloped for lack of encouragement or crippled because of excess criticism.  There are many with great bodies who were not even allowed to try out for the team.  How many Beethovens have we lost because a kid with musical ability was introduced to practice as punishment?  How many recess geniuses were never told on career day about life as a diplomat?

True, if everyone’s going to be creating tall, smart, white men, then we will experience loss of diversity – which is the kiss of death for any species.  But we’re way past kisses.  As a species, we’ve been fucked for a long time. 

To judge by what comes out of our education system, as well as (listen to any grade one teacher) what goes into it, we don’t have the nurture bit under control.  At all.  So why jump up and down about controlling the nature part? 

Ah – because we don’t have the nurture bit under control.

People Skills

I’ve always been rather proud of not having any ‘people skills’.  Of not being able to ‘talk to people’, smooth things over, talk them out of their way of seeing things, talk them over to my way, persuade, influence, manipulate, control.  No wonder supervisors, salespeople, and customer relations people need good people skills.  And no wonder I resent them: I’ve always been the subordinate, the consumer, the customer – I’m the one the people skills are used on.

Of course, subordinates are expected to have good people skills too, but what’s meant then is the ability to get along, follow, fold, obey.  And, well, as I said, I’m not very good at that.

But no, no, I’m told, you’ve got it all wrong.  People skills are communication skills.  Hm.  And what might skilful communication be?  Putting your message in words the other person will most likely understand, instead of in words that most easily come to mind?  That’s okay.  That’s just courtesy.  But choosing your language, your vocabulary and sentence structure, to increase the likelihood not of understanding, but of agreement – that’s manipulation.  (And if you abandon the meaning in order to get that agreement, that’s just plain lying.)

There’s a difference in intent.  And loading your language shows that you don’t respect the other person’s rationality.   (Nor do you respect your own – if your reasons were good, you wouldn’t have to resort to manipulation.)  Such wilful discouragement of dissent also slows little respect for their autonomy.  (What exactly are you afraid of?).

But no, again, it seems I’ve got it wrong: communication skills just refer to the ability to listen to what the other person is saying, and the ability to express yourself clearly.  Still thinking about control, and insecurity, it occurs to me that men must’ve introduced the term.  Because women grow up with those people skills.  It’s such a no big deal, we don’t have to name it.  And if we did, we’d call it maturity, and self-knowledge.

Marriage: A Sexist Affair

Marriage, by its very (traditional) definition, is a sexist affair: it involves one of each sex, one male and one female.  And I suppose this is because, traditionally, the purpose of marriage was family: to start a family, to have and raise children.

This view is fraught with questionable assumptions, glaring inconsistencies, and blatant errors.  I’ll give one of each: the connection between having and raising children is not at all necessary, hence the ‘one male and one female’ is not at all necessary; if the purpose of marriage is to have a family, why do couples who do not intend to have children nevertheless marry – and why don’t couples routinely divorce once the children are raised; the marriage contract goes well beyond family concerns – indeed, it barely approaches family concerns – one pledges to love and honour one’s spouse, not one’s children.

Notwithstanding the very mistaken connection between marriage and family, I’d like to suggest another reason for the sexism in marriage.  Assuming that marriage entails love, and love entails ‘looking after’, sexism makes things ‘easier’.

Consider this: needing to be looked after suggests one is a child or perhaps an invalid; if both people are looking after each other, well, how can a child look after – another child?  (Makes marriages rather like the blind leading the blind.)  (Not an entirely unapt analogy.)  There has to be a difference, some sort of distinction.  The distinction is, surprise, sex: the husband is the father, he looks after his wife with respect to the male domain – he fixes things for her, he tells her stuff, he makes the money; the wife is the mother, she looks after her husband with respect to the female domain – she feeds him, clothes him, reminds him. 

 This sexist division also avoids a second problem: without it, they’d each feel, as indeed they are, treated like a child.  How does a wife feel when her husband lets her know what colours go together?  How does a husband feel when his wife changes the spark plugs?  Inadequate, insulted, put down.  No doubt responding with an eight-year-old’s “I know that!” or “I can do it!”  The sexist division of labour justifies ignorance and incompetence within a certain domain; it therefore allows people to remain children, without embarrassment, within a certain domain.  And this enables the other to take care of them, in that domain, without offense.  (I suspect, therefore, the more whole a person is, the less feminine or masculine, the worse they fare in a marriage.  And if women tend to be more whole than men, well, that would explain why men need marriage more than women do – I’m thinking of happiness/suicide studies – aren’t unmarried men the worst off?)

Now of course I wonder how same sex couples look after each other.  Do they all negotiate some sort of butch/femme split?  Or – and wouldn’t this be simpler, wouldn’t it be healthier – does their concept of love between adults not entail, not require, such nurture? 

In Commemoration of the Holocaust

I’m not saying it didn’t happen.

I’m not saying that, in any way, it was okay.

But I’d like to point out that a devout Jew would’ve done, would do, the same thing to the Germans – if God told him to.

‘Oh but God would never command such a thing.’

Take a better look at your Bible:

- “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” – Exodus 22:8.  (Eight million innocent people were put to death because of this command alone – but do read on.)

- “…Seven nations greater and mightier than thou; and when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them…” – Deuteronomy 7:1-2.  (This meant genocide for seven nations: the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites – Deuteronomy 7:1.)

- “So Joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings: he left none remaining but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded” – Joshua 10:40.  (This included Makkedah, Libnah, Lachish, Gezer, Eglon, Hebron, and Debir – in each of these cities he “utterly destroyed all the souls that were therein; he left none remaining…as the Lord God of Israel commanded” – Joshua 10:28-40.)

- “And he [Moses] said unto them, ‘Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, “Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man, his companion, and every man his neighbour.”‘  And the children of Levi did…and there fell of the people that day about 3,000 men…” – Exodus 32:27-29.

- “Samuel also said unto Saul… ‘Thus saith the Lord of hosts… Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling….’ And Saul smote the Amalekites…and utterly destroyed all the people…” – 1 Samuel 15:1-3,7-8.

-  “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, ‘Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites….’  And they warred against the Midianites as the Lord commanded Moses; and they slew all the males” – Numbers 31:1-2, 7.

-  “And the Lord God said unto Joshua…he [Achan] that is taken with the accursed thing [he stole something] shall be burnt with fire….  And Joshua…took Achan…and his sons, and his daughters…and burned them with fire…” – Joshua 7:10, 15, 24-26.  (This one in particular reminded me of the gas ovens.  Can you spell ‘ironic’?)

- “And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him [Samson], and he went down to Ashkelon, and slew thirty men…” – Judges 14:19.

- “And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him [mightily this time]…and he…slew a thousand men…” – Judges 15:14,15.

Need I go on?  Religions are full of commands to kill, and the Jewish one is no different.  In particular, ethnic cleansing (such as that of the Holocaust) has strong religious support.  And, of course, the faithful are compelled to obey their God’s commandments.  So if God had said, were to say, “Go ye and slay all who hath been born of the land that is Germany,” well, “Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones” – Psalms 137:9.

Food Fight Breaks Out in the House of Commons

Have you watched the House of Commons proceedings lately? It’s unbelievable. I haven’t seen such petty bickering, name-calling, and tongue-sticking-outting since Dicky called Peter a wuss at recess back in grade two. Then Johnny, who was on Dicky’s side, started throwing clumps of dirt at Dougie, who was on Peter’s side, and a bunch of other boys started yelling and kicking and when the teacher came out, they all accused each other, pointing fingers, ‘He started it!’ ‘No I didn’t, he did!’ ‘Oh yeah?’ ‘Yeah!’ and it started all over again.

But they weren’t grown ups, wearing suits-and-ties and saying “Mr. Speaker, I humbly submit…” And they weren’t being paid to run the fucking country.

It’s hard to believe they can be so immature. So instead I believe it’s all a charade. To further convince us that there’s simply no point in voting, let alone calling our MP or lobbying for this or that, no hope in hell of any participation in the process making any difference at all. That way the corporate agenda can proceed, with nothing whatsoever in its way.